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c64cqm
|
what are shepherd tones ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c64cqm/eli5_what_are_shepherd_tones/
|
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"Shepard tone: sound loop made by a series of multiple sine waves rising one after another, eventually one of them reaches a point where it drops an octave, leaving the others to continue rising, they then follow the same pattern (drop an octave, rise again), creating the illusion of a never ending pitch increase. Pretty neat trick."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2cr60g
|
what sort of "rocket" was f. scott key referring to in the star-spangled banner?
|
You know in the song where it reads "the rocket's red glare"? What sort of rockets did we have back then?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cr60g/eli5_what_sort_of_rocket_was_f_scott_key/
|
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"Rockets are low-tech - we know of them as early as the 1200s. It's not really that hard to make a workable rocket once you have black powder, and putting an explosive on the front is a no-brainer once you get the idea that it would be nice to blow people up at long range.",
"[Congreve Rockets](_URL_0_) named for their inventor. They look similar to a modern bottle rocket (except much bigger). ",
"The Congreve Rocket.\n\nIt was a weapon that was based off of a firework. They were black powder encased in a cast iron shell with a wooden pole to guide it that served as a type of artillery that didn't require a cannon.\n\nThey were used by the British against the USA in the War of 1812 and terrified American Soldiers.\n\n > And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,\nGave proof through the night that our flag was still there;\n\nWas written by Key who was a prisoner aboard a British ship during siege of Fort McHenry, who saw the battle via the explosions of the rockets, and therefore saw the flag atop the fort."
]
}
|
[] |
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[
[],
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4qdvle
|
why is it so rare for a baseball player to get hit with the ball once the batter makes contact?
|
Baseball "pitcher"
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qdvle/eli5_why_is_it_so_rare_for_a_baseball_player_to/
|
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"For the same reason why it's rare for a professional tennis player to get hit by the ball while playing....as professionals, they're more likely to catch/hit the ball than get hit by it. \n\nas pros, they *are* the best of the best, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to see them have amazing reaction times and coordination while playing.",
"1) Out of all of the possible paths a ball can take, not very many of them will go at the pitcher.\n\n2) Any hit will be right after a pitch, so there will never be a situation in which the pitcher is not ready to react to a hit ball.\n\nWhen you combine these two things, its reasonably rare for a pitcher to get hit, though it does happen sometimes."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
4tfz3a
|
how does warping of space-time explain gravity holding us to the earth?
|
Whenever I see Einsteins explanation of gravity, they always show the sun with a warped image of space-time and explain how the Earth is really just rolling around this distortion in space-time, and that's what gravity is!
Great. That explains gravity on a macro, planetary level, but how does this bending of space-time explain how gravity pulls US to the ground? I can't picture how the bending of space-time pulls us down.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tfz3a/eli5how_does_warping_of_spacetime_explain_gravity/
|
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"The exact same way. We fall into the spacetime \"divot\" that is formed by the Earth. \n\nThink of it like this: _URL_0_\n\nEven though remember it pulls towards the center of the Earth, not beneath it, but our understanding of dimensions makes it very difficult to make a visual aid for that.",
"Just as the Sun puts a \"dent\" in the flat sheet in the popular analogy, so too does *anything* with mass. The Earth has a pretty big mass, so it puts a \"dent in the sheet\" as well and all smaller things will fall towards its center. We are falling towards the center of mass of the Earth, but it just so happens the *ground* is strong enough to provide the counter force to stop us from sinking into the surface. The ground pushes back from our downward motion. We experience our downward motion, stopped by the Earth, as our 'weight'.\n\n If you're above the ground, say climbing a tree, the tree itself - and the ground below it are \"pushing back\" on your eternal \"fall\" towards the center of mass of the Earth, if you fall out of the tree, there's no longer anything pushing back so down you go until you meet something else that pushes back - like the ground.\n\n",
"Think of it this way; gravity doesn't *pull* you down, but rather gravity bends space, and that space *pushes* you down, towards the local center of gravity (in our case, the Earth's center). Gravity bends space such that space encourages you to travel towards the center of mass that is creating the gravity. You can still fight against gravity and travel \"uphill\" (for lack of a better word), but it takes energy.",
"Okay the answer is that space-time is nothing like that at all. Space-time is a 4 dimensional Lorentzian manifold. Now a manifold is a structure, its a shape, its a thing in differential geometry, and the local neighborhood of every point is like euclidean space as you imagine it 3 dimensions and time. The manifold is a generalization of the idea that you're on the surface of a sphere right now, and yet it seems locally like its flat, people didn't always know the world was round. But if you're moving fast enough, you'll notice the earth is round, at a certain point you'd be in orbit, at some point you'd be going exactly as fast as the earth is round. There's a relation between how big or small the radius of the earth is, how large its curvature, to how fast you go to notice that its curved. \n\nSo space-time as a 4 dimensional manifold has a similar thing going on. Locally at every point, it just looks like time and space as we think of it, but if it is tightly curved compared to how much space-time \"distance\" you travel, then you notice its curvature. \n\nEssentially what happens is that the amount of mass, which is equivalent to an amount of energy, within a region of space-time causes it to curve more. And just like how the shortest distance on the surface of the earth, on the surface of any sphere, isn't actually a straight line, the \"straight lines\" through space-time, are different. And in fact, in general relativity you don't view gravity as a force, its not something pushing on you, its just the appearance of something pushing on you because the curvature of the manifold is showing through, but you're really still following a weird math equivalent of a straight line. \n\nSo its really hard to fully explain, but the pictures you see are just ways of trying to convey a complicated mathematical underpinning, they're not really conceptually valid, they're just sort of the best approximation you can get. "
]
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[
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/GPB_circling_earth.jpg"
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|
28cqld
|
what are the main causes for a building/place to be abandoned ? after that, can someone claim ownership of the land ?
|
A lot of reality shows on TV use abandoned building as their test/shooting/experiment site. So I wonder if they have the ownership of the building.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28cqld/eli5what_are_the_main_causes_for_a_buildingplace/
|
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" Even if it's abandoned it still has ownership plus there are sanitation and safety laws.",
"Every building/property is owned, either by the owner, or by the city/county/state when the owner fails to stay current on his or her property taxes.\n\nProperty owned by an individual can be tracked through the records at city hall / the county seat, and you can buy the property from the owner (often with the agreement to pay the outstanding taxes).\n\nProperty that's reverted to the local government for nonpayment of taxes is generally auctioned off, and usually can be bought free of outstanding taxes. (Some less savory property owners have paid off their tax bills buy letting their property be reclaimed and then buying it back at auction.)\n\nIf you'd rather just take possession by squatting, you can engage in a behavior known as [adverse possession](_URL_0_), but there are specific requirements and you have to occupy the property for a period of years, which makes this more of an interesting aside in law school than an actual technique for getting property.\n\nTV shows and movies generally use location scouts to find properties for them, which they can then rent for a daily / monthly / annual fee, which saves the hassle of purchasing / disposing of the property. Often these buildings are not actually abandoned, but in the process of being torn down and replaced, but since the legal approvals / permits for new construction can take months or years to happen, it's a good way to generate a little income in the meantime."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
20yqy4
|
why was nixon forced to resign after spying on his political opponents, but obama has faced no repercussions for spying on the american public?
|
I'm not trying to force any political views here - I am actually wondering why these situations differ.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20yqy4/eli5_why_was_nixon_forced_to_resign_after_spying/
|
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"Nixon spied for personal political gain. The NSA is spying on the people, for the people, according to their logic.",
"Because **Obama** isn't doing it personally. The NSA, **whose powers were expanded using laws under the Bush Administration** , is spying on people.\n\nObama is not the US government, he is one part of a larger system.\n\nEdit: Corrected my history",
"Nixon was pressured to resign not forced",
"1) What the NSA is doing was not done by Obama personally, and was not started by any of Obama's directives. The NSA has been at work since the 50s and their expanded power that had them doing what they are currently in the news for were project started by Bush 2 not Obama.\n\n2) Nixon spied for political gain, then lied about it. He like Clinton mostly got in trouble legally for lying about it. \n\n3) And Nixon was not forced to resign. He chose to resign rather than to be impeached. There was political pressure for him to do so, but he was not required to do so. ",
"Nixon didn't resign because he spied. He resigned because he and others lied to Congress under oath. It's the coverup that always gets them in the end. ",
"Nixon resigned because of mounting political and public pressure. Not because he was forced.",
"I can't believe it hasn't been brought up here yet:\n\nWhat Nixon did was illegal. He ordered people to break into a locked building and steal documents, then he lied about it under oath. \n\nObama's spying program is totally legal under the PATRIOT act and several other laws and ruling produced in secret courts and congressional sessions. "
]
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36fvsb
|
what are the main differences between the 3 abrahamic religions?
|
Guys please don't start a religious flame war in the comments, i'm just curious about religion okay?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36fvsb/eli5_what_are_the_main_differences_between_the_3/
|
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"The big three, trying to take each from their own perspective:\n\n**Judaism** - God---creator of the universe---chooses the Hebrews to be God's servants, living under rules God has specially created for holiness. These rules---and the history of the Hebrews---are contained in the Torah. The religion serves as the backbone of an ethno-religious community, and gives instruction on how to live a holy life according to God's rules. \n\n**Christianity** - The Hebrew God comes to earth in the form of Jesus Christ. He arrives and sacrifices himself as a way to absolve humanity of its sins. In addition to adding significant teachings from Jesus and his followers to the existing Jewish scriptures, codified in the New Testament, the focus of the religion shifts from one ethnicity to all ethnicities, and from how to be holy to how to be saved. \n\n**Islam** - God selects Mohammed to be the final prophet. Gabriel shares with Mohammed the Koran, the true and eternal word of God, which the Jews and Christians have not quite grasped. The former having focused too much on the rules, and the latter having strayed too far from the rules. The Koran, and the Hadith---a much larger work collecting the behavior and history of Mohammed and his immediate followers---provide Muslims with a way to submit to God's will in every day life, the focus of the religion falling somewhere between holiness and salvation. \n\nEDIT: after /u/C-O-N wanted to do a quick thing on differences in Messiahs. The Jews expect a Messiah, believe that the Messiah will establish heaven on earth, and has not yet arrived. The Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and that his sacrifice represented the defeat of death, and that he will again return to establish heaven on earth. The Muslims (so far as I know) believe that Jesus was a great prophet, and will return at the end of days along with others to usher in heaven on earth, but do not see Jesus or Mohammed as \"Messiahs\" in the Old Testament sense of the word, but rather as great messengers. ",
"Finally!! Someone taking an interest in Religion. I am actually an atheist but take a deep interest in religion. The difference is actually very small, contrary to common belief. You can basically look at it as updates in the monotheistic (or belief in one God) ideology. The way I look at is Judaism is Religion 1.0, Christianity is Religion 2.0, and Islam is Religion 3.0. Christians believes everything the Jews do as well and their extended tale (the New Testament). And Muslims (or people who follow Islam) believe in everything the Jews and Christians do as well as their extended tale (The Qur'an). The first person to even have the idea of a monotheist God was Abraham, Father of the Jews. He built his own foundations in a Temple called the Second Temple and laid out his teachings in the God inspired book The Torah in 535 BCE. This book is what all three of these religions follow (hence Abrahamic religions). These religions are the three biggest and most influential monotheistic religions known and it all started with Abraham. Jews believe in the Torah and that is it. If you are a christian or a Muslim and you say you never heard of The Torah, you most certainly read it. It is in your religions as well but its called The Old Testament. So then what separates Jews and Christians? The New Testament. It is not that Jews not believe in Jesus, because there were Jewish witnesses of Jesus recorded. It is just that they do not recognize that he is their savior. Many believed he lived, but spread lies and was another False Prophet. They recognize that he was crucified and put to rest in that cave thing, but Jews do not believe in his rising or (Easter). I used to be Jewish and raised in such a household and Jesus' teachings or (the new testament) were never spoken of. Christians first emerged when a select group of people went along with the Jesus rising deal. That is when the fist Christian was recognized. Remember, Jesus was a Jew, there were no Christians before he rose again. The prophet that claimed he was Jesus rising again made a major separation in Judaism. The Jews who believed him became Christians (such as the 12 disciples) followed his teachings and wrote The New Testament in addition to the Old, calling it The Bible. Those who did not believe stayed Jewish and strict towards their Torah. In 570, almost the exact thing happened. A man named Muhammad claimed he was being visited by and angel named Gabriel, sent by God. This angel kept on visiting him throughout his lifetime, telling him to spread the word that God gave to the angel to Muhammad. These teaching are the The Doctrine of Islam and The Five Pillars of Islam. During this time, there were no Muslims, only Jews and Christians and quite simply, those who believed Muhammad became Muslim. This happened to both Jews and Christians. At this time, there was the Torah and the Bible. Muhammad was a Christian before he got these visitations from Gabriel. He and his followers created (what seemed to be a cult to others back then) Islam. The way this happened was that Muhammad added to the Bible the Doctrine and the Five Pillars and whatever Gabriel told him to. This extension towards the Bible became know as the Qur'an. Jews who believed Muhammad were not accepted into Islam until they acknowledged Jesus as their Savior. Muhammad died June 8, 632 however, he had left a line of a sort of monarchical ruling. Meaning, someone was to take his place. This never happened with Abraham or Jesus because Judaism and Christianity never got caught up in political and governmental establishments and Islam did. Muhammad formed a government in the Islamic religion (which was deadly of course.) SEPARATION BETWEEN C & S. Who was going to take his place in the ruling of his government (The Caliphate) was controversial. Those who believe his cousin Ali should take his place were called the Shia. Those who believed it should be someone else were called the Sunni. This is what is going on in the Middle East right now. It has nothing to do with The United States or Great Britain or France. What is happening is a Civil War in the Islam religion between the Sunni and the Shia, however it has distanced itself from Muhammad's successor to power, this division is what cause the conflict that has always been and issue in the religion. The best thing to do is let them fight it out because it worked in Christianity. The Christians never actually had a geographical control, but it did gain quite a bit of power and corruption within itself. That was called Catholicism. Those who rebelled are now called Protestants. Tensions are not between them anymore, but that is because they fought it out in a battle called The Crusades. As you can see, God, Father, Lord, Allah, all mean the same thing. It just started out with Abraham's teachings and continued from there adding (in my opinion) more crazy, fanatical ideas. I wonder, after the conflict in Islam is resolved, what Monotheistic religion 4.0 will be. ",
"It's kind of like these 3 guys (Abraham, Jesus and Mohamed) grew up in the same town, although years apart, and went to the same high school (just not at the same time.)",
"The very short version is: fan fiction. They all mostly agree on the old testament. Adam and Eve, Noah, that stuff. Then someone had to go and improve on that, and someone had to go and improve on THAT that.\n\nAnd yeah, that's flame war material, but that's as it happened in history.",
" > Think of it like a movie. The Torah is the first one, and the New Testament is the sequel. The nthe Qu’ran comes out, and it retcons the last one like it never happened. There’s still Jesus, but he’s not the main character anymore, and the messiah hasn’t shown up yet.\n\n > Jews like the first movie, but ignored the sequels, Christians think you need to watch the first two, but the third one doesn’t count, Moslems think the third one was the best, and Mormons liked the second one so much they started writing fanfiction that doesn’t fit with ANY of the series canon.\n"
]
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2vqgtm
|
with modern technology, why hasn't antarctica been colonized?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vqgtm/eli5_with_modern_technology_why_hasnt_antarctica/
|
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"* there is an international treaty that pretty much makes it impossible\n* they are a lot of other nearly uninhabited areas that would be a lot easier to make into productive land"
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[] |
[] |
[
[]
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||
8tr53u
|
why did radios, speakers, cell phones, and cars have antennas that needed to telescope out to get a good signal in the 80s-90s but currently these telescoping features are no longer required?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8tr53u/eli5_why_did_radios_speakers_cell_phones_and_cars/
|
{
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"In a word, \"digital.\"\n\nWith an analog radio signal, the loudness and the clarity of the audio and video depend on the power of the radio waves, and you need big antennas to receive as much power as possible. This is why radio telescopes used for space observation are still big, as big as possible.\n\nWith digital signals, the loudness and the clarity are encoded in the radio signal in terms of 1's and 0's (spikes of radio vs. flats of no radio), so if your smaller antenna is sufficient to detect the spikes, any extra power in the radio signal doesn't do anything.\n\nYou can see this effect with antenna (digital) TV. Before, if you were far away from the city where the TV station was, your signal would get weak, and you'd start seeing fuzz in the image, hear hiss in the audio. Now, if you're past 30 miles or 60 miles, you see nothing, if you're inside the 30 miles, the smaller antenna is sufficient to detect all the digital radio spikes and see everything (no fuzz, no hiss). Bigger antenna let's you be at 60 miles or 75 miles for the cut-off."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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bg6xip
|
what is basal metabolic rate?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bg6xip/eli5_what_is_basal_metabolic_rate/
|
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"text": [
"BMR, or basal metabolic rate, is basically the number of calories you would burn if you just laid in bed all day. It's the amount of calories your body burns to stay at its current weight. It changes as you gain or lose weight, whether fat or muscle."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
a9ztof
|
why does tea help you feel better when you’re sick, but coffee doesn’t?
|
So I’m actually pretty sick right now, and I tried drinking coffee as my hot liquid of choice, but if anything it made me feel worse. Yet tea helped me feel better. Why the difference?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9ztof/eli5_why_does_tea_help_you_feel_better_when_youre/
|
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"text": [
"I'm curious about this myself, is it the caffeine?",
"Do you drink coffee black, or do you doctor it up?\n\nWhat kind of tea do you drink?",
"Teas generally have more natural compound that help with inflammation (irritation and swelling from injury or disease), and the inflammatory response when you get sick is responsible for a lot of how bad we feel. The reason some people feel sick after the flu shot is because even though you didn't catch the flu, your body reacts to the presence of flu antigens with inflammation.\n\nTeas have polyphenols and tannins, which have anti-inflammatory effects - like taking a mild aspirin or ibuprofen. That makes you feel less sick.\n\nCoffee generally does not.\n\nThere are a number of other spices and food good for inflammation, including tumeric, one of the main components of chai teas.",
"But isn't coffee a kind of a tea? I guess that there is some kinds of tea that make u fell better (for the reasons that [Novareason](_URL_0_) explained above), but not all of them."
]
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[],
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]
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|
kzqgs
|
what does your w-2 form do?
|
I've only been in the workforce for a few years now and with the economy I haven't been able to hold a job for long enough to really need to worry about it. But since my company got bought out by a larger corporation, I have much higher expectancy to keep my job. I keep hearing about the W-2 form and I'm unsure of what all it entails.
I have somewhat knowledge of the W-4, but if you feel like explaining that too, I wouldn't discourage you from it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kzqgs/eli5_what_does_your_w2_form_do/
|
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"Companies use W2 forms to tell you, and the government, how much you made from them, and how much they gave to the government on your behalf in taxes. You use this to determine if you paid too little tax and have to pay more, or too much tax and get some cash back.\n\nThe W4 is what you use to help tell your employer how much tax they should hold from your paycheck so that you *ideally* over/under pay as little as possible.\n\nAlternatively, some people \"work 1099\" which basically means the company doesn't pay taxes on your behalf and instead only lets you and Uncle Same know how much they paid you so that you can file your taxes appropriate. There are some regulations on who can use a 1099, and those rules have gotten tighter if I'm not mistaken.",
"Everybody helps pay for things we all use, like roads and fire departments. People who make more money are supposed to pay more, while people who make less are supposed to pay less.\n\nA **W4** form tells the company you work for how many people are in your family so they know the right amount of money to take out of your pay to help pay for the stuff we all use.\n\nThen, at the end of every year, the company you work for gives you a **W2** form that shows how much you paid all year for the roads and stuff and if you paid too much, you get some back, and if you didn't pay enough, you have to pay more.",
"Companies use W2 forms to tell you, and the government, how much you made from them, and how much they gave to the government on your behalf in taxes. You use this to determine if you paid too little tax and have to pay more, or too much tax and get some cash back.\n\nThe W4 is what you use to help tell your employer how much tax they should hold from your paycheck so that you *ideally* over/under pay as little as possible.\n\nAlternatively, some people \"work 1099\" which basically means the company doesn't pay taxes on your behalf and instead only lets you and Uncle Same know how much they paid you so that you can file your taxes appropriate. There are some regulations on who can use a 1099, and those rules have gotten tighter if I'm not mistaken.",
"Everybody helps pay for things we all use, like roads and fire departments. People who make more money are supposed to pay more, while people who make less are supposed to pay less.\n\nA **W4** form tells the company you work for how many people are in your family so they know the right amount of money to take out of your pay to help pay for the stuff we all use.\n\nThen, at the end of every year, the company you work for gives you a **W2** form that shows how much you paid all year for the roads and stuff and if you paid too much, you get some back, and if you didn't pay enough, you have to pay more."
]
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9a2y3m
|
why do some animals like spiders and lizards only ever move at full sprint?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9a2y3m/eli5_why_do_some_animals_like_spiders_and_lizards/
|
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"text": [
"Lizards and spiders both move at slow/normal speeds. They move at full sprint because they’re threatened by you, but when people aren’t around lizards are prone to dragging themselves slowly across rocks to stay in the sun, and spiders sneak and slink around and diligently do hunting tasks at a more normal pace. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
b33365
|
what is the difference between ionic bonding and covalent bonding?
|
Furthermore, are they both capable of forming allotropes or is that completely different?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b33365/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_ionic_bonding/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eixazq7"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Essentially, ionic bonding means one atom completely takes an electron from another atom and both are held together by electrostatic forces, and covalent bonding means that two atoms sort of share electrons and are held together because it's energetically favourable.\n\nAllotropes are something different. They refer to how certain elements can form different compounds with themselves like carbon can be graphite or diamond, oxygen as O2 or O3 (ozone), or different crystal structures in metals."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
ds4e1q
|
why do tube lights continue to flicker and emit light well after i have turned them off?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ds4e1q/eli5_why_do_tube_lights_continue_to_flicker_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f6n2smp",
"f6o4opy"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"When you turn the light on, you charge the molecules of the gass in the lamp. These charged molecules are what's emitting light. When you turn the power off, the molecules need time to discharge.",
"In a tube bulb a high voltage arc causes atoms in the tube to ionize creating free electrons. When those free electrons recombine with atoms UV light is produced. The UV light gets absorbed by a phosphorescent material coating the tube wall. This puts the atoms of the phosphorescent material in an excited state. Then those atoms de-excite and in the process emit visible light which we can see.\n\nWhen the power is cut. There is still free electrons being absorbed, and there are still excited atoms in the phosphorescent material, which is way the bulb can still glow after the power is cut. After a little time all the ionized gas atoms recombine and all the phosphorescent atoms de-excite and the light stops being produced."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1oq58y
|
why are the wright brothers considered first in flight, yet the hot air balloon was invented several years prior?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oq58y/eli5_why_are_the_wright_brothers_considered_first/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccufood",
"ccufp0o",
"ccufqyb",
"ccuirnh"
],
"score": [
7,
3,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"First in a heavier than air machine to fly. A hot air balloon flies because it's less dense than the air it displaces so it's lighter than air.\n\nPlus the hot air balloon was invented well over a century earlier. ",
"The Wright brothers were the first *powered* flight, which made a much bigger impact than just HAB flights.",
"The way I see it:\n\nThe Wright Brothers were the first one to fly and Rozier & Arlandes were the first to float. \n\nBut that's really subjective. ",
"flight vs float"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
bv2zc6
|
what is habeas corpus, and why did abraham lincoln suspend it ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bv2zc6/eli5_what_is_habeas_corpus_and_why_did_abraham/
|
{
"a_id": [
"epklsdt",
"epknco4"
],
"score": [
9,
2
],
"text": [
"It’s the requirement that a person under arrest has to be brought before a court of law before being punished. He suspended it because of the nature of a Civil War, ie there are people all over that may side with the enemy. And they may do something like sabotage or run to the South to join an army. And since treason is really hard to actually convict someone of in the US, suspending habeas corpus meant these people could just be thrown in jail without worrying about a trial.",
"It seems like everyone summed it up pretty well, from my understanding, it’s the due process of proving that said person being arrested is being arrested properly. \n\nAs to why anyone would suspend it, I imagine like mentioned before in time of rebellion it allows military police to arrest people and present why later in an effort to stop the rebellion and once everything is “stabilized” and I use that loosely, allows the people who actually started it to be found out.\n\nLong winded here, imagine a big riot causing mayhem destroying everything, instead of individually proving the person you accuse in said riot did indeed participate and here’s the evidence. You brig everyone, stop the chaos, figure out logistics later."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
22eigm
|
why is there a concept of "dog years" but not cat, or turtle years?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22eigm/eli5why_is_there_a_concept_of_dog_years_but_not/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cgm18y3",
"cgm1by3"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Because dogs often do jobs, like assisting with shepherding or helping the blind, so their age matters more than a cat's or a turtle's.",
"People empathize with dogs, not with cats or turtles as much."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1p5xmc
|
what is happening on a cellular level when i give a needle?
|
What does the actual needle do to the cells in the body, and where exactly does the medicine go in an intramuscular shot?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p5xmc/eli5_what_is_happening_on_a_cellular_level_when_i/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccz32dr",
"ccz6oyg"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The needle is sharp, and for the most part, it just parts it's way through the various layers of skin.\n\nNow, in giving a shot, you are just going to put the tip of the needle into a muscle and then inject the liquid into that. \n\nIn putting it in a vein, say, you are penetrating the vascular wall, and allowing the needle to stay in there for a bit, whether to get a blood sample or to have an IV hookup.\n\nIn all cases, the idea is to shove cells aside, but as we're talking many times smaller than the tip of the needle, some cells do get punctured and destroyed in the process. However, in the grand scheme of things, it's a small amount. You do worse stubbing your toe or such.",
"Cells in your body adhere to each other through specialized junctions. A needle into the skin inevitably breaks some of these intercellular junctions apart and when it does, cells tell their neighbors \"something traumatic just happened nearby\". \n \nOne way cells communicate during injury, particularly the cells that make up blood vessels (arteries, veins, etc.), is by dumping chemicals into the surrounding area. Some of these chemicals will initiate the Acute Inflammatory Response. This response is incredibly complicated and regulated at the cellular level, but on the surface you recognize it as redness, pain, swelling, and heat. These four things can almost always be found at any spot where the skin is perforated, needles sticks included. Your body doesn't give the needle any points for being well-intentioned; it treats it the same way it treats a paper cut, splinter, etc. \n \nAs for the intramuscular (IM) shot, you're pushing the medication into the center of muscle bundles. IM shots take advantage of the structure of muscles to create a sort of \"time-release\" medication in the body. The \"bubble\" of medication in the muscle is called a depot. Your muscle keeps all the medication in one tightly bound location but because muscles are very vascular, medication is constantly being withdrawn from this depot and carried away to the rest of the body in the blood. \n \nMeds like birth control and vaccines are given IM because a single administration guarantees that the patient will get a therapeutic level of the med for a long period of time. Pills, patches, and the like are all prone to \"user error\", and IM is a nifty way of eliminating \"user error\". The drawback is that IMs are very difficult to \"undo\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
51skt2
|
how do people make money on buying debt?
|
I don't understand how it works, can someone walk me through it? I've heard of people getting screwed over, and I don't want that to happen to my student debt.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51skt2/eli5_how_do_people_make_money_on_buying_debt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7ehyar",
"d7ei9gt"
],
"score": [
13,
2
],
"text": [
"So Person A owes 100 dollars to Person B. I as Person B try to get Person A to pay me, but they keep ignoring me. In time I give up and sell the debt to Person C. In doing so, Person C pays me 10 dollars to own the right to collect the debt from Person A.\n\nNow Person B is happy because at least he got 10 dollars out of the deal and isn't completely broke. Person C though still has to make his money and the way he does this is by buying up a lot of debt cheaply (so let's say he's bought 8 other people's debt for 10 bucks each) and thus he really only needs a success rate of 10% to succeed. Also, they tend to be more aggressive in hounding the debtor until they pay their bill off (and sometimes mislead the debtor about their obligation to pay said debt).",
"Its generally uncollected or defaulting debt in the cases you're talking about.\n\nSay your company issues a bunch of student loans, and like 5% of people default on them and don't pay you, it may be too difficult or simply not in your business model to try and force a bunch of people who defaulted to pay you back little bits at a time. \n\nBut a company who specializes in tracking down and collecting debts can buy those debts for a fraction of the value, and then attempt to collect enough to make it worth buying. \n\nThe original loan company takes it $10,000,000 worth of defaulted loans, and sells those loans to the debt collector for $2,000,000. \nThe debt collector now tries to go out and collect enough of that $10,000,000 owed from all the people who owe it to make more than what they paid for it. \n\nA lot of companies, especially with relatively small accounts like a few hundred or thousand will do this a lot because it's just not worth the effort. \n\nIf you have a student loan and you're paying it and everything fine, it's very unlikely that your debt would be sold to someone else. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2jwm1p
|
why do we even have unmyelinated nerves?
|
Why do we have unmyelinated nerves? Why would evolution decide to keep slow nerves? Surely just making nerves that are fast would mean we could think and react to danger or such quicker?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jwm1p/eli5_why_do_we_even_have_unmyelinated_nerves/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clfqgtv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Unmyelinated nerves are usually very short, so their slow conductance doesn't make much of a difference. They could be made to have faster conductance if they were myelinated, but that would just waste energy and resources producing and maintaining the myelin. It's just a evolutionary example of, \"if it ain't broke, don't fix it\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2kqv1e
|
how are companies like verizon and at & t able to both make statements like "the fastest internet provider" or the "best internet provider" at the same time?
|
I've seen billboards form both the carries with the same slogans on each or one saying they're "The fastest internet provider" and the other saying they are "The fastest internet provider."
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kqv1e/eli5_how_are_companies_like_verizon_and_att_able/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clnv1xp",
"clnvsis"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Words like \"fastest\" or \"best\" don't actually mean anything. Is fastest:\n\n* Average national download speed?\n* Average national upload speed?\n* Average local...\n* Between 8am and 5 pm?\n* During peak hours?\n* During non-peak hours?\n* Counting outages?\n* Calculated based on tiers? Is \"1st tier\" Comcast considered equivalent to \"1st tier\" Verizon?\n* Calculated based on the fastest tier?\n* The fastest tier available in that area vs what?\n* Etc\n\nOr is best calculated:\n\n* According to customer satisfaction? How did they get that number?\n* Using one of the \"fastest\" measures above?\n* Based off a review somewhere?\n* Based off availability?\n* Based off outages?\n* Based on \"value\"?\n* Etc\n\nThe word \"fastest\" and the word \"best\" can mean whatever you want them to mean. So Verizon and ATT & T (or whoever else) can pretty much use the words any way they see fit.",
"Saying that your ISP is the \"best internet provider\" is a purely subjective claim. It's like saying that your restaurant sells the best burgers in town. There's no objective way of disputing it. This is why both Verizon and AT & T can make the same claim.\n\nMaking the claim that your ISP is the \"fastest internet provider\" is a little different because this claim can be tested objectively, unlike the \"best\" claim. In this case, however, each provider is using a different criteria to make their \"fastest\" claim. This is why they both can make the same claim. Of course, it's probably not the same criteria most customers use to judge an internet service as \"fast.\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5z48tj
|
who decides how many days we work per week ? if everyone (i mean everyone) worked 3 days a week, what would be different ? is the number of work days and hours a natural process ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z48tj/eli5_who_decides_how_many_days_we_work_per_week/
|
{
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"text": [
"At the beginning of the 20th century, it was usual to work 60 hours a week. Then, unions, labour strikes and movements changed that (thankfully) and went down to a 40 hour week. That's what we've been working for 100 years already. Now, with the automation it would be fair to think we're up for a new reduction of the week work.\n\nSome countries such as France have gone down to 35 hours, without seeing much of a change (neither an improvement not a worsening of the work). In some countries they are trying the 6 hour day such as [Sweden](_URL_1_), it's going well for many of them, but nobody does these experiments long enough to actually see results.\n\n3 days a week, 8 hours = 24 hours a week. That's almost the 30 hours a week that the Swedes are trying. \nThe [new economics foundation](_URL_0_) actually suggests a 21 hour week.\n\nIn general, arguments in favour of reducing the time we work per week is more time for our families, more time for other activities, more time for consuming goods, better work life balance, happy employees, less unemployment. Not everything is producing things (aka working long hours), people need to have the money, the need, the willingness to buy them and the time to use them. That all makes economy boost.",
"There's a long history of moving towards the 40 hour work week through the 1800s and 1900s. In the US, it finally became federal law that any work over 40 hours was \"overtime\" in 1938 for all industries. It's something that unions & the labor movement fought long & hard for - prior to that 10+ hour days were common.\n\n_URL_0_",
"To an extent, it is an economic process. \n\nThink of your work as a product called \"labor\" that you can sell to a company that needs it. You are willing to supply a certain amount of labor at a particular price, also known as your wages. \n\nIf someone offers you a higher wage, you might be willing to work longer, up to a certain point, at which you become exhausted and can't work any more. Likewise, if the price of your labor goes down, you'd be willing to work fewer and fewer hours...again to a point, as you need to make enough money to live.\n\nThe person buying your labor, the employer, has a similar function. The cheaper the cost of labor, the more time they'd want you to work; but eventually either they wouldn't have enough money to keep paying you for all those hours, or you'd quit from being overworked. If the cost of labor was higher, they'd prefer to pay you for fewer hours, but eventually they won't have enough hours of labor to accomplish whatever it is that they're trying to do.\n\nDo this enough times with enough people, and you'll find that an equilibrium occurs: there's a point where how much money the employer is willing to spend for a certain amount of labor and how much money the worker is willing to sell their time for are the same. (or vice versa, the number of hours for a particular wage is the same).\n\nOf course, there are other things at work here. In general, there are other costs associated with hiring more employees, so employers will always tend to want fewer employees working more hours, and sometimes people don't have a choice but to work a job they feel they aren't valued at because they need the money. \n\nGenerally, governments must intervene to prevent workers from getting screwed in these situations, as they individually have much less money and power than the companies that employ them. This is why you have labor unions and laws governing working hours, overtime, minimum wages, and so on.",
"In the USA, you can thank the communists and labor activists for the long and hard fought battle to reduce work hours to 40 hrs. Many literally died at the hands of state forces and paramilitary groups (such as the Pinkertons) hired to kill them. Others were threatened, beaten, and humiliated, but in the end their struggle won out for the 40 hour work week. There are many books available that recount these histories of the 1800's and early 1900's. They are as fascinating as they are sobering. In some instances, labor groups even engaged federal troops that were deployed against them (look up the Pullman Strike _URL_0_). \n\nKarl Marx explains, in his works, how additional labor force (beyond the ordinary amount) is stolen from the worker by the capitalists when the working day is unrestricted in length. You might check out \"Capital Volume 1\" which explains the concept in detail in one of its chapters. ",
"I just did a bit of googling. Several industrial companies in Germany (the Ziess optical factory in Jena and a couple of others) did experiments at the start of the 20th century. The Ziess plant switched from a nine-hour work day to an eight hour workday, and found that the workers actually got more work done. At the same, the workers were paying premiums to an insurance fund. When Ziess had a twelve hour day, the company would have to pay money into the fund each year because medical costs for the workers were higher than their premiums. After the switch to eight hour days, the fund started making money, because there were less worker injuries and thus less money had to be paid to doctors.\n\nSee [this magazine article](_URL_0_)",
"Regardless of how many days per week you work, you still want to eat 7 days per week.\n\nYou have to find the balance between earning a living and enjoying life.\n\nAlso, you are not a machine (presumably) and you could work really hard for an hour but wouldn't be able to sustain that level of work for 8, 10 or 12 hours.\n\nIf you try to work 18 hours per day 7 days per week, the work you do in a typical hour would be a lower quality than the work you could do in an hour if you worked one hour per day for 4 days per week.\n\nA previous boss I had (so take this with a grain of salt) showed me a study done by the US Army (pass the salt please) that indicated that people generally got the best return on investment at 10 hours per day for 5 days per week. So after 50 hours per week, the quality of your work per hour dropped enough that you would start to see diminishing returns.\n\nHere's a link that downloads a study from Sanford that found similar results. I couldn't find the Army study. \n\n_URL_0_",
"You'd also have to remember the retail and restaurant employees, doctors and nurses, janitors, etc. not everything can be reduced to a three day work week without a silly number of employees to rotate through.",
"There's another reason the days/hours worked over time has declined that other commenters have not mentioned: technological progress. \n\nEven in the most egalitarian, low inequality society imaginable, it takes a certain quantity of food, water, and shelter to keep one person alive each day. If the efficiency at which those things are produced is low, everyone has to work many hours every day. If efficiency improves greatly, say, by agriculture or mechanization, then the minimum required hours of work per day to keep each person alive decreases. \n\nNow, it should be noted that what we consider \"basic requirements\" does increase over time. Today, we consider running water, sewage systems, electricity, TV, radios, refrigerators etc.., as basic equipment everyone needs to have. \n\nHowever, that said, production efficiency has eclipsed basic needs so massively that the hours an average person works per year has been slashed dramatically. How dramatically? In the 1830 US, the average worker worked over 70 hours a week and over 6 days a week. They generally had no paid vacation, few paid federal holidays, no personal days, no sick days, no paid family leave of any kind. Today, the average is ~34 hours a week and while those benefits aren't ubiquitous (except federal holidays), they're common. \n\nIn all, Americans work about 40% of the hours they did in 1830's.. while at the same time have vastly better lives (in general). ",
"The first guy to finish the maintenance training program at my job worked out an agreement with management where he was officially our weekend guy. He worked a double on Friday, double on Saturday, and day shift on Sunday which gave him Monday thru Thursday off. The company made sure to never give anyone else thus kind of deal.",
"Most of the other posters have talked about the history of the 40 hour work week in terms of union activity. There's another aspect at play, which is that the more time off workers have, the more time they have to spend the money they earn. Up until about a decade ago, South Koreans typically worked five and a half days a week--Monday through Friday and half of Saturday. The government promoted the idea of only working five days a week so people would have time to travel around Korea and increase domestic consumption.",
"It's a critical mass thing, coupled with supply and demand. \n\nIf everyone worked three days a week as the norm, there will always be a certain proportion of people who want or need more money. So they would take a second job and work six days (illegally if necessary - if people were legally limited to three days, I guarantee a black market would result). If there is a critical mass of people like that, they will drive up house prices and the cost of luxury goods. Then others will have to work six days if they want to have a house, and the critical mass becomes bigger, driving up the cost of necessities as well as luxury goods. Then everyone has to work six days to live. \n\nThe work week we have now is basically the meeting point of the hours most people are willing to work for what most corporations are willing to pay for most types of jobs. There are people who will work more, but they're outliers. They aren't big enough numerically to push the \"standard\" hours up across the board. \n\nHowever, you will find some professions have official or unofficial different hours - in those cases there is a critical mass of those professionals willing to work that way that makes that possible, typically in direct exchange or indirect recognition of higher-than-usual money or prestige.",
"How many people do you need to sell 100x widgets that you can produce in a week? Then do the math to figure out how you can get them to the lowest # of hours, reasonable work demands, minus withholding some of that money for future expansion. Then you have the X employees can make Y things in Z hours / week. Is it competitive? If not, redo the math.\n\nIt's the usual triangle setup. Want more products? Hire more people or work more hours.\n\nWant to work less hours? Hire more people or make fewer products.\n\nThis doesn't take into account the fact that many business have to be open 24-7 (hospitals, ATC, airports, police, fire, etc), many are preferred to be (fast food, convenience stores) while others can chose whatever hours they want.\n\nBob from Bob's stores doesn't like Tuesday? They aren't open on Tuesdays.\n\nBanks hate customers? They only open when they feel like being open.\n\nOk, that last one was a jab.",
"I've always wondered if it would be better to have say wed off instead of 2 days on the weekend. The week would prob need 8 days instead, but say work for 3 days, 1 day off, then 3 more days, 1 day off. Not sure if that would be better then 5 days work and 2 days off.... since saturday is always nice cause u know u still have sunday to chill.... but I wonder. ",
"An historiographical perspective: Marx said in *Capital* in 1867 that a 6-hour work day was enough, and that the surplus (at the time the actual number was closer to 12) went to the owners of the means of production.\n\nIn 1930, Keynes predicted the number in the future would be as low as 15 hour *a week*, in his paper \"Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren\".\n\nIn fact, Keynes wasn't far off - we could probably sustain ourselves just fine on that. There are several reasons why we don't, but the main reason - [according to Benjamin M. Friedman](_URL_0_) - is rising inequality. Work is becoming more efficient, but the surplus isn't going to workers. So in that sense, Marx had a point.",
"Well we always had Sunday off because people think that's the day they are supposed to go to church, even though the Bible clearly says the seventh day. Then we got Saturday off from Ford himself, who believed his workers needed extra time off in order to spend the money they were making, thus revitalizing the economy. That idea quickly spread.",
"Make an appointment for the dentist, doctor, anything, and you will quickly see why working three days a week would never work."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economics_Foundation",
"http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34677949"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike"
],
[
"https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1MkAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA384&lpg=PA384&dq=eight+hour+day+zeiss&source=bl&ots=f6eqbDrwDN&sig=NffoRI2_OqBAA32-QBSDLD29meY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAlr-p3NPSAhVU82MKHcajBCYQ6AEILTAE#v=onepage&q=eight%20hour%20day%20zeiss&f=false"
],
[
"http://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00191-015-0426-4"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
326v0m
|
what is ovulation?
|
What is ovulation? Does it occur during your period? After your period finishes? Right when it starts? IS it the period?? Can you get pregnant while you're on your period? or after it finishes?
edit: Thank you guys!! this really helped, wikipedia used way too many scientific words haha
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/326v0m/eli5_what_is_ovulation/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cq8g9od"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Ovulation is when a woman's ovary releases an egg, and this happens about 1/2 way through the menstrual cycle (which lasts about 28 days). Simultaneously the uterus is beginning to thicken its lining, to be able to receive the egg. If conception does not occur, it sheds its lining during menstruation. Ovulation is simply the moment the egg is released. A woman is most fertile the few days surrounding ovulation (which is accompanied by a large spike in hormones). During the post-ovary phase, the egg travels down the Fallopian tube, and it is possible to get pregnant before the egg has reached the uterus. \nEdit: a word. \n\nSorry, didn't answer your last 2 questions. You cannot get pregnant while on your period. At this point, your body has already begun to shed the lining of the uterus. You can get pregnant after your period, but not until ovulation about 2 weeks later. No egg, no baby. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
721gp4
|
- i'm driving on a rosario with my 5 year old and she asks me how power lines carry electricity
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/721gp4/eli5_im_driving_on_a_rosario_with_my_5_year_old/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dnezy5e",
"dnf3m65"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why do we use copper cables to conduct electricity rather than water, like a hose pipe? ](_URL_0_)\n1. [[ELI5] How does the transmission of electricity work? ](_URL_2_)\n1. [ELI5:How does voltage travel through wires/medium ](_URL_3_)\n1. [ELI5: Power lines. ](_URL_1_)\n1. [ELI5: Power lines... just in general. ](_URL_4_)\n",
"I'll give it a go. Power lines are copper wires suspended off the floor, running between places where power is made, converted, and consumed. Power lines contain electricity at a very high voltage. This is because to transfer some amount of energy, your current multiplied by voltage (power) must be the same. Reducing current must increase voltage and vice versa. Knowing that power loss for a given resistivity is proportional to current, we should try and minimize current. To do that, we have to maximise voltage. Cross country lines run at a higher voltage than local lines, as they are longer and carry more power. The flip side of this is that higher voltage lines need to be seperated from each other better, as if they get too close they can ark. I think every cm you separate them will require 800v more to ark (in air). When mains leaves the power source, it is at its highest voltage, and normally in 3 phase form, which is the result of having a ground wire and three oscillating power carrying wires, each one oscillating at a slightly different phase, like in this diagram \n\n\n_URL_0_\n\nNotice how even though each colour is moving slowly, theres almost always one colour at the maximum or minimum. That's useful for factories with lots of motors, as it makes for more stable power delivery, making each motor draw less power from each phase, and spin more smoothly. \n\nSo the power leaves in HV 3 phase power, and is carried a long way, until it reaches a 'substation' which is a fenced off area full of transformers. These are often near populated areas, and reduce the voltage of the wires to be distributed locally,and produce 3 phase for local factories, and single phase for houses, sometimes overhead, but often below ground, where it is distributed in the area. If you have any more specific questions please ask "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tet0f/eli5_why_do_we_use_copper_cables_to_conduct/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o6ilh/eli5_power_lines/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4102z7/eli5_how_does_the_transmission_of_electricity_work/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6m8i5c/eli5how_does_voltage_travel_through_wiresmedium/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2itd65/eli5_power_lines_just_in_general/"
],
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/3phase_AC_wave.gif"
]
] |
||
6l0i6p
|
in the breakfast club, why do they call themselves the breakfast club?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6l0i6p/eli5_in_the_breakfast_club_why_do_they_call/
|
{
"a_id": [
"djq5ue3"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
" > The title comes from the nickname invented by students and staff for morning detention at New Trier High School, the school attended by the son of one of John Hughes' friends. Thus, those who were sent to detention before school starting time were designated members of \"The Breakfast Club\". \n\nSo it is talking about Breakfast as in a time of day, rather than a meal."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9dl7sd
|
defragmentation used to be such a lengthy, intensive process on previous versions of windows and their computers. but now it all happens quickly, even on my not solid-state drives, and the computer even lets it happen in the background without me noticing. how? what changed?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dl7sd/eli5_defragmentation_used_to_be_such_a_lengthy/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e5iank7"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It's quick because it's done regularly and automatically nowadays, versus a manual process that people typically did only when their computer was becoming noticeably slow and the disk was extremely heavily fragmented. Additionally, larger disks nowadays (it's not irregular for even entry level computers to come with 500GB HDDs, far more than a standard user will ever use) means that it's far less likely for files to become fragmented to begin with, as if you're writing a file to disk, it will always attempt to write it in an area of disk sequentially when possible. The more full the disk is, the less likely it is that there will be a sequential block of disk space available the size of the file that's attempting to be written."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
cn7657
|
if derivatives measure the rate of change of a function, then what do integrals measure ? and what is meant by optimisation ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cn7657/eli5_if_derivatives_measure_the_rate_of_change_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ew7givm",
"ew7gk84",
"ew7l3iy",
"ew7u44c",
"ew8ophg"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
4,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Integrals measure the area beneath the curve (or for unlimited integrals they find the function which can be derived to give the original function)\n\nOptimisation means different things in different context, could you specify?",
"Integrals measure the area under the function (from the function to 0).",
"Integrals measure the sum of the function between two points.\n\nIt's often easier to think of derivatives and integrals with respect to their discrete (integers, not reals) counterparts. A derivative would be the difference between the value of a discrete function at one point and its subsequent point. An integral would be the sum of all the values of a discrete function between two points.\n\nOptimization can be used informally or formally. Informally, it just means 'make something better'.\n\nFormally, it means you create a 'cost function' - some function that takes as arguments the key attributes you want to optimize and weights them in relation to one another - and try to maximize (or minimize) the value produced by that function.\n\nFor example, let's say I'm looking for a house. My only concerns are distance from work and distance from the local schools. So I write a cost function I wish to minimize: value = 3distanceWork + distanceSchool\n\nThat mathematically expresses the notion that I think distance to work is three times as important as distance to school (the little whippersnappers can use the exercise). For each house I visit, I plug in my parameters and pick a house based on which one minimizes my cost function.",
"Another useful way to think of integrals is as a continuous counterpart to averages. An average requires a countable number of things that you're adding up. For example, you can take the averages of the integers from 1 to 5. This just involves adding 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, then dividing by 5. There are numbers in between (like 1.5), but you don't consider them. Integrating the numbers from 1 to 5 instead averages smoothly over *every* real number between 1 and 5. Mathematically, this can get tricky fast because you're averaging over an infinite number of observations. Both the numerator and denominator of your average would go to infinity. This is where the established theories of calculus come in to tell us how to get a sensible answer out of that. \n\nGiven the context of your question, I suspect you're thinking about how calculus is used in optimization. Optimizing a function means finding the value(s) at which it obtains its highest or lowest value. For example f(x)=x\\^2 has a minimum at x=0 and no maximum. There are infinite possible values of x to consider, but calculus can help us narrow down the possibilities. The main insight is that IF f is smooth and x\\* is a minimum or maximum of f(x), THEN f'(x\\*)=0, where f'(x) is the derivative of f. This means that when searching for a maximum or minimum, you can restrict your attention to points where the derivative is 0. These are not guaranteed to be the point your searching for, but they're a good start.",
"While an integral will give you the area under the curve, that's not really what we're measuring.\n\nWhat we're looking at is a continuous sum. The sum of an infinite number of infinitesimal slices. \n\nWhy do we want to do this? Well let's consider a rocket. We can determine it's acceleration by a function. How fast is it going? How far has it travelled? Well, we could work out the acceleration after 1 second, and 2 seconds and so on then add them together to work out the speed, and then add together the speeds to work out the distance. This might not be accurate enough, so we can try smaller intervals. But if we work out the integration, and the second integral, then we have infinitesimal intervals, and much greater accuracy with considerably less work."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
32t9ld
|
why absolute majority of multiplayer games have accounts locked to specific region/server?
|
Its clearly possible to make global accounts for everything and then just let people queue on any server(example: Dota2), but yet, majority of games have accounts locked to server. Why is that?
EDIT: I'm fully aware that latency increases the further server is, Im not saying games should have one big server and everyone playing on it, I'm talking about same system as now, with different servers to different regions, but instead of having your account locked to specific server, you could actually choose in which to play, like Dota2, people in east NA can actually play and have decent ping on west EU, or person on west NA sometimes might want to play on east NA. I see just pluses in system where accounts are not locked to servers, but most of the games still doesnt do that, there must be a reason for it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32t9ld/eli5why_absolute_majority_of_multiplayer_games/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqee2is",
"cqee4y1"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Distance. The further away you are from the server the more latency you will get. So if you are in the US and play on an EU server you can expect to get at least 150ms latency, which is hardly gonna make your experience playing enjoyable if the game requires any kind of speed or reaction time.",
"Many reasons.\n\nA good technological reason is latency. The less time it takes for information to travel from your computer to the server the faster you can react to things. People who a re geographically closer to a server tend to be able to communicate with it much more quickly.\n\nThere is also the semi obvious problem of timezones. It would not really make sense to try to have Europeans Americans and Australians on the same server when they all tend to be awake at different times of the day.\n\nThere are also many legal and financial reasons to make it a good idea for companies to segregate their suer based on location."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
kex13
|
eli12 polar covalent bonds
|
Hydrogen and oxygen atoms gain slight positive and negative charges respectively when bonded to eachother (usually). However, I'm still quite confused on this concept. Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kex13/eli12_polar_covalent_bonds/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c2jq4q3",
"c2jq4q3"
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text": [
"The oxygen atom and the hydrogen atoms both like having electrons around them. The oxygen atom, however, can pull a little bit harder. The electrons go wherever they are being pulled. So the electrons spend just a little bit more time next to the oxygen atom than next to the hydrogen atoms. Since charge is really time-averaged charge, when you have slightly more time with electrons, you end up slightly negative; when you have slightly less time with electrons, you end up slightly positive. \n\nDoes that help?",
"The oxygen atom and the hydrogen atoms both like having electrons around them. The oxygen atom, however, can pull a little bit harder. The electrons go wherever they are being pulled. So the electrons spend just a little bit more time next to the oxygen atom than next to the hydrogen atoms. Since charge is really time-averaged charge, when you have slightly more time with electrons, you end up slightly negative; when you have slightly less time with electrons, you end up slightly positive. \n\nDoes that help?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
7172py
|
gene editing: if you make a specific change to the dna of a cell, how can you be sure that the cell replicates and alter the dna of all the billions and billions of other cells in the organism?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7172py/eli5_gene_editing_if_you_make_a_specific_change/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dn8kyxl"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"You have to do it when the organism is a single cell, so that when that cell divides, it passes its modified DNA on to all of the children cells.\n\nIf you just changed one cell in a living organism, it would only change the DNA of that cell and of any cells that cell divides into, which won't be very many and at that point in development would basically only ever be that type of cell. Once a cell is a liver cell, it only makes more liver cells. If you wanted to modify kidney DNA you couldn't do it by modifying a liver cell."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4d4xm7
|
how does waterproof sprays work?
|
I've seen quite a lot waterproof sprays on internet which makes your shoes or clothes waterproof when you spray it on your things. How do they work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d4xm7/eli5_how_does_waterproof_sprays_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1nsdm0",
"d1numom"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"The material has pores, that's how the water gets in. The waterproofing spray puts something else in the pores that repells water. It might be wax, or oil, or some synthetic glue. How well they work depends on your expectations. You can spray liquid rubber on cloth and make a canteen out of the result. IT also turns the fabric glossy black, so you'll definitely see that. Waxes tend to be more clear, but they make the surface glossy and slippery, so you might not want that. The less the spray changes the material, the less \"waterproof\" it is. Maybe you only need water to bead up for a minute, there might be lots of Scotchguard-like things that can do that.",
"Water is a universal solvent because of those handy dandy little hydrogen atoms. They share an electron with the oxygen which ends up giving H a slightly + charge and O a slightly - charge. The slight difference in charge between hydrogen and oxygen in water molecules causes them to have behave a little like bar magnets, with a positive and negative side. \n\nWhen water encounters something soluble, or a substance that absorbs water, what's happening is that substance is also slightly polar so the water infiltrates it and diffuses through it via these electrical charges, kind of like magnets pushing each other apart which allows gaps where more magnets can get in, until the magnets are equally spread, except you know, water not magnets. Water can also penetrate a material if it is porous. We all have heard of osmosis, and it's a kind of pressure that pulls water to areas where there is less water, and out of areas where there is too much. It tries to be equally wet everywhere with a similar concentration of water. \n\nWhen we talk about a substances ability to dissolve in, and mix with water we call these hydrophylic substances. They mix with water because they are polar, and respond to other polar molecules. \n\nThen you have hydrophobic substances like oil, which are electrically neutral, do not respond to the charge in the water molecules. These are non-polar molecules. They stay clumped together, and the water is not able to spread out into it. \n\nSo take something porous like cloth, paper, leather, etc, and apply something non polar to it like oil, wax, teflon, many plastics, etc, and the water tends to bead up, making it too large to fit through the pores. Without the hydrophobic coating, the water would get pulled in via capillary action and the item gets wet. If there is a difference in wetness, then osmotic pressure will tend to force more water in until it's equally wet everywhere. \n\nCapillary action isn't so much that the substance is polar and hydrophylic, as it is that it needs osmotic pressure and to get that pressure, water needs to penetrate the material. If the water can't gain a foot hold to move through the material, there is no osmotic pressure pulling it in to gain a static equilibrium. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
di4wej
|
why do uncertainties deviate away from the answer the larger the uncertainty is?
|
If we were to take the formula mole (mol) = concentration (moldm-3) x volume (dm3)
2.00±0.5 moldm^(-3) x 2.00±0.5 dm³ = 4±50% which would be 4±2, the range would be 2-6. however if you multiply 2.5 x 2.5, you would get 6.25 mol which is out of the range.
As you make the uncertainty smaller, the answer gets closer and closer to the uncertainty.
Why is that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/di4wej/eli5_why_do_uncertainties_deviate_away_from_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f3texvg"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Because half the time, the deviations will have opposite sign, so they will at least partially cancel out. Which makes the extremes less likely. This is related to the law of large numbers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8a41wt
|
what makes bright reflective paint, like the ones on license plates, reflective?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a41wt/eli5_what_makes_bright_reflective_paint_like_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwvo2it",
"dwvopgv"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Retroreflective paint works because of geometry. In most cases, the paint consists of either tiny beads of glass or glass-like material, or microscopic corners set at 90 degrees from each other. This means that any light that comes in is reflected back in the direction it came from. Since that is generally about where you are in most cases for, for instance, traffic signs, the light intensity of the reflection is fairly high. For someone standing off to the side, it's not nearly as bright. ",
"I know the reflective we use in signs all has to do with glass Chrystal’s. There are two main types of reflective, prysmatic and bead.\n\nPrysmatic is what is seen on truck decals, the glass is arrayed in tiny pyramids that reflect the light, but one draw back is it needs to be almost face on to the light to reflect, so on trucks if you are driving towards one with your lights on it reflect back at you as the driver\n\nBead reflective is what is used on road signs and caution signs. As it is named the glass is made in glass beads allowing more light to be captured from a wider area and reflected light to spread more \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
9hg6ge
|
does caffeine take a toll on our energy reserves and body?
|
We drink coffee to get fresh when tired, but if we’re tired because our body needs to rest, would a cup of coffee then just postpone that tiredness by bringing out the energy that’s left in the body and mean we just mount the pressure, so the drop in energy will be bigger after the caffeine’s effect is gone?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9hg6ge/eli5_does_caffeine_take_a_toll_on_our_energy/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e6bnr0c"
],
"score": [
13
],
"text": [
"You don't so much get drowsy because you're \"running out of power\" but because a chemical stimulates your desire for sleep. Caffeine serves to block this chemical, reducing the desire for sleep. It doesn't, generally, give you energy or 'bring out' energy. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2qawx4
|
why does hidden valley ranch in the bottle taste completely different from the hidden valley self mix packet?
|
Why why why? The bottle stuff is gross.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qawx4/eli5why_does_hidden_valley_ranch_in_the_bottle/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cn4fx1t",
"cn4glmv"
],
"score": [
2,
7
],
"text": [
"Usually it has to do with what you mix it with - sour cream, half and half, or mayo all have different flavors by brand and source, meaning that while the spices may be similar to what you get from the bottle, the end flavor will vary with what you mix it into vs. what they do at the bottling plant.",
"The bottled stuff has to be shelf-stable & expected to last for months in the fridge.\n\nWhen you make it from the packet, you use fresh ingredients & don't pile it full of preservatives."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
221gtn
|
cern, 2x speed of light collisions???
|
In the LHC they crash two beams of protons close to the speed of light into each other does that mean the collisions actually happen at 2x Lightspeed??? or is there some relativistic effect happening???
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/221gtn/eli5_cern_2x_speed_of_light_collisions/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cgievc9",
"cgif00i",
"cgif2u5"
],
"score": [
3,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"You can't exceed lightspeed. Relative to each other, they're still not exceeding c",
"This was actually discussed two days ago, but in a different context. See [here](_URL_0_) for that discussion.",
" > or is there some relativistic effect happening???\n\nYes; it's called \"relativistic addition of velocities.\"\n\nTo someone in the lab, both protons are traveling at 99% of the speed of light or whatever.\n\nFrom the perspective of the proton, the other one is coming towards it at around 99.995% of the speed of light (whereas a dude in the lab is coming towards it as 99%).\n\nThe formula used is called \"relativistic addition of velocities.\" It happens because space and time are all wonky, so even though the person in the lab says that proton B is traveling at 99% of the speed of light, proton A won't agree with the dude in the lab about how long a meter or second is, so they'll measure speeds differently."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21tq8f/eli5_is_there_a_relative_speed_maximum_which_is/"
],
[]
] |
|
d9aigr
|
the fundamental difference between probability theory and statistics?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d9aigr/eli5_the_fundamental_difference_between/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f1g5nin"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Not everyone agrees, but my favorite explanation has to do with a jar filled with red and green candies. \n\nProbability theory would be used if you know the fraction of red and green candies, and you want to reason about how likely some outcome is when you draw candies at random. For example, what is the probability that I will get 4 red candies and 6 green candies in 10 draws?\n\nStatistics would be used if you don't know the fraction of red and green candies, and you want to determine (or approximate) it by taking random draws. If I pull out 10 candies, and 6 of them are red, what is my estimate of the fraction of red and green candies? How sure am I? If i guess 60% red, how likely is it that I'm right? How likely is it that I'm off by more than 10%?\n\nIn general, probability theory assumes that there is an underlying random process that controls the likelihood of future outcomes (e.g. a fair coin will come up heads half the time), and uses math to make predictions about those future events. Statistics observes events that happen, and tries to come up with an underlying model that explains those observations (e.g. if I observe a coin flipping, how many flips should I do to decide whether the coin is fair or not? How sure can I be?)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
757b7c
|
why do the chinese language use characters that mean multiple letters but english languages letters are all separate?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/757b7c/eli5_why_do_the_chinese_language_use_characters/
|
{
"a_id": [
"do41h3y",
"do41ucq",
"do43nvj"
],
"score": [
2,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"You have the wrong idea about Chinese writing. Each word has its own character. They're not (at least not systematically) made up of sub-parts, like English words are made up of letters. It means there have to be thousands of characters, instead of a few dozen, like English has.",
"Very simplified answer: Mandarin (the dominant dialect of Chinese in mainland China) has a LOT of words that are homophones (think: to/too/two), and the number increases exponentially if you ignore inflection (which Chinese, unlike English, has formalized into the language itself and calls \"tones\"... think of the various meanings you can give to a phrase like \"Fuck\" or \"Merry Christmas\" just by saying it differently... in a very general sense, that's what tones are).\n\nChinese can be written using the Roman alphabet (\"Pinyin\"), but it's \"lossy\" -- Pinyin can accurately represent tones, but can't by itself disambiguate homophones. In English, words that sound the same tend to have different spellings. In Chinese, words that sound the same have completely different characters. But you can argue that if Chinese used different combinations of letters to represent the same sound as a way of disambiguating homophones, would it really be any improvement over the status quo?\n\nAlso, it's not accurate to say that every Chinese character represents a word, or that all characters are arbitrarily complicated. The reality is that every Chinese character is a grid of one or more \"radicals\", which can be kind of thought of like letters in the Roman alphabet... except there are 214 of them, not 26. Once you recognize those 214 radicals, you can look at a character and recognize the radicals used to write it. Also, most of what an English-speaker would think of as a single \"word\" would be written in Chinese as two or three characters. Single-character words exist, but not EVERY character can stand on its own as a unique word.\n\nIn Chinese, the concept of a \"word\" is a bit fuzzier than it is in English. The best analogue I can think of is the way XSLT gets parsed. A written Chinese sentence tends to be more \"declarative\" than an English sentence. In English, you might write, \"An old woman drove her car to the grocery store yesterday\". In Chinese, it would be more like a single declarative word: \"YesterdayGroceryStoreBoundOldWomanDrivenCar\" -- there are no spaces between Yesterday, storeBound, old, woman, driven, and car, because they're all seen as being tied together. To someone who speaks Chinese, putting spaces between the characters would seem as awkward & unnatural as referring to a \"housewife\" as a \"house wife\", or a \"bedroom\" as a \"bed room\" would to someone who speaks English. There's no perceived need to split them apart with spaces, any more than someone who speaks English would feel a need to split apart \"sailboat\". \n\nAs a practical matter, Chinese is probably harder to learn to WRITE than English, but isn't necessarily harder to learn to READ. It's been proven that native speakers of English and Chinese both read their native languages EXACTLY the same way -- by shape. At the end of the day, when you know the difference between \"to\", \"too\", and \"two\", you're applying exactly the same kind of knowledge that enables someone who knows Chinese to instantly recognize the difference between written words like \"horse\" and \"mother\" (both of which can be Romanized as \"ma\", but have very different characters, and obviously have very different meanings).\n\nFifty years ago, Chinese was at a definite disadvantage when it came to primitive computers... written Chinese was just too complex for 8-bit computers to deal with, and just can't be rendered into a tiny 16x16 grid of pixels without mangling it almost beyond recognition. However, we now have Unicode, Wubizixing input (a way to touch-type Chinese with a PC keyboard that enables most Chinese characters to be typed with two or three keystrokes... someone who's good at it can achieve speeds comparable to touch-typing English at 140wpm), and phones & computers with 240dpi displays that can render even dense, complicated characters just fine.",
"Writing seems to have been invented at least twice (in Mesopotamia and Central America), possibly as many as four times (the previous plus Egypt and China). All of the earliest writing systems were literal pictures of the thing you were writing, so the symbol for \"house\" would be a little picture of a house, \"person\" would be a drawing of a person, etc.\n\nOver time, these symbols got simplified and rushed, just like your signature doesn't look much like your name after you write it ten thousand times.\n\nSince it's tough to come up with a picture for *everything* (how would you draw the words \"honor\" or \"interest\"?), and you need to write down names, which don't have literal meanings, some cultures invented an \"acrophonic\" system, in which the symbol for a word also means the sound of the beginning of the word. So the symbol for \"apple\" could also mean \"a\", a butterfly could mean \"b\", and so on.\n\nIn some languages, this system wasn't really used much, but in others it totally took over, and people stopped using the \"symbol=word\" system entirely.\n\nThere was one final important change: most of the early writing systems were written from top down, but some cultures found it easier to write left-to right because of the tools they were using, so they turned their clay tablets sideways to do the writing, then just started reading it that way too.\n\nEnglish is written with the Latin alphabet, which descends from the Greek alphabet, which derives from sideways-rotated Phoenecian, which was an alphabet system derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs through acrophony. If anything, ours is the weirder writing system!\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Inventions_of_writing"
]
] |
||
2gfm5x
|
cores in a graphics card. why/how does the number of cores matter?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gfm5x/eli5_cores_in_a_graphics_card_whyhow_does_the/
|
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"In simple terms, each core allows the processor to make one calculation / operation at any given moment in time. \n\nSo, even if you have a really high performance single-core processor that can perform billions of operations per second, the fact remains that it can only process one single operation at a given time and operations must be queued up in sequence and performed one after another.\n\nThe advantage of a multi-core processor is that, even though each core may not be high performing (in terms of operations per second), together multiple cores can be integrated together to allow many operations to be performed simultaneously (at precisely the same time) rather than performing the operations sequentially. \n\nWhen software takes advantage of the extra processing cores, huge increases in performance can be gained. This is especially true for graphics processing which benefits greatly from increases in parallel computational power (where multiple operations can be performed simultaneously across many cores)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
ekawwx
|
if a cold is started by a virus, why does it seem that people easily catch cold with sudden temperature differences?
|
Basically we went out exercising yesterday near the beach, took our jackets off when we were sweating. Today I’m in bed rest w a stuffy nose and all muscles hurting xD
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ekawwx/eli5_if_a_cold_is_started_by_a_virus_why_does_it/
|
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"We are pretty much constantly being exposed to viruses. We just fight them off easily, because we have immune systems on alert that take out the random virus invader.\n\nExtreme temperature swings, though, can affect that. We usually notice it with cold. When it gets really cold out, and we don't adequately protect ourselves, we can lower that immune system's ability to fight. Basically, making your physical body weaker also makes your immune system weaker. When that happens, those random interlopers have a better chance at spreading through your body. That's when we \"get sick\".\n\nWe associate this with cold and winter because those are the conditions under which we are most often affected. However, it does happen in high temperatures, too. And if you were working out, you were making yourself physically weak and putting it at higher risk. Keep going, though, because as you work out your body will get stronger over time, which will make your entire body healthier, including your immune system.",
"You probably didnt catch the cirus the day before since it takes a couple of days to start showing symptoms. I think for the most part people get sick during cold days because people tend to gather indoors increasing their exposure to viruses",
"When cold outside, people tend to stay inside more. Thus, being around close proximity to more people. Therefore, you are more likely to come into contact with a virus that could affect you.\n\nAlso, add this factor into what others have said, and it's the perfect recipe.",
"It's entirely possible (and more than likely) that your symptoms have nothing to do with a virus. You were exercising which can lead to sore muscles. You were exercising outdoors which, depending on the environment, can lead to exposure to airborne allergens and pollutants which can lead to nasal congestion. If sudden changes in temperature were a cause of illness then everyone in cultures where saunas are used in cold climates would probably be sick constantly.",
"Your situation is just a coincidence; you contracted the illness a day or two BEFORE you exercised.\n\n\"Sudden temperature differences\" have no meaningful effect on your immune system. Extreme temperatures can weaken your immune system, but that's not relevant unless you're experiencing hypothermia or baking in an oven.\n\nThe people who pointed out that cold weather dries out mucus membranes and causes humans to congregate in larger numbers in enclosed spaces are correct, but that has nothing to do with \"sudden temperature differences.\"\n\nEverything else that everyone else wrote is complete bullshit. Changes in temperature don't weaken your immune system. Exercise does not weaken your immune system. That's not how human bodies function. If you think about it for just a second, you'll realize why this makes sense. What kind of organism would evolve the ridiculous limitation of not being able to physically move without getting sick?? And how does an external temperature difference weaken your immune system when your body maintains a constant internal temperature?? Furthermore, if temperature changes destroyed immune systems, how would cold-blooded animals survive!? Their \\*internal\\* temperature can swing tens of degrees every single day. Wouldn't their immune systems basically be non-functioning? reddit has failed you here.",
"Common cold virus replicates better at low temperatures, which is why it does better in the airways. From animal studies, some scientists have concluded that it replicates better at 5ºC, so if you already have the virus, a temperature drop will be enough to kick start it. It's not just because people stay inside more.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"Another reason for the prevalence of illness in cold conditions is that airborn pathogens travel better in cool dry air."
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|
2coz2l
|
what would happen if no one in the world worked for a day?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2coz2l/eli5_what_would_happen_if_no_one_in_the_world/
|
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"If those in certain professions, like police of medicine, didn't work for a day, there would be some bad things.\n\nOtherwise, it would be much like Christmas Day. Most everyone can afford to take a day off without much consequence (particularly if it's planned in advance).",
"We'd all have a lot more work to do the next day.",
"This is a genuinely interesting thought. not sure why it is getting down-voted. there are lots of jobs that cant afford to have off days. notably power plants. if nobody worked these for even a day, they will mostly all shut down (save for a few solar and wind farms) this will leave most of the world with no power. this will cause the world to explode into riots because nobody will have internet on their day off.",
"Now commencing this year's annual Purge.",
"Alot of critically sick patients in hospitals would die without anyone to administer medication, perform surgery, place them on ventilators or perform CPR... It would be very tragic",
"Let's analyze this more critically.\n\nFirst, which professions are critical? We can obviously ignore middle management, and the corner store clerk, but Police, fire, emt's are a given so we'd have to hope that no one decided to steal anything, get in a fight, or set anything on fire.\n\nNext are hospitals. I'm sure that most patients could be stabilized for 24 hours, but there's considerable chance something could become unstable and some people would probably die.\n\nNow lets consider the prison system. It could probably be set up so none of the prisoners would starve, but you give an entire prison 24 hours unsupervised, and I guarantee someone is going to get out of their cell and start a riot.\n\nI see a lot of people mentioning power stations. Most power plants are self sufficient, so probably nothing. They are also designed to fail safe, so you might get a couple of shutdowns, but not much more. Certainly not a catastrophic across the country blackout (again assuming no one purposefully tried to cause one when no one was looking). But what about nuclear? It's true, the older plants could go critical, but again there are many many fail safes and barring something like an earthquake they wont reach critical mass. Also newer nuclear plants, like the ones they put in subs since power plants haven't been built since the 50s, are designed with a negative coefficient of something (forgot the word at the moment), but basically if it starts getting out of control, the reaction actually starts impairing itself.\n\nTL;DR: If you assume no crime, and preparations work perfectly so nothing fails unexpectedly, not a whole lot. Some people in critical condition might die, as well as anyone that had a major accident, but people die all the time. In reality, the simple absence of a police force would probably cause rioting and it's downhill from there, as it has when police forces have gone on strike in the past.\n\nGreat question.\n\nEdit: Lots of people in critical condition would die and thanks for the gold.",
"P0rnhub would crash. ",
"There's a movie you should watch, it's called \"a day without a Mexican\" it's not exactly what you're talking about because, but you'd get the general idea. It's pretty eye opening since the movie is pretty damn accurate in what it portrays.",
"Well, this doesn't quite cover the question, but [this documentary](_URL_0_), called Aftermath: Population Zero covers what would happen if humans just disappeared.",
"Something else to ask might be \"How long ago in history do you have to go back before this wouldn't have mattered?\"",
"A lot of stuff will get done.",
"I don't know. Let's find out...",
"It would really suck for whoever had to come in the next day",
"Could you imagine all the horror Congress would get having a day off? Oh wait...",
"Sound like the perfect [what if xkcd question](_URL_0_). ",
"Ask the residents of Miranda. \n\nYou cannot stop the signal. You can never stop the signal. ",
"Cows on dairy farms would all die from mastitis. They MUST be milked on time. ",
"Duhh, nothing would happen, literally nothing...",
"Well, for one thing, dairy cows would be really, really unhappy.",
"I think the real question is, what would people do on a worldwide day off",
"I would finally have a day off.",
"[This](_URL_0_) is semi-relevant as it references some potential problems implicitly but it's about if everyone gathered in one place",
"Most of the answers I'm seeing are things like \"everyone would die\" or \"havoc would ensue.\" And they're right. But this is actually an interesting question. If we define \"work\" to be someone's regular, salaried job, that means that there would be no office workers (boo hoo), sanitation staff, construction workers, firemen, police, military, security guards, EMTs, doctors, nurses, government officials, truck drivers, pilots, air traffic controllers, power plant engineers and lots and lots of other essential people who are not \"working.\"\n\nI suppose if this were some kind of planned worldwide strike, we would see it coming and could (somewhat) plan around it. First off, many people in hospitals would die due to lack of care (assuming they could stay in the hospital), and fires would kill many more without firefighters. No flights could take place, so people would have to drive for transportation. A big assumption is whether or not electricity would still be flowing, due to no workers at the power plants. Perhaps someone else with more information could correct me, but I would imagine that most power generation could run for a day without human interference (barring unexpected problems), but load balancing would be a problem, so it is likely brownouts or blackouts would occur in certain places.\n\nNo one could go shopping, since all stores would be closed, so people would have to ensure they have enough supplies for the day. This shouldn't be too large of a problem, since people often survive through natural disasters without access to power and food for a few days. It would essentially be a giant worldwide \"snow day\" and the immediate effects would probably not be too catastrophic.\n\nHowever, I would imagine problems could creep up down the line. Supply chains would be interrupted, so there would be potential lags in getting goods to market, producing items, etc. There would also be large backlogs in flights that might take days or weeks to sort out. Large factories may not be able to shut down easily for a day, and there would be numerous production problems.\n\nMy biggest concern would probably be nuclear power plants. I imagine that most have passive safety features that are designed to survive a day without operator input, but not all may. And if there were some kind of anomaly, no one would be around to sort it out. All in all, there would be a high risk of something bad happening.\n\nTL;DR it probably wouldn't result in worldwide disaster, but it would be pretty bad. At least thousands would die, but the world would likely pick itself back up the next day.",
"Lots of hospital deaths from no electricity and no surgeons/doctors/nurses available to treat. Even more deaths in the greater public with no ambulances or fire trucks or police.\n\nThieving would be rampant as no stores are open to get food or medicine and there are no cops to stop you. Murder rate would go up again because of no police.\n\nIn certain food industries our products would die off - mass farmed animals or short season crops that wither on the vine. All perishable goods would rot or decay to a point of inability to consume, resulting in millions of dollars of loss.\n\nTL:DR famine, thievery, nursery and general death. ",
"Many people would die. Think about all the people in hospitals waiting for surgeries, babies in incubators, people who need doctors and nurses to perform procedures and administer medications. Mostly what I can think of is medically related.",
"You should have an international soccer tournament and see what happens.",
"Ayn Rand would arise from the grave and write a sequel to Atlas Shrugged.",
"You never specified if there was warning. I'll assume not.\n\nNo one worked? No governments? No city planning? No law enforcement? Crime in the urban cities would be crazy. Mass looting everywhere. Every fire that broke out would go unchecked and have the possibility of spreading. Depending on the place and time of year it would be catastrophic. Anything that required even the smallest of adjustments to operate daily would fail. This COULD be city power plants depending on the scenario. Oil rigs, nuclear subs, battleships. \n\nIf it wasn't world wide we would be invaded. ",
"There is a documentary on this. It is called \"The Purge\"\n",
"Pornhub server would crash",
"assuming it was a planned event, it wouldn't be that bad. the lack of police, fire, and medical services would be a problem, but honestly not *that* much happens that demands their attention. ",
"What is more interesting is if they knew ahead of time they weren't coming into work that day; and if they knew that other people weren't coming in at all. What if tomorrow no one showed up for work? Everyone just had an excuse or emergency. And for some reason no one called or checked in or anything. Now that, would make one hell of a story.",
"Everyone would be really bored, because so many of the things you want to do on your day off rely on the fact that someone else turns up for work.",
"My boss would find a way to make me go in.",
"People would die waiting for ambulances to arrive or at emergency rooms, or waiting for the police and firemen to arrive",
"bill and melinda would have to take out their own garbage and cook their own meals",
"A great brazilian musician made a music about that....\n\nyou can watch the clip [here](_URL_0_)\n\nO dia em que a Terra parou (The day that the Earth stopped )\n\nlyrics\n\n This night I had a dream\n of dreamer\n Crazy that I am, I dreamed\n with the day that the Earth stopped\n with the day that the Earth stopped\n it was like this\n A day that all people\n of whole planet\n They decided that nobody would leave the house\n As if it were combined across\n the planet\n that day, nobody left house, nobody\n\n The employee didn't leave to your job\n because he knew that employer also wasn't there\n housewife didn't leave to buy bread\n because she knew that baker also wasn't there\n and the police officer didn't leave to arrest\n because he knew that thief also wasn't there\n and the thief didn't leave to rob\n Because he knew it would not have where to spend\n \n in the day that the Earth stopped\n and in the churches neither a bell to ring\n because they knew that believers also were not there\n and the believers didn't leave to pray\n because they knew that priest also was not there\n and the student didn't leave to study\n because he knew that teacher also wasn't there\n and the teacher didn't leave to teach\n Because he knew it does not have anything else to teach\n \n in the day that the Earth stopped\n the captain didn't leave to headquarters\n because he knew that soldier also wasn't there\n and the soldier didn't leave to war\n because he knew that enemy also wasn't there\n and the patient didn't leave to treat\n because he knew that doctor also wasn't there\n and the doctor didn't leave to prescribe\n Because he knew it does not have disease to cure\n \n in the day that the Earth stopped\n This night I had a dream of dreamer\n Crazy that I am, woke up\n \n \n \n in the day that the Earth stopped\n I woke up\n in the day that the Earth stopped, woke up\n in the day that the Earth stopped\n justly\n in the day that the Earth stopped\n I didn't dream, woke up\n in the day that the Earth stopped\n in the day that the Earth stopped\n in the day that the Earth stopped ",
"The line at the DMV would be even longer the next day",
"You'd be able to walk up to anyone and say \"Hi Congressman\" (or woman)",
"SNL did a skit about a situation like that. Teen tells his dad he doesn't feel like going to school. Dad says \"Fine ! What if we get everyone in the country to take the day off?\" The skit ended with \"Soviet\" soldiers coming in and rounding up the family...",
"Comcast will not be able to provide adequate customer service... wait...",
"Well there would br no police fire or medical staff so crime would be off the roof and the death toll would be up. Alot of hospital patients would die. Nobody would be working the plumbing and electrical plants so no power or water. All stores would be closed so much looting would occur TL;DR: Complete chaos. Edit: sombody said this way better than me down below oops.",
"At the stroke of midnight, everyone on the planet is transmogrified into Jeremy Clarkson. ",
"Bumper to bumper traffic everywhere on earth",
"There would be a baby boom 9 months later.",
"According to some of my facebook friends' posts, we'd all be living in an Obamaian socialist utopia\"",
"Go to bed Ayn Rand.",
"Many would die, subways would flood in NYC, things would break due to lack of power. Nuclear power plants...that's a coin toss of death. But pray there are no fires, going unchecked for a whole day, burning cities until 24 hours later the FD might be able to play catch up if the pumps are working. The fires would be the worst unless the nuke plants meltdown.",
"The government employees would get a paid day off, and hardly notice it...the rest of us would have two day of work to do the next day...",
"I love this question.",
"Rolling blackouts across North America for one thing. 50% of the power on this continent comes from coal plants, they need to be manned every hour on the hour, once one power grid falls it's like a link in a chain and you have mass power outages.",
"A lot of people would die due to lack of healthcare, and the rest of us would just spend the day bored as fuck due to lack of services and be backed up on work the next day.",
"There would be a spike in the birth rate approximately 9 months later.",
"The stock market would crash since all outstanding \"sell\" would have 0 \"buys\" so they'll hit rock bottom. ",
"You don't leave nuclear power plants unattended for a day, not even when they're shut down. That being said, power goes out...for everyone. Enter chaos mode, and choose your own adventure.",
"If no one worked, and everyone was at home the grid would get wrecked. The way the electrical grid is set up is only half the population has their lights or ac on at any one time. \n\nBecause the other half is at work (night crew vs day crew) service such as public transit would be shut down. Gas stations would be closed. No one would be able to leave their house for service because no activity like movies, bars, or restaurants would have people to run them.\n\n So every home would have people, unless they went to a park. That would stress the power grid so much more than the big blackout. So power would be done. The system would overheat 100%\n\nIt would be a catastrophe. No one working for a day would be the equivalent of half if every city just being destroyed by a hydrogen bomb. And if would take months to recover.\n"
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||
1kpuw4
|
why do i have such moments of clarity as i fall asleep at night
|
Sometimes when I'm trying to fall asleep at night some things will Just hit me like a ton of bricks. Like I know the right answer to something that has been on my mind all day, Or ill realize something that Just wasn't clear to me hours earlier
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kpuw4/why_do_i_have_such_moments_of_clarity_as_i_fall/
|
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"because your attentive consciousness is usually busy taking up all of your awareness, while subconscious processes are going on in the background. once your consciousness begins to shut down, and there is no external stimulus to distract you, the things that have been percolating in the subconscious mind can start to come through."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
7715qp
|
are angry and belligerent drunks just people who are angry inside, and their inhibitions are removed?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7715qp/eli5_are_angry_and_belligerent_drunks_just_people/
|
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"Yes and no.\n\nAlcohol does different things to different people depending on different factors like their mood, how much sleep they’ve had, how much they’ve eaten. Generally, if you’re a belligerent drunk then alcohol just isn’t for you",
"Alcohol is a depressant. This means that it's inhibiting other systems in your body that keep various things in check.\n\nHow this works out for an individual depends on the current homeostasis their body has, and what parts of that are based on active suppression.\n\nSo someone who depends on continual supreme mental control to keep themselves from becoming outwardly angry will fly off the handle when drunk, whereas someone who makes healthy life choices and avoids putting themselves in situations where they would become frustrated/angry will likely just get sleepy when drunk. Everyone else falls somewhere in between.",
"To some degree yes. But since the *average* person has at least a little anger inside, it's not quite that simple. Some people still won't act out even when drunk, while others lose all perspective.",
"Most people don’t have an actual understanding of what anger is, what function it serves, or even why they are angry. They simply feel and “know” when they are angry.\n\nIn humans, the emotion of “anger” is a byproduct of unmet expectations and is typically fueled by a poor ability to predict undesired outcomes and/or accept responsibility for them.\n\nEvolutionarily speaking, we tend to express this emotion and frustration as a feedback mechanism in hopes that we can affect future outcomes or potentially keep them from repeating.\n\nI will present two extremes:\n\nSome people go through life angry at everything. Nothing ever seems to go according to plan. Everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault. Life just isn’t going the way it should. There is a general mismatch between how reality and cause and effect work compared to the person’s expectations. When drinking, this person’s ability to think things through calmly and logically becomes even less capable. Additionally, their overall ability to suppress their emotions is inhibited by the depressive effects of the alcohol. A person in this scenario is likely to be an angry drunk, lashing out at imaginary demons and even their loved ones who they may be blaming for their current position in life. The last thing an angry drunk does is accept responsibility for why things are wrong. Even when they do accept responsibility, they fail to accept their own flawed nature (and are then angry at themselves).\n\nOn the other side of the spectrum, there are people who are well centered and take life in stride. They understand that sometimes life is predictable, and sometimes it isn’t. They understand that cause and effect is a thing. They understand that the reason they might be having a hard time and in a predicament is because they made a series of choices along the way. If they poke a bear, they don’t get angry at the bear when it bites them. When their toddler touches a hot stove, they don’t get angry at the toddler, because they understand that toddlers do stupid things because they are toddlers. This type of person is typically slow to anger across the board, because of their overall mindset and worldview. When they drink, the depressive affects of the alcohol tend to make them sleepy, or might heighten their other emotional states (such as crying and laughing).\n\nP.S. Full disclaimer: This is just my current understanding of how it all works, based on my own personal observations and years of introspection. I might be completely wrong?",
"Alcohol lowers inhibitions and impulse control. Some people, when their inhibitions are down, will just want to dance, or be more of a bon vivant. But others have a lot of inner anger and resentment. Alcohol reduces your ability to process multiple sources of outside information (like the information needed to properly drive). But to a person that already has trouble dealing with the world - such as having an inflated ego so that they see themselves as a colossus, but the outside world sees them as average - there becomes an even bigger breakdown in the information they receive, the processing of that information, and actual reality. So a minor accident - bumping into someone - becomes a major assault in their eyes. Their inhibitions are down, so instead of thinking about the consequences of starting a fight, they just do it. ",
"Alcohol is a amplifier of emotions as well. You're chattier, your happier, everything is great can turn into someone bumping into you hard, not apologising, and then you can get supremely angry and do things you would never have done had you been sober. ",
"Funny thing is, not only does alcohol do different things to different people, but different types of alcohol have differenct effects.\nI have one particular friend who, when he gets drunk is the funniest guy I know. He would leave your face aching from laughing. Until he drinks whiskey. Then hes a complete wanker.\n\nMy wife gets giddy after a few glasses of wine but give her one vodka and she will cry all night long.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5nrt0j
|
why are so many internet/tv companies rebranding? (fios > frontier, twc > spectrum)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nrt0j/eli5_why_are_so_many_internettv_companies/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dcds8k1"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"TWC was bought by Charter Communications. So they're not really rebranding as much as they're transitioning from the old company to the new one. Spectrum is just a Charter brand. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
22rz1u
|
does the ocean have laws and who decides them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22rz1u/eli5_does_the_ocean_have_laws_and_who_decides_them/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cgprq8c"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Yes, it has laws, but as you can imagine they're fairly hard to enforce.\n\nBefore you get out to international waters (12 miles out), though, countries have more specific laws and more control.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea"
]
] |
||
1i97ek
|
what's the difference between information and knowledge?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i97ek/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_information_and/
|
{
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],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Information is facts. Knowledge is knowing how all those work together. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
ct1mu1
|
why do teenagers have the "teenage rebellion period"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ct1mu1/eli5_why_do_teenagers_have_the_teenage_rebellion/
|
{
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"exi17e1",
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"text": [
"As kids age, they naturally push the boundaries placed on them. By the teenage years when you add in the hormones with puberty, they are driven to establish their own identity. This may or may not involve rejecting whatever identity and values their parents and other authority figures have placed on them.",
"Children cannot be rebellious for survival, they are dependent on their parents and need to be submissive, also they don't know much and learn from theirparents so they instinctively want to be like them. \n\nBut adults need to be independent and think for themselves and do what is useful to them, not obey their parents and copy them. But they also need to be able to get along with people and learn from them. \n\nThe teenage years are the transition period. They need to become independent. Just not being submissive and copying their parents is such a large change that it feels like rebellion. And since teenagers are new to being independent many take it too far before they find balance"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6fc04l
|
the sun has a peak on instesity at wavelengths that correspond to the green color, does it has any association with plants being green?
|
Well since I learned that most of the light that comes from the sun is green, I have had this weird idea. If most of the light is green, then why are plants green? wouldn't it make sense for plants to have another color so that they instead of repeling green, they could get the most out of it.
Edit: not sure how to flair this, Physics and biology, and chemistry?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fc04l/eli5_the_sun_has_a_peak_on_instesity_at/
|
{
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"text": [
"A good explanation is given here\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThere isn't a consensus answer why plants are green. But some ideas are that by reflecting the green light it prevents the leaves from over heating, the leaves are already getting all the light they can use (photosynthesis also needs CO2, so if you are shining a really bright light on a leaf, CO2 will be your limiting reagent and you can't make any more sugar), chlorophyll is evolutionarily the best molecule, early bacterial life used green and plants evolved to use the red and blue light they didn't use.",
"Sunlight as a whole is way more energy than a plant needs, and too intense of a light can damage the delicate chemical reactions that derive energy from the sun. Thus, predominantly green pigments filter out the bulk of the light that would otherwise be damaging.\n\nPlus, there are other colored pigments in most leaves... it just looks green overall. You can see the colors of the other pigments when leaves turn colors in the fall.",
"It may be as simple as the organisms using chlrophyll being able out compete all others. See this video for the Purple Eerth Theory.:\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BRP4wcSCM0"
],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNGH7jl0zXg"
]
] |
|
44x4se
|
gm and why they have so many brands
|
why is their approach so different than other car companies when using so many brands for their vehicles?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44x4se/eli5_gm_and_why_they_have_so_many_brands/
|
{
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"text": [
"Plenty of car companies have many different brands. Ford's got like 8, VW has got like 50....\n\nGM has different brands for different markets. Their luxury line is Cadillac. People who buy Cadillacs probably don't want to buy Chevy's. It allows them to market towards different people. Also, over the years GM has purchased other car companies. Rather than just envelope everything under the Chevy name, they maintained the brand they purchased so they didn't lose the market share the brand already had.",
"It's actually not that different from several other brands. Audi was once the Auto Union, the four rings representing the four brands that came together under one label. Now they're a part of an automotive group that includes Volkswagen, Porsche, Lamborghini, Ducati, Bentley, Bugatti, Skoda, and many more. ",
"They are various brands/companies they acquired over the years. Some of them are kept around because they represent a different class of cars like Cadillacs are the luxury line. They did discontinue a few brands back during the recession. Pontiac, Saturn and Oldsmobile are not made anymore.",
"GM has half of what they used to have... they now have Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, GMC. These are a mainstream, a slightly upscale, and a luxury car brands plus a truck brand.\n\nIn the past, they also had Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer. Most had specific focus or demographics they were targeting... well, other than that Oldsmobile and Buick were basically the same. Pontiac targeted performance. Saturn was GM's answer to smaller imports. Hummer sold military-inspired SUVs. But it didn't make sense to keep so many brands around, and so they folded many of them about a decade ago.\n\nFor and Chrysler also have narrowed their portfolio of domestic brands, with Chrysler shuttering the Plymouth brand and Ford killing off Mercury. Ford also sold off Volvo, Jaguar, Range Rover, and Aston-Martin that they owned. Chrysler was merged with Mercedes for a time, and is now owned by Fiat, which also owns Maserati, Alfa Romeo and other European makes. Also, VW Group includes Volkswagon, Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti.",
"Many of GM's brands used to be independent car makers who were later acquired.\n\nAlso, many states have laws that require a car maker to compensate dealers if they discontinue a brand, which makes doing so a very expensive proposition.",
"Their approach really isn't all that different than most, as other have already said.\n\nYou should also keep in mind the history of the automotive industry, and GM's former position in it. From the 1930s to about ten years ago GM sold more cars in any given year than any other carmaker in the world. In North America in particular—at the time by far the biggest market for cars—they were enormous. In the 1960s, at their peak, almost **half** of all cars sold in North America were built by General Motors.\n\nFor perspective, last year the highest-selling passenger car in the United States was the Toyota Camry; they sold about 430,000 of them. In 1965 GM sold *over a million* Chevy Impalas.\n\nPrior to the 1970s very few \"import\" carmakers, carmakers from outside North America, had much of a presence there. The largest in the US were Volkswagen and (believe it or not) Renault, but they represented a paltry few percent of the market. Today in North America there are still many \"North American\" brands available: Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Ford, Lincoln, Chrysler, Dodge, \"RAM\" (Dodge trucks...), Jeep. There are also many \"import\" brands, many more than were available in the 1960s: Toyota, Lexus, Scion (although not for long), Honda, Acura, Nissan, Infiniti, Mazda, Subaru, Mitsubishi, BMW, Mini, Mercedes-Benz, Smart, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, etc. \n\nThese \"imports\" are also much more readily available than they used to be, buoyed in the 1960s by far stronger growth in their home markets. After the Second World War Europe and Asia were in economic ruin, but Western Europe (West Germany in particular) and Japan experienced enormous industrial growth in the post-war years. Their populations couldn't afford to own American cars so the local automakers built smaller, simpler cars instead. Cars like the original Mini, the Citroen 2CV, the Fiat 500 and of course the Beetle became very popular across Europe, and in Japan their fledgling auto industry learned a lot very quickly over the 1950s and '60s. By the 1970s the Japanese companies started expanding outside their home market.\n\nAll of this, combined with several miscues over the 1970s to present, reduced GM's (and Ford and Chrysler's) worldwide market share. It's nowhere near as high as it used to be; really, it didn't have anywhere else to go but down.\n\nBut, if you go back to the 1960s and your options for \"import\" cars in the US were almost entirely limited to Volkswagens and British sports cars, it makes more sense that GM, Ford and Chrysler had many more brands. There were so many cars being sold at the time and they alone were selling so many of them that they had these brands to cover every market niche. GM had Chevrolet as their 'every-man' brand, Pontiac as the 'sporty' brand, Oldsmobile as the technically-advanced brand, GMC trucks, Buick as the just-a-step-below-a-Cadillac brand, and Cadillac as... well, believe it or not Cadillacs were considered very, very luxurious at the time, like a Rolls-Royce or Bentley today. Ford had Ford, Mercury and Lincoln (and previously Edsel, which failed because it wasn't distinguished enough from a Mercury). Chrysler Corporation built Chrysler (akin to a Buick or Mercury), Imperial (luxury), Dodge (\"sporty\"), Plymouth (\"every-man\"). There were smaller American carmakers too: Kaiser-Frazer (who built Jeeps too) and American Motors (Rambler/Nash, Hudson). The North American home market was so enormous compared to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world's cars perceived to be so inadequate for North American needs, that the American manufacturers were by far the largest in the world.\n\nTL;DR: GM used to be so big that almost half of all cars in the world were built by them in the '60s. They didn't have the competition they do today, so had more brands to cover more niches in the market back then. It took a long time for them to consolidate their offerings."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4a6x8l
|
why does food lose its 'crunch' when microwaved?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a6x8l/eli5_why_does_food_lose_its_crunch_when_microwaved/
|
{
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3
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"Microwaving food heats up the water in the food. Pizza, for example, is usually heated to the point where the water turns into steam and makes the dough really soggy.",
"This is not true with all foods. If you have stale tortilla chips or stale potato chips, microwaving them in 30 second increments will drive off some of the moisture in the chips that give them the stale texture and make make them crisp again."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2gmh0d
|
why does harmony sound good?
|
This has been a question that has been incessantly been bugging me for about two years. And that question is: "Why does harmony sound good?" I'm not asking how harmony works (that would be musical theory), but why certain notes (when played together), sound good to the ear. Is it a cultural thing (such as being used to those notes together), or is it a deep psychological response to the interaction of the sound waves. Anyway, I'm intrigued to find the answer to this burning question, and I look forward to seeing a response.
-----
Happy Redditing!
-----
P.S. By harmony, I mean consonance, because, let's face it, dissonance is technically harmony, but it doesn't exactly sound good, does it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gmh0d/eli5_why_does_harmony_sound_good/
|
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"text": [
"One undeniable aspect of why harmony \"sounds good\" and is deeply appealing to people is the relationship between frequency and harmony. Every common interval between notes that can be played on the piano (or any fixed note instrument) has a specific mathematical relationship between them. I.E. going up an octave (for example, ascending from one \"C\" on an instrument to the next \"C\") always doubles the Hertz (the amount of vibrations per second). What is known as a fifth (Examples: F# to G#, A to E, C to G) always increases the hertz by a 3/2 ratio. \n\nAnother is the major third (which is what makes a major chord major). There is a 5/4 ratio between the notes. Always. No matter if you're talking about the lowest bass, the the highest violin notes and beyond. The hertz (or frequency) always expounds at those rates.\n\nBasically, (simple) harmony always has a fixed and unusually straight-forward mathematical relationship between the notes.",
"Harmony sounds good because you've only really ever listened to music that was derived from western Europe. This meaning that music like Dufay, Josquin, Telemann, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Schubert, Schumann, Bruckner, Mahler, etc... all use and were building upon their predecessors works, a style of composing that has been used, and re-used for centuries. \n\nDissonance can sound good, if you've ever heard Wagner's opera's, which I'm most certain you have heard some snippets, his use of dissonance is what makes his music so intense and gripping. \n\nBasically, it's a cultural thing. If you've ever heard Gamalan, (Lots of different sized gongs) it uses quarter tone tuning, meaning things sound extra dissonant to our ears, but to the people of Java, it sounds quite pleasing. \n\nIt's all subjective to personal preference anyway...\n\nMusic school taught me that.",
"Because we're all just walking talking pattern recognizers. Since music and sound in general are patterns (wavelength), we recognize when they're in certain arrangement as good, and when they aren't as bad. As others has said in this thread, what good and bad sounds are vary from culture to culture."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
aoozxr
|
why does it feel like i read about "major advancement in cancer treatment" every other year ? it's always something about a breakthrough and a possible treatment "in the next 5 years", but then it's repeat. what's the state of cancer treatment ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aoozxr/eli5_why_does_it_feel_like_i_read_about_major/
|
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"\"Cancer\" is not just one disease. It's an umbrella term that encompasses all kinds of uncontrolled cell replication. Every kind of cancer is a different disease with their own possible causes and treatments.\n\nJournalism often fails to make that distinction clearly. When new treatments come around, they are usually relevant to only some cancers, and it takes a long time to go through clinical trials to pin down exactly which cancers it is effective for.\n\nSo, lots of treatments for lots of cancers, and they take a long time to develop and test.\n\nEdit:\nSome people feel I didn't answer the question well enough. So, the current state of cancer treatment varies a lot depending on the kind of cancer. Overall, the trend is strongly in favour of better survival rates because the march of progress is going as quickly as it can. For example, prostate cancer survival rates are actually really good nowadays as long as it's found early. On the other hand, pancreatic cancer is still usually a death sentence; that one is still a bigger challenge than most because you don't know you have it until it's too late. Since every kind of cancer is different, it's hard to generalize. Suffice it to say that all of the seemingly fleeting reports about new treatments definitely do bear fruit in the statistical big picture. ",
"a lot of the too good to be true is just good old scams. looking for attention and funding for snake oil.\n\nOthers are in earnest, but are celebrated prematurely, lots of things work in mice and fall apart on the way to humans.\n\nand the rest, they come around, but the fine print is that it applies to 1 type of cancer, and while effective, probably is not a miracle cure with 100% success.",
"They are having major breakthroughs, cancer used to be a death sentence even for the types we now consider minor.",
"Clinical trials can take over 10 years and cost billions of dollars (yes, Billion) for major oncology drugs. Many of these miracles don’t get past the first or second stages of trials. ",
"So many cancers....so little time. I mean hell, Leukemia is a cancer of the blood. Not really comparable with breast cancer, for example. One thing is for sure is that treatment is slowly improving. ",
"It may also have something to do with it seeming like a breakthrough in lab, but to actually get through all the red tape of the FDA and to make sure it is actually helpful for patients, a lot of drugs/therapies require a 5-year+ randomized control trials. So what seems like breakthroughs now will become commonplace sometime in the next 5 years. ",
"Part of the problem is that unless you or a close relative has cancer you probably aren’t aware of the treatment options available or the survival rates. \n\nI remember hearing one of these stories about a possible cancer vaccine a few years ago. When my dog got sick a couple years ago they actually offered it as a possible treatment. I was kind of amazed that it actually made to treatments. If my dog wasn’t sick I probably still wouldn’t know that treatment was being used clinically. ",
"Early studies show promise, but it doesn't pan out is one reason. Also a major break through to a layman is not the same thing to a doctor. It could be a major break through in diagnosis or in treatment not necessarily a way to cure. Estimates by media also might not be accurate, I try to at least double the time.",
"Like others have said, there is no blanket treatment for cancer. Progress is being made though. Take a look at CAR-T Immunotherapy treatments. There is currently a [treatment for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma](_URL_0_) which utilizes a patients own T-Cells to fight off the cancer. It was FDA approved in 2017 and has had some great success. ",
"Its because the media is irresponsible and reports on studies that haven't even finished clinical trials yet. And clinical trials take many years.",
"There are many kinds of cancer. Cancer is uncontrolled cell growth basically.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe thing to understand is that there has been a lot of improvement in cancer treatments and survivability. One article notes reduction in smoking and early detection as two of the reasons. Cancer mortality has dropped 27% in the last 25 years.\n\nThat is no miracle but it is solid improvement.\n\nThe interesting thing to think about is that ultimately, if we get really good at treating all the other things that kill you, cancer is likely the thing you will die from.\n\nIt's kind of like the catch all mortality disease. If you take really good care of yourself and you're in great shape at 100 years old, you could still come down with a disease, like ALS for example. You are sure to die from that one. Then, suddenly, a cure was found for ALS. \n\nYou would be lucky, but given enough time, eventually one of the cancers will get you. It's kind of like the body's built in self destruct.",
"I don't have cancer, but I have type 1 diabetes. 24 years ago, when I was diagnosed with it, they said a cure was 10 years away. When I started visiting a new endocrinologist last year, in 2018, I was told a cure was 10 years away.\n\nIn addition, when I see new stories about major advances in diabetes they are clearly written by journalists that have no fucking clue what they're talking about. The \"major advances\" are almost entirely gimmicks, that are sometimes cool in a conceptual way, but in no way impact the lives of actually diabetes or progress toward a cure. For example, earlier this week I saw a post on Reddit that was about how scientists are making an insulin pill that injects insulin in the stomach. While that's interesting actually using it would be a major step backward for the gold standard of treating diabetes, an insulin pump. ",
"I agree with lots of people saying the label cancer is broad. But you also have to remember it takes years for a drug to become available. There’s tons of testing that goes into it, and even then after years of development almost all medications get denied release.",
"Many of the answers here are good answers on why cancers isn't just one thing and so theres always something new.\n\nBut one thing more to note is that it is precisely because certain treatments work, people live longer and then develop more cancers! Previously if you wouldve died of a prostate cancer at 50, surgical improvements led to you living to 70 and then (as you are likely pre-disposed to it) you will get the cancer again and still die from it. Better treatments let you live longer, it doesn't make you cancer proof.",
"As has been explained, Cancer is a huge umbrella term. Another issue is that presenting a completely accurate \"No Fluffing it up\" version of the truth, that Science is making a slow but steady pace towards a cure towards several independent diseases that we call cancer, then it wouldn't get clicks or sell papers or what have you.\n\nIn general though, for the actual state of cancer treatment, it's probably a bit underfunded, but in general it's doing just fine and marching steadily along.",
"My dad is a pediatric oncologist and I’m a current med student. I’ve gained so much respect for my dad since starting school and learning about the details of cancer, because I’ve realized that there’s literally an infinite amount of types of cancer. There’s no one size fits all treatment for it and there probably never will be.\n\nDid you design a drug that targets cancer by binding to a specific receptor on tumor cells? Well the tumor cells can just mutate and not display that receptor anymore, so your drug won’t work.\n\nDid you design a drug that shuts down the cell cycle of cancer cells? Well cancer can just decide to start producing a protein that activates the cycle again anyways.\n\nIn my opinion, cancer and mental health issues will probably always be the hardest diseases to treat.\n\n",
"In some cancers they have made strides for cures. \nIn others there is very little they can do and the mortality rate hasn't changed in 50+ years. And sadly that mortality rate is 100%. No new drugs. Very few options. DIPG sucks. ",
"Not a medical professional here, but once while speaking to an oncologist, he basically put it in the simplest layman’s terms that cancer is essentially malfunctioning cells of the body that replicate and could impair other organs from working properly thereby leading to death. \n\nThe human body is made of billions upon billions of cells of different type that must replicate in the right manner. Any error in the replication process could potentially cause cancer. That error could be caused by external or internal factors. Smoking, diseases, processed foods etc. \n\nSince there are so many different types of cancer owing to the variety of cells and organs in our body, it’s impossible to have a one stop “cure” or advancement towards prevention. All the news that we read are for advancements for different types of cancer treatments",
"Well, you've got two things going on here.\n\n'Cancer' is a very vague word. Cancer of a pancreas, brain, lymph nodes, lungs, skin, heart muscle (this one is very rare, actually), tongue, bone, eye, lips, throat, esophagus.... The list goes on and on and on. And those are just the *places* you can get cancer. One treatment for cancer that works for one type of cancer might not (and probably won't) work on a different kind of cancer in the same place.\n\nSo to start with, cancer is a name given to cells that divide 'wrong' and we have so many different kinds of cells and different ways they can start dividing 'wrong' that 'cancer' covers a broader range of subjects than saying 'academia'.\n\nIf you ask 'what is the state of academia?' you can't really get a proper answer. Are you talking the sciences? Social sciences? Uniform advancement in general? The professors? The students? America? China? Russia? The UK?\n\nYou have to be incredibly specific to get an answer to 'what is the state of academia' and in the same token, you have to be extremely specific in the question of 'what is the state of cancer treatment'.\n\nBeyond the broad range of subjects that 'cancer treatment' covers, many things that are touted as breakthroughs 'in the next five years' might have hit stumbling blocks, been delayed, or proven just to not work at all in human patients.\n\nI mean, if I submerse cancer cells in pure hydrochloric acid the cancer isn't going to survive, but neither is the person with the cancer in them.\n\nIn the same way, a treatment might cause white blood cells to attack cancer cells, but when trialed it might also cause white blood cells to attack the patient's brain as well.\n\nSo between the sheer amount of different 'cancers' out there and different ways they could be treated and the like, you're going to hear about 'breakthroughs' in cancer treatment for the rest of your life, and it likely isn't going to slow down, ever.",
"There won't be a single magic \"cure\" for cancer, ever. Because cancer isn't a disease! It's just a family of hundreds of different types of diseases with different causes that share just one attribute: uncontrolled cell growth. \n & nbsp;\n\nThere will be improvements over time on how we treat them, but it won't be a single \"cure\".",
"Because the people writing those \"major advancement in treatment\" articles aren't doctors or scientists, they're journalists, and they prioritize sensationalism over truth.",
"Most headlines are overstated by journalists, but that's not the only problem. A lot of headlines originate from academic research - basically, scientists publicizing their work so they have an easier time securing faculty positions, and institutes publicizing the work so they can increase their reputation and influence.\n\nOnce academic work is complete, it takes maybe a decade or more to move even the best of inventions/discoveries to market. And most discoveries aren't sufficient on their own to even qualify for development, because there are always caveats that aren't discussed in the articles intended for the public.",
"\"Reporter\": Ehh, what's up doc?\nScientists: So, we might have a-\n”Reporter\": Can it cure cancer?\nScientists: Well-\n\"Reporter\": SCIENTISTS CURE CANCER AND BRINGS BACK SPIDER-MAN\nActual reporters: *waits 5 years until they can actually write a scientifically correct report, though none will ever read turn*",
"I work in a lab working on immunotherapy for a variety of cancer types. A lot of people have correctly pointed out that 1) every cancer type is different and requires different treatments, so there likely won’t be a single cure, and 2) FDA trials take a long time. \n\nThe public and journalists in general aren’t very scientifically literate, so anytime a lab publishes on a drug that wipes out a specific cancer type in mice, people think it’s THE CURE. It isn’t. Experiments (both in vitro and in vivo) are heavily controlled. The mice we use in our work are genetically modified to have no immune system, so we provide the NK cells as well as the cancer cells. The mouse is just a living vessel for the experiment. In real life, you have to deal with countless variables. \n\nThe one thing that makes me crazy is the idea that there’s some big conspiracy behind cancer research and that we’re hiding the cure in order to make money off patients. Scientists generally do not get paid well. Oncologists get paid well, but the work is grueling and emotionally taxing. work with pediatric oncologists who will occasionally come into the lab dejected because one of their patients died. We see the effects of cancer daily, and it’s gut wrenching. Nobody is gleefully profiting off of this. Cancer treatment and research are incredibly expensive for a variety of reasons, but a conspiracy by big pharma isn’t one of them. ",
"Currently my top comment is a TL;DR summary of one such [major advancement](_URL_1_) in which 87 of 90 mice were cured of cancer.\n\nIn the interest of following up for you, I did a search for one of the researcher's behind that trial and found [subsequent information.](_URL_0_)\n\nTL;DR As of September 26, 2018 they had already moved on to a round of human trials involving a low dose of radiation and *in situ* injections (injections directly into their tumors).\n\nTreated tumors shrank in 26 of 29 patients, with 7 tumors shrinking enough to be considered partial responses, and 1 complete response (tumor disappeared entirely). Tumors elsewhere in the body also shrank in 25 participants. And people whose treated tumors shrank substantially saw an the strongest response in tumors elsewhere in their bodies.\n\nThe most common side effects were flu like symptoms lasting 1 to 2 days after treatment, no serious side effects were seen though one person did cease treatment after developing both a fever and confusion. Their condition improved rapidly after ceasing treatment.\n\nThe results were described as \"tantalizing, but not good enough\" and they are now conducting two additional human phase trials with some slight variations to see if they show an improved effectiveness. In another clinical trial published alongside this one, tumors shrank in 7 out of 9 patients who had melanoma.",
"Medicine moves slowly and a new treatment doesn't get widespread instantly. It's so slow we don't notice it daybyday it but we have statistics that show how more and more people are cured of cancer. ",
"OP have you heard of CAR T cells?\n\n\nIts as close to a cure as we have right now. 80% remission rate in even late stage cancers. \n\n\nAlready FDA approved and in use in the states and other countries are following. \n\n\nIts only being used for 2 cancer types now but they believe it will work on a wife variety of cancer types",
"People tend to get excited about treatments that work successfully on mice. These treatments are rarely ever successful in humans.",
"Hi, I work in drug development. Currently developing novel lung cancer treatments in international clinical trials. Several drugs I've worked on over the years are now on the market around the world.\n\nOne of the best explanations of cancer I have come across was in the book, The Emperor of All Maladies, a history of cancer.\n\nTo paraphrase, cancer as a disease is a slow inevitable march towards and off a clif. It is a disease of age but also of habit (i.e. smoking), the environment (carcinogens, asbestos), and is partially infectious (HPV and its connection to cervical cancer). The multifaceted nature of cancers causality is one of the many reasons it is so difficult to treat and even prevent.\n\nThis thread uplifts me so much; to see so many people respond to this question with the same answers I've had to explain so many times.",
"You're reading what're basically press releases from private firms looking to bump stock value or leverage a development into more VC/PE/Angel funding. It's almost always bullshit. A recent example is the Israeli dude who said they'd cure cancer next year based off a small scale low-N animal model and no human testing. Translating anything into the human model is ridiculously unlikely. \n\nNext is bullshit media with clockbait articles for revenue generation and no understanding of the science behind the reporting. After that you've got legit institutions making small improvements and filling holes in knowledge. Then you've got the unethical frauds. Yes, cancer is going to get increasingly improved outcomes, but if you read about a miracle drug then only the readers are morons. ",
"In reality, \"curing\" cancer is not so simple. Where we have made an INSANE amount of progress over the last 15-20 years is really in quality of life. This might seem odd, but there are some cancer treatments that do not increase survivability at all. However, they might do one of 2 things: delay the progress and give the patient more time, or make the person's last months or years of life be of a higher quality rather then be endlessly miserable, or both.\n\nThese are less reported on because it's not as sensational or clickbaity enough to say \"New drug treatment extends patient's life from an average 6 months life expectancy to 1.5 years!\" That extra year meant a lot to those families though.\n\nAlso, never forget this one important thing. Cancer is really the accumulation of many broken and mutated genes that one accumulates throughout their life. The cell's signalling network is amazing and has a lot of redundancy and buffers placed in to protect against some accumulation of damage to the DNA. Think of it like this. Let's say 1 protein that is necessary is activated by 3 different genes. Each gene is responsible for 33% protein production. Well, let's say the cell only needs 25% protein production for normal cell function. Why do those other genes exist? Redundancy. If one of them gets mutated (in 2 places, both the mother and father's copy of it), you still have 2 working genes and 66% protein production, cell functions normally. Well, you break all 3 you start to have problems.\n\nThus, cancer is ultimately the accumulation of enough broken genes that just by random bad luck happen to be the right key genes involved in cell replication and control pathways. These key genes are known as Oncogenes (like p53, which is a gene that triggers cell death when something is going wrong. Well, if that's broken, and the cell starts acting bad, cell can't kill itself off, and more and more damage snowballs leading to rapid cancer growth). For most cancers you need 12-20+ major genes to be completely broken for some of the hallmarks of cancer to start to show. As such, it often takes a lifetime to just accumulate enough broken genes to develop cancer. It is also why it is generally a disease of old age.\n\nObviously there are exceptions due to predispositions (which just means you receive 2 copies of every gene, one from your mom and one from your dad, and one you inherit was already broken by 1 parent, thus you only needed 1 copy to break instead of both of them to cease production of that gene). But, that is more rare. That is just pure statistical probability and bad luck, but in a population of millions, there is just going to be natural probability that some people younger occasionally accumulate the right cocktail of broken genes that leads to cancer faster than others. Of course, the process can be helped along with carcinogen exposure and radiation (like UV radiation of the sun which causes double bonded DNA breaks in the skin. SO BAD!!!).\n\nAs such, you hear about progresses made in cancer... well, one cancer might have 20 different things that need to be resolved before we can sort of tackle it. These breakthroughs often only address 1 of these issues. Of note, it's also even more complicated because there are many different pathways that lead to cancer. There isn't just one set cocktail of genes that break that lead to a certain cancer. There's countless combinations that can, and some will vary from one cell type to the next, and then there's the fringe case outliers. At the end of the day, the most effective progress we can make for society is better early detection. This will save lives. Saving lives once a cancer goes stage IV, with few exceptions, is still a very long ways off.\n",
"To most people cancer is a bit off a mystery illness. Everyone knows what it does but very few people know how it actually works.\n\nIn short cancer happens if some cell anywhere in your body develops a genetic-defect that makes it go \"Hey, you know what would be cool? If I just started uncontrollably reproducing myself!\" This can be inherited, or he result of that cell taking damage from radiation or certain chemicals, or it can happen randomly at a very low chance.\n\nThe result is an exponentially growing lump of useless cells somewhere inside of you. Eventually this lump will crush important organs or blood vessels near itself and that's when you die.\n\nIn order to beat the cancer you have to kill off all these cells. All of them. If just one of them survives it will start growing again until you have the same problem again. That's why cancer has such a high rebound rate.\n\nIf you're lucky the cancer is in a non-critical spot and you can simply operate it out. However, often you can't and that's when you use chemotherapy. \n\nChemotherapy inhibits cell division anywhere in your body. This means the cancer cells will stop reproducing and eventually die off. However so will the rest of your body if you keep it up long enough. Since usually the defective cancer cells are more unstable than your healthy cells they die first and you get cured. However, not always. (Btw your hair roots have a very high repriduction/overturn rate which is why chemo patients always loose their hair.)\n\nIn order to make a cure for cancer you need to be more specific and create a substance that attacks only the cancer cells but as little else as possible.\n\nThe trouble with that is that cancer cells aren't always the same. Remember, it can happen to just about any type of cell just about anywhere in the body in a variety of different ways.\n\nThere have been major breakthroughs in curing some of these types, but not all of them. \n\nSome ultimate cure that beats the entire illness all at once is not completely unthinkable but it's extremely unlikely. Probably the current trend will simply continue and cancer will be beaten piece by piece, type by type, until there's no unsurvivable types left.",
"The state of cancer treatment is that they'll never allow a complete cure for the disease. It's more profitable for pharma companies to treat more aggressive forms of the disease over a lifetime and that's their business model. Their research goal is to keep the patient alive as long as possible and drain their finances but at the same time keep them dependent on pharmaceuticals. ",
"Someone finds a way to kill cancer in a controlled laboratory experiment and the announcement is to get funding for human trials. These often fail.",
"Why would a pharmaceutical company threaten its $250 billion / piggy bank? Cancer is one of the most profitable things on earth, right behind banking and oil. ",
"Mainstream cancer 'research' is a just a moneymaking fraud at this point. The gold standard of cancer treatment is chemo, which has barely any effect on survival rate and has extreme and long lasting side effects."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.yescarta.com/"
],
[],
[
"https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/facts-and-figures-2019.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2018/lymphoma-sd-101-in-situ-vaccine",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7ug4pb/cancer_vaccine_eliminates_tumors_in_mice_90_of_90/dtk7tie/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
d3c7q7
|
how does chewing gum affect stress levels and digestion?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d3c7q7/eli5_how_does_chewing_gum_affect_stress_levels/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f01erm1"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"When you are eating your subconscious assumes there is no danger around so the stress hormones are reduced.\nWhen you are chewing gum your brain assumes you are safe cause you are eating or so it thinks, and reduces stress hormones.\nBut when you are chewing and masticating your stomach expects food and none is forthcoming."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6hyxii
|
why do people often get sick after pushing themselves?
|
I have noticed that oftentimes after prolonged physical and/or mental stress there is a tendency that people get sick. Is there a pattern here and if so, why does the body react this way?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hyxii/eli5_why_do_people_often_get_sick_after_pushing/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dj28fru"
],
"score": [
17
],
"text": [
"When you're under stress, your body releases the hormone cortisol, which helps in the fight-or-flight response. It readies your body to be amped up to react in stressful situations - but if you don't react accordingly, the cortisol builds up with nowhere to go.\n\nIf you keep elevating the levels of cortisol without using them, it throws your body out of balance and can adversely affect bone density, memory, weight gain, healthy heart function, cholesterol levels, and so much more.\n\nThink of it like a dehumidifier in a room. Its purpose is to collect water from the air and collect it in a bucket-like thing. If you empty it regularly, it can keep performing like it's supposed to. But if you forget about it for a while, it keeps collecting water and will eventually spill over. \n\nThe body favours being in a state of homeostasis; it's also remarkable in that you can throw a lot of crap its way and it'll adjust. But homeostasis is where it's happiest and keeping it in an extreme state for too long without relief will cause it to \"voice its displeasure\" with you and it'll show that displeasure physically."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
abeu6t
|
how does the court system (in america specifically) weed out and find unbiased jurors for high profile cases regarding celebrities?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/abeu6t/eli5_how_does_the_court_system_in_america/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eczsymr",
"eczt1lv",
"ed00sxs"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
5
],
"text": [
"First you fill out some basic paperwork with things like your occupation, religion, age, etc that will eliminate some (Preachers for example are often automatically eliminated, but not always). After that both lawyers will ask those potential jurors that remain a series of questions until they both are satisfied that they are unbiased. What a lawyer deems a biased answer will vary by lawyer, and sometimes by the tactic they are planning on using in the trial. ",
"Before any trial, there is a process of jury selection. The prosecutors and defense attorneys have to agree on 12 people out of a pool of 100’s.\n\nIt’s the prosecutors’ and defense attorneys’ job to discover and weed out biased jurors.",
"Jurors are initially selected at random. Once they are selected to sit for a specific case they can be 'weeded out' or disqualified for a particular case by three ways:\n\n1.) The judges firsts asks each juror if they do not feel they can be impartial to the case and why. If the judge accepts your reason, you're excused.\n\n2.) Challeged for Cause - either the Defense or Prosecuting attorneys identify a specific fact about a juror, through interview & questionnaires, that indicates they couldn't be impartial and request the judge excuse them on these grounds. They are allowed Unlimited Challenges for Cause\n\n3.) Pre-emptive Challenges - either the Prosecuting or Denfense attorneys can request the judge excuse a particular juror without reason. Each side is allowed a **limited** number of Pre-Emptive Challenges. \n\nIn the case of a celebrity defendant, its 'o.k.' if a juror has heard about them. Simply saying 'I've seen so-and-so's movies before so I feel I cant be impartial can I go now?' will probably not be sufficient in the judges eyes."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
dbef0r
|
dark clothes absorb more light but how is dark-skin is better than light skin under sunlight?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbef0r/eli5dark_clothes_absorb_more_light_but_how_is/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f20rx92",
"f21068x"
],
"score": [
74,
8
],
"text": [
"If the melanin(pigment) is absorbing the UV light before it gets to the bits of your skin cells that keep them alive, you're less likely to get sun burns or skin cancer from the exposure. Same principle as adding carbon black to a plastic to make it more UV resistant.\n\nThough your body also uses exposure to sunlight to make vitamin D, and too much melanin will interfere with that. Which is why people at high latitudes have lighter skin.",
"It's exactly because dark materials absorb more light that dark skin protects against UV radiation. The pigment in the cells absorbs ionizing radiation that would otherwise have a mostly unobstructed path to your DNA, which it would damage causing mutations and possibly cancer."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5os773
|
why does it seem when we get sick with a cold or flu it always seems to happen overnight. for example, we always wake up with a stuffy nose or wake up with a sore throat or just wake up feeling unwell when we're coming down with something.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5os773/eli5_why_does_it_seem_when_we_get_sick_with_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dclryyg"
],
"score": [
33
],
"text": [
"Hi! The infection itself happens a several days before you feel the first symptoms (so not in the night before you get sick). The cold and the flu are caused by different types of viruses that are mainly spread via aerosols and bodyfluids. After the infection, the virus needs some time to replicate in your body. That can take approximately 3-21 days. The onset of the symptoms can be at any time, but as you described, many people feel the first symptoms in the morning. And that's mainly because of the stresshormone \"Cortisol\" in your body. It has a lot of different functions. One of them for example is to suppress (- > \"decrease\") your immunsystem activity and inflammatory processes.\nThe amount of the secreted Cortisol is timedependand. The highest level of Cortisol in the blood can be measured around 8 o clock in the morning, the lowest concentrations can be measured in the evening. So that' s the main reason why symptoms feel worse in the morning than during the rest of the day."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5m95j5
|
why can i perceive a difference in heat that comes from a heater and heart that comes from the sun?
|
Sitting in a room accidentally overcooked by my space heater, it somehow "feels different," almost artificial, than a hot summer day even if I'm out of the sunlight. Is it all in my head, or is there some kind of change in the heat?
EDIT: I reread that title like 5 times, screw you swype!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5m95j5/why_can_i_perceive_a_difference_in_heat_that/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dc1sm1t",
"dc1tlmv"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"The big difference is probably the directionality of the heat. Heat from the sun is essentially straight-on: you can tell exactly where it's coming from.\n\nSpace heaters are smaller and closer, and 'bounce' heat around the room more. Your room probably has a different humidity too than the summer feel that you're expecting. Humidity plays a huge part in how we perceive heat.",
"What comes from the sun isn't heat. It's light, largely in the visible spectrum, because the emitting body is millions of degrees. When it hits the earth it is absorbed by your surroundings (and you) and then YOU radiate the light back. But you are not as hot as the sun. So you radiate the light back as heat waves.\n\nYour heater and everything around you is radiating light in the 'heat' frequencies'."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6fnvpu
|
how do octopi move their tentacles?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fnvpu/eli5_how_do_octopi_move_their_tentacles/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dijlgii"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Same way you move your tongue.\n\nIt has no bones, but the muscles can still contract or relax."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
bzku5s
|
canadian football.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bzku5s/eli5_canadian_football/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eqt62en"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's pretty similar to the NFL. The main difference is that there are three downs (so many more turn overs) and the field is a different size."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2qat2s
|
if forces=mass * acceleration, how is weight of non-moving objects considered a force?
|
I'm studying engineering and I still don't really understand this topic.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qat2s/eli5_if_forcesmass_acceleration_how_is_weight_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cn4enbo"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"The acceleration of an object at rest is still 9.8m/s^2, thanks to our friend gravity.\n\nThe opposite of this is \"normal force\", so the velocity gain is 0."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1mrqry
|
why is it not ok to use the term oriental when describing someone's ethnicity?
|
Just like the title reads. I am curious why this it not OK. I used the term Oriental to describe someone and I was told I cannot say that. Asian is the correct term to use. I was confused by this because Asian would not accurately describe any ethnicity.
Russia and India are in Asia as well as China, Vietnam, and Korea. The term Hispanic is used to describe folks of Spanish speaking origin, not South American. I didn't see this as a derogatory term but it seems it is not socially acceptable. Why is this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mrqry/why_is_it_not_ok_to_use_the_term_oriental_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccbzv9g",
"ccbzxp3",
"ccc0a8o",
"ccc0n0l",
"ccc1iwe",
"ccc1jty",
"ccc1y2u",
"cccbnrz"
],
"score": [
4,
4,
20,
3,
8,
7,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Oriental is a western term often used to describe furniture, lamps, people and knick knacks. \n\n\nIt's degrading to use the same term for a cat bed as you would use for a person.\n\n\nAsian.. while not making much sense, is usually only used to describe a group of people. \n\nYou wouldn't call a rug asian or India asian. Ie One would say India is IN Asia, but not use the word \"Asian\".",
"* Too general: Using 'oriental' to describe a person of Asian descent is like using 'American' to describe a person from Argentina, because they're from the Americas, or 'occidental' to refer to a European\n* Connotative: Oriental suggests more than just being of Asia, it suggests a westernized view of Asia that is exotic, foreign, and mysterious.",
"Probably because, prior to (and even some way into) the 20th century, to refer to someone or something as 'Oriental' implied a 'mysterious' and 'alien' nature that was based more on western stereotypes than actual reality. There was even an entire [style of art and literature](_URL_0_) based in part around these stereotypes.\n\nAs to the question of what 'Asian' actually means when talking about ethnicity; this probably depends greatly on the culture and assumptions of your audience. In the UK, for example, if you referred to someone as 'Asian' your audience would probably assume that you meant South Asian - such as Indian or Pakistani.\n\nThe most sensible approach might perhaps be to say 'East Asian' (when referring to people from China, Korea, Japan, etc), 'South Asian' (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc), 'Southeast Asian' (Thailand, Indonesia, etc) and even 'Central Asian' (Mongolia, Kazakhstan, etc). Asia is a super-big place, after all.",
"I remember reading about how oriental (meaning East) can be offensive to Asians because it relates their geographical position in the world to Europe therefore suggesting that Europe is the most prominent region in the world and every other country and it's people should be identified by their location/proximity relating to Europe (I.e. Middle East, Far East). So my take is that it's basically a protest to a Eurocentric view of the world. \n\nEdit: grammar ",
"Oriental literally means Eastern, so to use it immediately assumes that you are viewing the world from Europe. As English originated in Europe this is not perhaps entirely unreasonable, as every culture seems to see itself as the centre of the world (the Chinese name for China translates \"middle nation\"). However the people in question do not like to be associated with a word that has connotations dating back to the ages where Europeans dominated and exploited much of Asia (think Opium Wars) and prefer a more neutral term.\n\nUnfortunately that term is less accurate as it encompasses areas other than the ethnicity they have. I think the term \"Asian\" ends up being applied to the largest group of Asian ethnicities in a culture. So in the UK, where there are far more South Asians than East, Central, Northern or Western Asians \"asian\" means the ethnicity that derives from South Asia. In the US, East Asians outnumber the other groups so they get to use the unqualified term \"Asian\"",
"As an Asian-American I think it is retarded. One day somebody decided Oriental is inappropriate, even though it just means \"Eastern\", and they expect all Asians to jump onboard this pointless PC bandwagon. Whenever I hear an Asian say \"but I'm not a rug\" I say get out of here with that bullshit man. I am not personally offended when somebody refers to me as Oriental if no offense is intended. ",
"Well thank you all for your input. I am marking this explained and going with these points:\n\n* This is a Western thing (I am in North America so this applies) and is something other parts of the world seem to be OK with.\n\n* Adding a direction, like East Asian, makes a lot more sense and is more accurate.\n\n* This is a carry-over of \"days of old\" when Europe was viewed as the center of the world.\n\nThanks again everyone!",
"It has connotations of exoticism and otherness, of the 'mysterious East.' \n\nIt does NOT just mean 'Eastern' in a neutral way, it carries the baggage of meaning 'a person of the East who can/will not assimilate fully in to Western culture' Look at the way the word was used at times of poor East-West relations such as the Korean war or even the Opium wars and you'll see why it causes some people hurt now. \n\nIn the same way that the N word originally just meant 'black' but came to be pejorative, Oriental is a word with a shed load of historical complications which should cause any sensitive, sensible person to think twice before using it to describe a person. \n\nIf you use that word I'm going to assume you don't know that there's a difference between a Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc person, I would not assume malice, but I would assume ignorance. \n\nYou can talk about food or music being 'oriental' - which means it could come from anywhere within Central or East Asia, because it's okay to talk about food or music or fashion or art being 'exotic' but people are not exotic curiosities. People are not other, they are not mysterious, inscrutable, untrustworthy, seductive foreigners from strange lands. \n\nPeople are people and a Chinese Person is a Chinese Person, or an East Asian, or an Asian, but not an Oriental. Because it's not the 1970s and we no longer talk about other races in that way. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
ndfya
|
what led to the america revolution. (continuation of reddit helping me to educate my kids)
|
Hi Reddit. [Earlier](_URL_0_) I had asked Reddit to help me come up with easy ways to teach my kids something about America, her history, and her roles in the world wars.
Last week, Reddit suggested I start at the various immigrants, and why they came to America. Now it's time to explain and lead up to the Revolution, who had the biggest roles, etc etc.
Basically, what changed for who, and what caused the Revolution. I'll stop at the Revolution, and pick up the actual war next week. I'm looking to really take it slow, so as to give them a chance to learn more than just "we revolted"
Thanks Reddit!
**edit: thanks to HenkieVV, I'm going to start with the 7 years war, and end at the tea being thrown in to the water. the next "lesson" will be that of the Revolution. I'll keep you posted!**
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ndfya/eli5_what_led_to_the_america_revolution/
|
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"This may be my Euro-centrism talking, but I'd start with the build-up to the 7-years war. The English felt the French presence in North Ohio was threatening English chances at further expansion on the continent, so they attacked. This went well, as New France (western half of Canada, Ohio, and generally everything down the Mississippi) was split between Spain and Great Brittain, Great Brittain got Florida, and generally it worked out well for them in India as well. You may want to mention that George Washington fought in this war.\n\nThis war, however, was hugely expensive (French attempts to pay the debts this caused, ended up sparking the French Revolution in 1789) and the British figured that since this war was fought largely for the benefit of the colonies, the colonies ought to start paying their fair share. In defence of the British, this wasn't entirely strange or particularly unfair: the colonies didn't pay a whole lot of taxes before, and still didn't pay that much after the tax hike. Less than the Brits themselves did. In defence of the Americans, the idea that taxation ought to be approved by their representation was well established in Great Brittain, yet they didn't get any representatives in Parliament or get to vote for anything. Yet the British parliament implemented the Stamp Act, which said that a lot of printed materials (newspapers, books, etc) would have to be printed on paper that was produced in England and on which taxes had to be paid (after taxes were paid, the paper would get an official stamp, hence the name). This pissed off a lot of people in the colonies who used lots of paper (meaning everybody in the press, lots of laywers, local government officials, basically everybody you want to keep on your side to stay in power) who suddenly had to pay much more taxes and didn't get to vote on any of it.\n\nWhen the British realised how pissed off these guys actually were, they repealed the Stamp Act before it really ever raised any money for them. That should have been the end of it in 1766, but it wasn't. After that, loads of people in the colonies realised that they were being taxed, and that they didn't get any representation in parliament. So every time the British tried to raise taxes, there was the exact same fight.\n\nEventually, it got out of hand with the Tea Act of 1773. What the British did after a couple of smaller conflicts about taxes on tea, was pass a law that essentially gave them more power over government officials in the colonies and more control over the trade in tea, while lowering the taxes on tea. In protest, a number of people threw a cargo of tea (which was pretty expensive, back then) overboard.\n\nThere's a whole bunch of less famous conflicts about taxes and laws from Great Brittain like this, but I think there may be value in sticking to the big ones, initially.",
"This may be my Euro-centrism talking, but I'd start with the build-up to the 7-years war. The English felt the French presence in North Ohio was threatening English chances at further expansion on the continent, so they attacked. This went well, as New France (western half of Canada, Ohio, and generally everything down the Mississippi) was split between Spain and Great Brittain, Great Brittain got Florida, and generally it worked out well for them in India as well. You may want to mention that George Washington fought in this war.\n\nThis war, however, was hugely expensive (French attempts to pay the debts this caused, ended up sparking the French Revolution in 1789) and the British figured that since this war was fought largely for the benefit of the colonies, the colonies ought to start paying their fair share. In defence of the British, this wasn't entirely strange or particularly unfair: the colonies didn't pay a whole lot of taxes before, and still didn't pay that much after the tax hike. Less than the Brits themselves did. In defence of the Americans, the idea that taxation ought to be approved by their representation was well established in Great Brittain, yet they didn't get any representatives in Parliament or get to vote for anything. Yet the British parliament implemented the Stamp Act, which said that a lot of printed materials (newspapers, books, etc) would have to be printed on paper that was produced in England and on which taxes had to be paid (after taxes were paid, the paper would get an official stamp, hence the name). This pissed off a lot of people in the colonies who used lots of paper (meaning everybody in the press, lots of laywers, local government officials, basically everybody you want to keep on your side to stay in power) who suddenly had to pay much more taxes and didn't get to vote on any of it.\n\nWhen the British realised how pissed off these guys actually were, they repealed the Stamp Act before it really ever raised any money for them. That should have been the end of it in 1766, but it wasn't. After that, loads of people in the colonies realised that they were being taxed, and that they didn't get any representation in parliament. So every time the British tried to raise taxes, there was the exact same fight.\n\nEventually, it got out of hand with the Tea Act of 1773. What the British did after a couple of smaller conflicts about taxes on tea, was pass a law that essentially gave them more power over government officials in the colonies and more control over the trade in tea, while lowering the taxes on tea. In protest, a number of people threw a cargo of tea (which was pretty expensive, back then) overboard.\n\nThere's a whole bunch of less famous conflicts about taxes and laws from Great Brittain like this, but I think there may be value in sticking to the big ones, initially."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n2zc1/eli5_the_start_of_america_the_melting_pot_and_why/"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
7x2our
|
how did i get burned by superglue?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7x2our/eli5_how_did_i_get_burned_by_superglue/
|
{
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"Normally as glue \"dires\" it actually under goes a chemical change. This change is usually exothermic, meaning releases heat. The reaction rate is a function of several things but the main one in this case is surface area, as it reacts with air to cure. When on your finger the surface is at it normal so the curing happens slowly and the heat is released over a long period of time so you don't notice it. When applied to the tissue paper or other porous material the surface area exposed to air increases dramatically and the reaction rate does so as well. The energy is released much quicker result in hot temperatures and burns in your case. \n\nEdit fun story. Once for a project we mixing a bunch of epoxy. But someone put in way to much at once which lead to the epoxy getting too above 100C (212F) and steaming/burning the tables it was on. Again the reaction was exothermic but this time the contributing factor was temperature. They hotter the substance typical the faster the reaction occurs leading to a feedback cycle of the epoxy getting hot, drying faster and releasing more heat. We had to put the cup into a sink full of ice and later freezer to stop the runaway reaction. ",
"Superglue when in contact with cotton and certain other fibers reacts in a strong heat releasing reaction. That heat can easily be enough to cause a burn, even create a fire in the fibers. \n\nThe difference was the tissue you touched (it likely contained cotton or some other fiber that facilitates the reaction), so when you combined it with the superglue large quantities of heat were released. The [MSDS for superglue class chemicals](_URL_0_) cautious against wearing jeans, cotton gloves, or wool products when using it: \n\n > CONTACT WITH COTTON OR WOOL MAY\nRESULT IN A STRONG EXOTHERMIC REACTION WITH CAN CAUSE BURNS OR FIRE. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://web.archive.org/web/20090219050249/http://www.accumetricinc.com/boss/MSDS/BOSS181.pdf"
]
] |
||
2ljvqx
|
do people in colder climates live longer? similar to how food doesn't spoil as fast in a refrigerator?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ljvqx/eli5_do_people_in_colder_climates_live_longer/
|
{
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"text": [
"... no. Food spoils because bacteria eat it. Consumption by bacteria is not really a significant cause of death in humans. I honestly had to do a double-take to make sure I wasn't on /r/shittyaskscience ",
"There is [some evidence](_URL_0_) that lifespans are longer in colder climates, but it's nothing at all like the preservation effect of cold on food. The reason food lasts longer when refrigerated is the growth of bacteria on it is inhibited. Bacteria don't passively devour living animals the way they devour dead meat. The reason for longer lifespan in cold climates is thought to be linked to metabolism, but there's likely an evolutionary genetic influence as well... if you think about it, those of our ancestors that migrated towards cold climates would likely have bred out the weaker stock much more readily than those in cushier environments. In other words, it might not be the temperature at all, so much as the genetic stock of the peoples who live in it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2013/02/25/cold-temperature-and-life-span-its-not-about-the-rate-of-living/"
]
] |
||
21itdx
|
what does leverage mean?
|
It's hard to find a simple explanation on the internet. In the business context
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21itdx/eli5_what_does_leverage_mean/
|
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"in what context?",
"Leverage means borrowing. To lever up a company means to borrow as much as you can (loans, bonds) against the company's assets.\n\nGenerally, leverage is used in the context of increasing returns by borrowing. This is because if you borrow, you get 100% of the profits and only, really, put up part of the money. Here's an example:\n\nNo leverage:\nHouse cost: 100\nHouse price +10 years: 150\nReturn = (150/100) ^ (1/10) - 1 = 4%\n\nWith leverage\nHouse cost: 100\nHome Loan: 80\nAmount you pay: 20\nHouse price + 10 years: 150\nReturn = ((150 - 80)/20) ^ (1/10) - 1 = 13%\n\nNothing is free. You also increase the risk by borrowing, so if the value goes down, you lose in the same proportion as you win, meaning big. There are some caveats to this (non-recourse borrowing), but this is basically what it means."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2sry60
|
common law vs civil law
|
For the life of me I can't undestand the difference. Tried several textbooks and videos but I don't get it. Especially that statuary law part of civil law.
Please explain.
EDIT:
I found this to be very helpful > > _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sry60/eli5_common_law_vs_civil_law/
|
{
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"Civil law is statutory i.e. passed by legislature. The good of this is that (typically) elected people are making the laws so theoretically it's the will of the people. The bad is that different situations must be forced into the statute for it to be applicable and issues outside the statute can go without resolution. This is a made up example: If there is a statute that says \"you may not drive under the influence of alcohol\" but no statute that says \"you may not drive under the influence of any substance\" a person could drive under the influence of sleeping pills or marijuana and not be held accountable.\n\nCommon law is judge-made law. America inherited its common law system from England. The benefit of this is a judge can rely on previous decisions to help make a decision. Even if the situation is new, the judge can find an analogous situation and how it was handled and apply the new facts to the old case.\n\nIn the American system of law Statutes trump Common Law, meaning a statute contrary to a common law rule is what the law is. The way my law professors would describe the interplay of common law and civil law in America is that civil law is an island floating on top of a common law ocean.\n\n\nEDIT:\nI thought it may be helpful to know civil vs. criminal also:\n\nIf it's civil vs. criminal, civil is cases where you have a plaintiff and defendant. The plaintiff is attempting to get the defendant to make right whatever wrong was committed by the defendant by monetary compensation (e.g. get hurt in a car wreck and you need to pay medical bills) or specific performance (e.g. The person said they would paint your house green and you have a contract that says it was supposed to be red.)\n\nCriminal law means you have committed a crime against a person or society and you either have to pay a fine back to society or go to jail to repay your crime. (e.g. murder, larceny, fraud).\n\nThere is some overlap between the two. A person accused of murder can be held criminally and/or civilly liable (e.g. OJ Simpson who was not found guilty but was held civilly liable).",
"If you use the search function then you'll find some more answers.\n\n**Summary**\n\nCommon law is \"judge made\" law. Civil law is law that the legislature passed.\n\n---------------\n\nThis is all from the US perspective. Some background:\n\n* We lean heavily towards binding precedent. So if a controlling -- read: above/superior -- court says something then the lower courts should do the same. Google \" stare decisis\" for more information.\n* In a lot of instances the law runs parallel. \n* A court can only rule on what's before it.\n\nFor example, let's say that the legislature passed a law saying that all clothing must be sold for $5 or more. That would be an example of civil law. \n\nThen someone came along and argued that socks don't count as clothing under the definition of that statute (law). And a judge agreed and found that socks don't count as clothing under that statute. That would be an example of common law.\n\nSo if you wanted to sell socks for $4, and you were charged with a crime for it, you would argue that it's fine to sell socks for $4. You would point to common law that says socks don't count as \"clothing\" under the definition of the statute, so you didn't break the law.\n\nA statute is a law. Looking randomly, [here is a statute](_URL_0_):\n\n > Any article imported or brought into the United States—\n\n > (1) which is in continuous customs custody, covered by a customs exhibition bond, or in a foreign trade zone, and\n\n > (2) on which no duty or internal-revenue tax has been paid,\n\n > may, without payment of any duty or internal-revenue tax, be entered under bond under this section for the purpose of exhibition at a fair, or for use in constructing, installing, or maintaining foreign exhibits at a fair.\n\nThat's a statute. You can look it up in a book and find the exact words. Assuming my source is accurate, regardless, you can find a book that sets out the words that the legislature passed. That's civil law.\n\nCommon law is much more difficult. You have to read their long-ass opinions and try to figure out what they meant. The court said that socks were clothing, OK, but all socks? Knee length socks? Ankle socks? White socks? Black socks? Was it significant that the socks in that instance had colored tips? Body suits that included socks? *Damn you, what does the word \"socks mean?*\n\nIn the US we generally rely on common law. We have one state (Louisiana) which does civil law, and it's rarely a black and white issue. But we have a common law system which is in contrast with much of the rest of the world.\n\nIf I haven't been clear about something please let me know."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/dsider/LAW%2012/Power%20Points/Classifying_Law_files/frame.htm"
] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1752"
]
] |
|
6zz8w0
|
why do people laugh after seeing a scary scene in a horror movie?
|
So last night we went to watch the latest horror movie everyone is talking about, IT.
It was a full theatre and I couldn't help but notice that after every single horror scene, people would be terrified, then they'd suddenly start laughing.
Is this some sort of coping mechanism? Or is it something people do to pretend they weren't scared?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zz8w0/eli5_why_do_people_laugh_after_seeing_a_scary/
|
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"text": [
"Ever had a friend make you jump?\nLike pop out from behind a door and shout boo?\n\nIt scares you right but then after you laugh and call them some obscenity.\n\nI'm sure the same applies here. ",
"I'm going with coping mechanism. I laughed my way all the way through the film version of Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp. The more blood there was, the harder I laughed. Not a horror movie, I know, but it's my story.\n\nRemember the \"ridikulus\" spell from Harry Potter? Same idea I think. Laugh at your fears and they no longer have hold over you.",
"You k ow that sense of relief when it clicks on your head that you survived? Your brain is flooding with dopamine and your getting a rush of the combination of adrenaline from your \"fight or flight\" response and the happiness of knowing your continued existence. \n\nThis overwhelming rush of intense emotion leads to giggling in some. I know I giggle the more uncomfortable or in pain I get. ",
"We laugh for two reasons: to show understanding (comedy, good for group cohesion) and to relieve stress after something scary (you just barely out ran a tiger, or watched a scary movie).\n\nLaughing produces \"feel-good\" endorphins that theoretically relieve stress. It's good to get the body back to normal after high stress because stress is hard on the body. And it's good for bonding because having positive experiences together can encourage people to work together."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
16e6hj
|
the "gravitational slingshot" effect or maneuver.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16e6hj/eli5_the_gravitational_slingshot_effect_or/
|
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"Although it's not very safe, sometimes a person riding on a bike will reach out and grab onto the side of a moving car, and let the car pull their bike up to a faster speed.\n\nThe gravitational slingshot can work similarly, except instead of the spaceship holding onto the planet with a hand or other physical connection, it lets the planet's gravity \"grab\" it and pull it along for a while.\n\n",
"This comes down to the [Oberth Effect](_URL_2_). Read this, and then we'll both pretend you're five. Also, please pretend that you have a completely unrealistic attention span for a five year old; this stuff is a bit complicated. Ready? Here we go!\n\nRockets go because they throw stuff behind them really fast. In space, because there's nothing else to push against, that's the only way to get around! The problem, of course, is that eventually you run out of stuff to throw, and then you're stuck. Even really big rockets can't throw enough stuff to just go directly in a straight line from wherever they are to where they want to go; they have to be efficient.\n\nIn fact, rockets never go in straight lines. You know about gravity; it's the stuff that makes planets sticky and prevents you from jumping into space. I know that's a sad thought, but without gravity, there wouldn't be air to breathe, or even a planet in the first place; you just have to accept that it's a fact of life and we're stuck with it. (Bonus points if you notice the pun there.)\n\nAnyhow, the reason that rockets never go in straight lines is that they are always being influenced by the gravity of one cosmic body or another. Even when they're going so fast, or are so far away, that they will never touch that body, the gravity still pulls them and bends their course. Also, even if they get away from, say, the Earth, they're still being pulled by the Sun. The only way to get close to a straight line is by going really, really far away from anything else at all. The straightest path of any rocket ever is [Voyager 1](_URL_0_)'s, because that's the farthest rocket we've ever sent away from the sun. \n\nFor complicated science reasons having to do with the curves of gravity, the most efficient way to get far away in space is actually to thrust perpendicular from the way you want to go, when you're on the opposite side of the planet you're orbiting. Also, as you get farther away from the thing you're orbiting, you slow down; you only start to speed up again when you start falling towards it again. What this means is that when you're farthest away from the thing you're orbiting, you're going slowest, and when you're closest, you're fastest, and this is always true. This will be important later.\n\nYou keeping up with all of this? There's just one more fact you need to understand to really get the slingshot maneuver. Rocket engines get more efficient, they push harder for every kilogram of fuel they burn, the faster they're going. That's kind of weird! But think of it like this: the rocket will always throw its fuel out the back at the same speed, relative to the rocket. On the other hand, as the rocket goes faster, the exhaust is ending up slower relative to the planet, because it's already going pretty fast in the other direction. But if the exhaust is going slower, all that energy has to be going somewhere; it's going into the rocket itself! Does that sound like cheating the universe? It should, because it totally is! This is the only way to get space travel done, and when you're a bit older, we can talk about some of the other even more clever ways people cheat the universe to do cool things.\n\nYou've got all the information you need now; I want you to think about it for a minute and see if it comes together for you. When you're done, we'll talk about it and see how you did.\n\nReady? OK. So, **why** do we do the slingshot maneuver? Because we're trying to be as efficient as possible in order to get the most out of our rockets. Since in space you never go in a straight line anyway, and efficiency matters more than elapsed time, it often makes sense to go pretty far out of your way if by doing so you can steal a bit of free energy from somewhere else. That's why we often steal some energy from the Moon when we're sending ships to other planets; sometimes we also steal energy from those planets, or even the Sun, to send things even farther!\n\n**How** do we do the slingshot maneuver? You carefully plan your flight path so that it passes really close to something with enough gravity to matter. (If it has an atmosphere, though, make sure you stay outside of that!) Remember that the closer you get, the faster you go, and the faster you go, the more efficient your engines are. When you're going really fast near the surface, you fire your engines again and get a lot more energy out of them than you would if you'd fired them when you were going more slowly, elsewhere. If you've done everything right, you'll end up going super duper fast, fast enough that your curved path will take you all the way to another planet! Once you're there, you can do the same thing again, or you can slow down and do some science there.\n\nI know it all sounds complicated, and but really it's not that tough; you just need to think in a different way than you're used to. If you want, we can play some [Kerbal Space Program](_URL_1_), which is a game in which you design and fly your own rockets, and you'll see what I'm talking about a lot more clearly. It's also pretty fun!",
"Imagine that a car is driving at me and I threw a tennis ball at it. The ball will bounce off the car at the speed I threw it plus the speed of the car. \n \nThat is how gravitational slingshots work but with planets and spaceships and not cars and tennis balls.",
"The planet is like the grab bar on a merry-go-round, the spinning merry-go-round is the planet orbiting the sun. The sling shot maneuver is basically grabbing on and riding around for little while and then letting go and being slung off... so the gravity sling is coming from the orbit of the planet around the sun, not from the gravity of the planet."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1",
"http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
3iys25
|
why is human milk safe for consumption right away, even if you store it in the fridge, while cow's milk needs to be pasteurized?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iys25/eli5why_is_human_milk_safe_for_consumption_right/
|
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"Because human milk doesn't contain cow bacteria and cow milk does. Human bacteria isn't that dangerous to humans mainly due to the fact that human milk often contains antibodies to bolster the immune system of the baby consuming that milk (though only for the first few months of breast feeding). Even then, any bacteria found in human milk is bacteria a human would have little trouble fending off, since we deal with that bacteria every day.\n\nCow bacteria, on the other hand, is relatively foreign to our body. So if we consume cow bacteria, it can make you very sick, which is why you have to pasteurize it. Pasteurization kills any bacteria, making it safe for human consumption.",
"Milk does not HAVE to be pasteurized or homogenized for that matter. I grew up on farm fresh milk, straight from the cow as did a lot of other people. Being raised on it I still have trouble with store bought milk and will only drink whole milk ( I cannot stand water-downed 2% or low-fat, it's discusting).The aforementioned processes however do deal with the bacteria issues mention in the other responses. ",
"If you are drinking milk from a healthy cow you can drink it right out of the udder. Commercial milk is normally from cows that are not living in the best conditions, and there can be a lot of pus and bacteria in their milk. Also, commercial milk has come out of the cow not so recently, thus the need to pasteurize and then refrigerate. Human milk is made for baby humans and contains a lot of needed antibodies, while cow milk is for baby cows. \n"
]
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[] |
[
[],
[],
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1d8pyj
|
could you eli5 why the usa is always a target for attack and mockery when other countries are very similar?
|
Not trying to start a dramatic political back and forth, but (serious question here) why is the USA under constant threat, then they/we get mocked for being the bully of the world? Why is every bad guy out to fuck up the USA? All of Europe, Canada, Australia, and many more, are powerful, well-off countries. They have different religious groups, ethics, real estate and all that shit. Why does it seem that they/we are the goto target. I'm probably wrong (and maybe it's because I live here) but, from what I see, the threats are usually pointed in this direction more than others in similar positions of power.
Tl;Dr= Why does the USA gets shit on when other countries are so similar in so many ways? Even in their corruption, and war capabilities?
Edit: I guess this is as answered as needs to be to get the point. Thank you for all your input.
They say politics and religion are the two topics not to talk about in a bar... and apparently Reddit is a bar... and bars are not for five year-olds. (trade *bar* with *pub* at anytime)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d8pyj/could_you_eli5_why_the_usa_is_always_a_target_for/
|
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"Because we also have a history of sticking our noses where they don't belong. We used to have an isolation policy then after WWII we became the opposite we get too involved. Vietnam for example is somewhere we really should have never set foot it. Iraq too, you can downvote me to hell we literally had no reason to go to Iraq, Saddam was a horrible person but he hadn't done anything to us personally. So while every country has corruption and problems we tend to get involved way too much when sometimes it's not necessary. ",
" > the threats are usually pointed in this direction more than others in similar positions of power.\n\nNo other country on the planet is in a similar position of power though. The US is the primary target largely because it is by far the most powerful nation on earth, and is thus able to become involved in disputes all over the planet to an extent that nobody else currently even attempts to match. Add to that the global mass appeal of American culture, from movies to music to fast food outlets (which are anathema to traditionalists around the world), and you have the perfect target. If you want to make a splash in the world media, hit the US.\n\n*Note: I'm not attempting to be some sort of 'Murica! patriot type. I'm not even American. The country is that powerful and influential, even if you'd rather it were not.*"
]
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[] |
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[],
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|
7x1gbz
|
how does a car know to activate the anti-lock brakes when it is sliding? how do anti-lock brakes release the brake if the user is still pressing it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7x1gbz/eli5_how_does_a_car_know_to_activate_the_antilock/
|
{
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"Speed sensors detect rapid deceleration in tires to see if they're locking up.\n\nThe ABS controller then opens/closes valves that control the brake lines to increase/decrease pressure on the brake so that the tire keeps accelerating (doesn't lock up).\n\nYou'll feel it yourself on the brake pedal as a sort of \"pulsing\".",
"The anti-locking system depends on sensors. The car measures the rotational speed of all four wheels, constantly.\n\nIf you hit the brakes, the car will start to slow down. But, here is the thing, the wheels will slow down EQUALLY.\n\nIf one wheel accidentally finds a patch of ice while you brake, it will slow down faster than the other wheels. And that is what the anti-locking system detects.\n\nOnce it has detected that a wheel is locked (i.e, because it's not rotating despite that the others are still slowing down) it starts to control the brake of that wheel individually.\n\nIn pulses. Releasing. Braking. Releasing. Braking. Releasing. Braking.\n\nThe whole idea is that if the wheel starts to turn again, it will have more braking power once the brakes get on again than it had being locked. Thus making it safer.\n\nWell. Somewhat safer, anyway. But accidents happen because people are sort of on the wrong side of their margins, so sometimes this is what it takes to get back on the right side again.\n\nThe same sensors are also used for the anti-spin system. Again, measuring the rotational speed of all four wheels. This time, they measure when the engine applies force to the wheels. If you loose traction on one or a few of the wheels, the car will swiftly and automatically force down the rpm in an attempt to give you back control of your car.\n\nBecause, you know, that is literally how you do it if you do it yourself too. Let go of the gas and hope for the best. The only difference is that the car can detect it long before you feel it yourself so the car has reacted long before you can yourself.\n\nEDIT: spelling"
]
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|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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8s897s
|
why do sharks give birth to live babies but they are considered fish?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8s897s/eli5_why_do_sharks_give_birth_to_live_babies_but/
|
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"They lay eggs. The sharks will hold the eggs inside them until they hatch. Then the babies will emerge. They exit as baby sharks but they hatched from an egg still, not a live birth. ",
"The method of giving birth is not a requirement for being a fish. Guppies and sea horses are also fish that give live birth.",
"Sharks lay eggs just like other fish, they just carry them with them rather than deposit them in a nest somewhere.\nThe eggs hatch and the baby sharks swim away ."
]
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[] |
[] |
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[],
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1rtid4
|
what makes a fart loud instead of silent? eli5
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rtid4/what_makes_a_fart_loud_instead_of_silent_eli5/
|
{
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"Reverb on your butt cheeks and sphincter.",
"Farts are caused by two things: 1 is from swallowing air which can come from drinking, eating, talking, etc. The air gets trapped in your stomach and needs to come out. What isn't burped comes out as a fart. 2. The food that you eat becomes digested and during this digesting process gasses are released. These gases need to be released and farting is the only way to release them. \n\nYou acquire more air from the first method of farting (swallowing air) versus the second which comes from digesting your food. So you farts will be much louder (and less smelly) if your farts are being caused by swallowing air. Your farts will be quiet but really smelly if the fart is being caused by you eating food."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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||
5rmrmd
|
how are we able to observe isotopes with a really small half-life?
|
How do scientists store materials with a really low half-life for future use? Also how are they still around? Why is it that if the universe is so old, there is still an abundance of some isotopes with a very very low half-life (like carbon-16 with its .747 second half life)? How have they not all decayed by now?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rmrmd/eli5_how_are_we_able_to_observe_isotopes_with_a/
|
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" > How do scientists store materials with a really low half-life for future use? \n\nThey don't. They are typically made on the spot.\n\n > Also how are they still around? Why is it that if the universe is so old, there is still an abundance of some isotopes with a very very low half-life (like carbon-16 with its .747 second half life)? How have they not all decayed by now? \n\nUsually because they keep getting created anew by the decay of other, far more long-lived isotopes. Though as far as I can tell, this is not the case for carbon-16, and it does not in fact occur naturally.\n\nAnother possibility is neutron activation: take for example a lot of Nitrogen-15 which is stable, and have any kind of radioactive element nearby that decays by emitting neutrons (such as beryllium-13), then some of those neutrons will turn N-15 atoms into N-16, which has a half life of 7 seconds."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
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[]
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4jrfos
|
how come it appears that roadway maintenance workers are sitting around most of the time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jrfos/eli5_how_come_it_appears_that_roadway_maintenance/
|
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"I was a QC technician for asphalt crews as a summer job, so this is my experience from the asphalt crew perspective. There are two major reasons you see people waiting around:\n\n1) A lot of time is spent waiting for equipment and/or materials. The workers all show up at the job site at 7:00 AM and start setting out cones, etc. but that doesn't mean the equipment they need (e.g. front loader, Gradall excavator, skid steer) is there as soon as they are. In addition, asphalt comes intermittently throughout the day from the asphalt plant, so there's downtime while waiting for that even on a good day when there's nothing weird going on at the plant. Labor is cheap so having a bunch of guys waiting around isn't a big deal, as long as they're there when you need them.\n\n2) The actual work is *exhausting*. Asphalt in particular: in most parts of the country it's pretty damn hot during the summer, and hot mix asphalt is supposed to be applied at a temperature north of 250 degrees. So as a worker who's dealing with the asphalt, especially in situations where you're doing patching and it's all manual labor, you're walking around on a pile of 250+ degree asphalt that has a horrendous smell, it's 90 degrees outside, and you're wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt so you don't get burned as easily. You have to take frequent breaks for hydration and general welfare.\n\nAs a QC technician I was out there with the crews but I spent a lot of time sitting around waiting because I had basically three responsibilities: measure the temperature of the asphalt as it came off the truck, make sure the thickness was within spec, and keep a record of which sites were being paved. So I was working even less as a fraction of the time than the people actually on the road crew.",
"Say you have a list of tasks on the site for the day:\n\nTask one requires five people and will take up about two hours.\n\nTask two requires three people and will take about four hours.\n\nTask three requires two people and will take two hours.\n\nHow many people do you take to the job site? Well, you have to take five. Even though you only need five for two hours and the other six hours you'll be technically overstaffed.\n\nSort of like a baseball team: You only need nine people for half the game. The rest of the time 8 of them are sort of sitting around doing nothing.\n\nAdditionally: Some times you are waiting for task A to finish before you can go on to task B. The guy doing something with the bulldozer (for example) has to finish before the other guys can get started. Since you only have one bulldozer the other four guys are sitting around.\n\nSometimes some of those people are not part of the work crew. They are inspectors keeping an eye on the contractor to make sure the contractor doesn't cut corners. Assuming the construction company is not county employees but instead hired to do the job. So their job is to sit around and watch other people work. You know what's not exciting, by the way? Twelve hour days spent watching construction crews drilling a hole in the ground and then pouring concrete in it to make sure they don't cut any corners. I did that for seven months.\n\nAnyway. Point being: lots of reasons. And not to disparage construction companies, but they are a bunch of penny pinching bastards. If they could do it with fewer workers trust me, they would.",
"Different specialists for sequential steps. \n\nFor example, here's approximately how they fix a pipe:\n\nFirst thing to do is dig a hole. Backhoe guy digs the hole while spotter guy watches out, and pipe fixer guy waits for the hole to be dug.\n\nWhen the hole is finished, backhoe guy drives the backhoe out of the way, and pipe fixer guy starts working on the pipe while spotter guy and later backhoe guy stand around waiting for him to finish.\n\nPipe fixer guy finally finishes, and backhoe guy and spotter guy go at it again filling in the hole.\n\nThat small operation required three people, and there were always one or two who were \"standing around\".\n\nedit: spelling",
"Because we are \n\nWell that and you only get to see a minor part of what we do for about ten minutes of our day depending how long you've been stuck in traffic. \n\nAlot of our time is spent setting up the closures that you see going on around you. The work doesn't take much, but protecting the people that do the work takes more time than you'd think. \n\nAnother part of what you're seeing is alot of ideas being bounced off each other. ",
"The answer is kind of in your initial comment, when you said you have a lot of construction in your area.The reason you see this so often with roadway workers is because you see roadway workers more than people in other jobs. If you had a camera on people who work desk jobs, you would see them sitting around browsing the internet and talking to people at the water cooler very often. Retail workers spend a lot of time standing around waiting for customers to show up. Many jobs have a lot of downtime then bursts of actual working. It is just that because every single person going to work does so on a road, they spend more time actually witnessing road workers in this phase of the day, so we perceive it as though they are \"not working\" as much as everyone else.",
"I worked on a ditching crew during summers as a flagger (sign holder). The reason it seems that way is because it is mostly true. Pretty much one guy is doing his job while everyone else is waiting so they can do theirs. For example, we had a graddal excavator, two dump trucks, two flaggers and a supervisor. Well, while the trucks are being filled, only the gradall and flaggers are working. Once both trucks are filled, if there isn't a close spot to dump we could be waiting a long time for them to come back so we are just sitting there. The supervisor always looks like he is just standing there even though he is actually keeping an eye on everything. ",
"Concerning trains (at least in western Europe), a lot has to do with security.\n\nOne guy (a sentinel) will always check that no trains don't engage in the track the workers are currently working on. When they are working on a \"live\" track, it has to signal that a train is coming and that everybody left the track. Then others must supervise. In switzerland for example, sometimes there is two sentinels on long tracks. One watches the \"front\", and the other the \"back\".\n\nWhen the track has got a overhead line, then you must have someone who supervises if there are excavators working.\n\nThen, the rest is supervision (mainly for big projects). But yes, mainly security. ",
"I worked for a municipal sewer service. One piece of equipment was called a TV van, consisting of a camera on a line that crawled mechanically along a sewer pipe spotting problems. So, there's a guy in the van, watching the closed circuit TV, a guy at the manhole operating the camera, keeping it freed up, going, etc. Another guy with him for safety reasons (OSHA) and perhaps one or two guys directing traffic. \n\nA citizen called in to complain that our workers were standing around on the highway while somebody else was just sitting in a van watching TV.\n\nThere are all kinds of circumstances to every kind of job that a layman is not going to understand. Feel free to stop and ask questions. Our management encouraged citizens to do so (even our Mayor).",
"I finally understand it a little more. My husband now works in construction. It seems to be a lot of hurry up to wait. They have to rush to get a section done but then may have to wait for supplies. Sometimes politics get in the way and hold up work. I used to think they were just being lazy all the time. ",
"If you've ever worked construction or even worked out for that matter you'll understand it is exhausting work and expecting construction workers to work a straight 8 hours doing what they do the same way a cashier stands at a register for 8 hours straight is really expecting a lot. it doesn't matter how big you are or how much muscles you have, you will get tired in an hour of constantly going at it in the heat.",
"Former pavement analyst here, by which I mean I operated a machine that hit the road really hard. For science! Also I drilled holes in the road from time to time. Anyway.\n\nOne of the more common reasons why you get road workers seemingly not doing anything is because they're there for safety reasons. With me I'd typically have a crash truck behind me while I was testing, there to essentially shield me from any vehicles that would otherwise hit me. On an average day those guys would never get out of the truck except for bathroom breaks. Sure looks like they're doing nothing, but without them I'd be screwed.",
"One thing to consider, is how often you drive by these workers. I'm just guessing, but at most you see less than four minutes of their work day.\nI know people who drive by a store on a Saturday, see that it's empty, and remark about how slow that store is on weekends. All because of a 3 second glance as they drove by. ",
"Have done asphalt before. Believe me these guys work really really hard. When you see them sitting around its usually because they are waiting on materials, IE asphalt or, concrete mix. Concrete also needs time to cure in fact a lot of companies higher security guards to watch it specifically so \"Sally doesn't write with her little finger that she was there 1990\"",
"They're not. Your brain is conditioned to remember only certain things you believe to be true. \n\nFor example. The stereotype that all Asians are bad drivers is something I'm sure we have all heard. And sure enough, one time they will cut you off and you'll remember it because your brain's already looking for that. But on an average day in an average city with average traffic, you will drive right by plenty of Asians driving fine and plenty of accidents with white people and black people et cetera. \n\nYou're brain believes something and so when that something occurs you notice it. \n\nRoad workers work. And you drive past a ton doing just that but you're conditioned only to remember them not working. \n\nI call it the new car effect. You will at some point ride in a car you have never ridden in or heard of. The next day you will see hundreds of them everywhere. \n\n\nAnd that's the way it goes! ",
"Because when they're working, you pay no mind to it since that's what you expect to be happening. But when they're not working, you notice. So by your perception, it seems they're always not working.",
"Also, public projects also require constant inspections while the work is being performed to ensure it is done properly.\n\nThe inspector stands there and watches and is required. You could be seeing him.",
"What's fascinating to me is how often questions like this get asked, especially about road construction and fast food and such.. And is often asked quite likely by people sitting around in a cubicle nine to five on reddit.\n\nThere's this weird expectation that fast food and construction type jobs must be working 24/7 and are held to some inanely high and arbitrary level of scrutiny, while almost every cubicle slave knows how much they jerk around all day.",
"As an aside, I have a feeling if you could drive by and see inside tons of offices, you'd see just as much downtime/\"very little evidence of work being done.\"",
"Let me walk you through a typical job site. Keep in mind that this is just an example. I repair water mains on occasion. Let's say a small 6\" water main has broken. You'll need a backhoe to dig with. That requires an experienced equipment operator. That's man number 1 on our list. We use two dump trucks. One truck pulls up beside the backhoe and gets filled with dirt and mud from the hole. This dirt is mostly mud and can't be used to refill the hole or cars will sink in it, so you'll need a 2nd truck for fresh, dry dirt for refilling the hole after the water leak is fixed. The two drivers plus the backhoe man makes three workers so far. Now we have the physical labor guys. They actually get down into the hole and do repairs. There will be a couple hours of constant manual labor, so we will need two men in there and two more to switch out with them when they are tired. The previous 3 plus the 4, makes 7 workers. That's just bare minimum. If the hole is deep, OSHA requires the walls to be reinforced. That requires large metal panels on a big truck. That's another big truck that will need a driver. Throw a supervisor in there to keep everything together and you've got 9 men. Now let's say you drive by at 35mph. You only see a snapshot of what's happening. If the backhoe man is digging, the manual laborers, the truck drivers, and the supervisor are all standing around watching him. Once the hole is dug, two guys jump in to repair the pipe. That means the backhoe and trucks are parked and there are 7 men watching the two in the hole. Now the pipe is repaired. The backhoe is putting fresh dirt back in the hole. 7 men are watching one dump truck and the backhoe work. Do you see where I'm going with this? The hole is only so big. Everyone can't be doing their' job at once, and due to the physical exertion required, only two or three men trying to do everything themselves would quickly be exhausted. Most people just ride by and say look at all those lazy city workers standing around wasting my tax dollars. What they don't see is that two minutes before they rode by, several of those guys were standing knee deep in mud, in a pit that could collapse at any moment killing everyone in it, shoveling heavy mud for an hour straight. And he probably gets paid a pathetic salary to do it. So next time you ride by in your comfy car, cursing because you had to slow down for a work zone, think about those guys out there working in the summer heat, and the winter cold. Without them, you wouldn't have a nice road to drive on. Without them, you wouldn't have safe drinking water in your home, or sanitary sewer. Ever tried shitting in a bucket? Indoor plumbing is nice isnt it? You should thank those men for keeping the infrastructure together that keeps you comfortable. Also, another danger they face is getting run over by some asshole who isn't paying attention while driving. It happens on a regular basis, so they would appreciate you paying attention to the road instead of angrily staring them down.",
"I work in the environmental industry, but still outdoor labor. We have to coordinate with subcontractors, rental companies for equipment, the laboratory for the correct glassware, company management to keep everyone in the loop. As with most lines of work, the larger the project, the more room for something unplanned to happen, which causes a break in the work to get a solution figured out and approved. At certain jobs, my role is purely oversight for health and safety, so visually, I'm just standing there. H & S is a big concern, especially for construction companies. Companies have safety ratings based on OSHA recordable incidents, so by taking breaks and slowing down, you maintain safer conditions, keep the workers healthy, and have a good safety rating for the company. So, this wasn't a direct answer but more of a different perspective on a similar issue.",
"\"...whenever I drive by road workers...\"\n\nSo you're saying that because they \"seem to be just sitting around\" during the entire 3 seconds you drive by, that means they're doing nothing all day. Totally plausible. For example, I stopped on the side of the road the other day to take a dump but I was constipated. I didn't do shit all day. ",
"I'm assuming most of the people who are complaining about construction workers have never picked up a shovel in their damn lives.",
"Simply because, every job is different and you cant do all jobs at once, you need to complete one job to start another but the guys will be needed shortly so they cant wander off.",
"Just out of curiosity, did you post this question from work?",
"What I wanna know is why \"construction areas\" around where I live frequently have *zero* actual construction. I got stuck in traffic for an hour and a half once because of a construction zone that turned out to protect two cones in the right lane under a bridge.",
"For the same reason that most of the people who post on Reddit are doing so from their work desks, I'd imagine.",
"Safety is a really big concern, too. Especially when working on and around roadways. I am a land surveyor and when we work within a state highway's right of way we are required to have a flagger, even if we are not entering lanes of traffic.",
"Hurry up and wait is a big thing in a lot of industrial work.\n\nYou often have to get X done before you can begin to prep for Y, but Y is scheduled because it is from a different department that is very busy and/or functions on very specific timing.\n\nPouring concrete for example. That shit can't just be mixed and wait for the guys to dig the hole. It has a small-ish window when it can be poured, so you want to be well ready for it, which often means that you schedule it out with time to spare just in case something else goes wrong.\n\nOf you're using a specific machine that gets shared around to a lot of different departments, you get done with your prep work ahead of schedule so you wait a bit. In this case, the machinery is expensive and a bit of overlap in waiting is cheaper, even in the longrun, because said machinery needs maintenance as well as storage.\n\nSpeaking of maintenance, things often break down. Construction is hard work and sometimes things break, like the transmission on the huge dumptruck was due for an overhaul and it just started to grind funny when under load...etc. Well, many people are guaranteed XX hours a week, so you hand them a broom or just let them shoot the shit because when they do work, they work like mad and get shit done.\n\nAlso, especially when digging into the ground, there are all kinds of unforseeable delays. Cabling, piping, sewer cave-in, geographical oddities, etc, all on top of say, traffic. They're waiting for that contractor/delivery guy to bring in that big culvert, for example.\n\nThere are a hundred and one other reasons for delays that cause waiting, but this list should give a good idea of the generalities of why.",
"I'm sitting here and florida laughing at everyone complaining about their shit roads. FDOT is da bomb.\n\n\nTo answer the question, materials and equipment, approval to do something that has to go up a chain of command. There are tons of things workers have to sit around and wait on. They aren't being lazy, they genuinely have nothing to do at that time.\n\nTo comment on people talking about constructions constantly being done and projects not being coordinated: Everything is a long process of drawing up the project and approving it. Maybe when a water line was assessed it needed changing and it wasn't until they dug it up they saw that the gas line needed replacing. \n\nWithout enough surround area being dug up, it is very unlikely for a patch to be completely level and unnoticeable.",
"there might be a statistical bias regarding the hours at which you drive by? I see them sitting around when I go outside for lunch, but that's also the time when they are on break",
"Most people here are focusing on the big stuff like sequential steps etc, which are absolutely big factors but to be honest go outside in construction gear in the sun and try to dig a hole. Shits exhausting, so you usually do team digs to have one digging while the other rests and then switch roles. Gets things done faster. Obviously they're not just \"digging holes\" but I feel this represents your average physical exhaustion for any manual labor intensive work.",
"The real paradox begins when you notice that many people that are thinking to themselves that the guys are \"sitting around\" are: sitting in a machine made to move for them, going to or from a climate controlled building to uh sit around, and likely to even use machines to help with the burden of reading and writing while there. Sitception",
"Slow and steady and there is much less likelihood of disaster, seen rowdy work crews and sometimes just plain liability and it's contagious lol. And just a lot of contemplating and eating sandwiches but its all measure twice and no one die today thanks. -\nand were your hi viz or they hot glue it to you lol ",
"Okay so like the top comment says, a lot of time is spent waiting on equipment/engineers to show up, or something like a dump truck to get back to the job site after dropping off or picking up a load. We'd used to wait for hours for the cement truck, for example. \n\nSomething that makes the situation worse is that most crews for my district are over staffed. This is because government work is typically full time, so you can't just have a guy come in on the 2 days out of the week that we actually need them. Also, people work much harder in the winter doing snow removal. Since again it's a government job and full time, they more or less get to just chill in the summers most days of the week. \n\n",
"I read this article once that said they have to take a break every 15 minutes. The asphalt reflects the heat of the sun and causes them to sweat leading to dehydration. So to hydrate/cool off and avoid heat stoke/exhaustion they have to take a break every 15 minutes. ",
"Work at a desk.\n\nIf you SAW what I do? I type a few things and get paid for 8 hours of work. Make a few mouse clicks. Maybe a few phone calls.\n\nGet paid because I know the right thing to type to make the mission critical business activities not crash and burn. Takes having built the system and knowing its every detail. Does it look like work? No, it looks like I am doing nothing. But, that is an incomplete picture.",
"If its a group of 3 or 4 people they probably aren't general laborers. We would usually have a super (head of laborers), site engineer or two, and maybe an engineer intern who aren't there to do physical things, but are there to make sure the plans are followed properly and coordinate the labor. It may look like they are chatting, but they may be discussing things about the plans, how best to stage the next few task or arguing about materials.\n\nYou also have to account for the fact that not every laborer is skilled in every task. You might have a guy there to operate a crane or finish the concrete, and until they are needed they are waiting. It wouldn't make sense to send them home in between because than when they are needed throughout the day it takes an hour for them to get there and more people are wasting time.",
"The same reason office workers appear to be sitting round all day and not doing push-ups during downtime. ",
"Same principle as film sets: specialized jobs. The lighting guys might be sitting around for an hour while a scene they just set up is being shot, but once the scene's done, they're ready to set up the lights for the next scene. No way in hell is the camera guy or sound guy qualified to handle electrical equipment, so they don't do it, but it also means the lighting people are sitting around for an hour and getting paid.",
"I am currently working with a company doing the sidewalks. Today we waited 1h30 because the truck delivering the concrete was stuck in traffic and all of our sidewalk forms were already made. Nothing to do but way. \n\nWe also see a lot of bosses from different division and companies standing around and doing nothing; their job is to make sure we're doing ours according to spec.",
"You never seen the movie Falling Down? [This scene](_URL_0_) answers your question.",
"Theres also the rule where for every worker in a hole theres at least one outside of the hole watching in case theres a problem.",
"When I televised for line inspections, a lot of construction \"randomly\" is for just repairs or adding something new. If a crew is redoing a side walk, I inspect the sewer and storm sewer for damage. Find any and they fix it right away. Sometimes they will dig just to upgrade the sewers from concrete to pvc. They also \"expire\" and need to be replaced even if they are perfectly fine. Idk. Just what I've learned. Construction workers sometimes have to sit around until we were done inspecting also. Lots of stuff happens when rebuilding or building something new. ",
"Coordination. \n\nEach guy doesn't do everything and has to wait for the other guy to do the thing before he can do his thing. \n\nWhen this is the case for countless interactions, it looks like nothing is happening.",
"Those guys are out there for ten hours or more a day. You see a total of 5 min of their day, and that's only if you're the kind of rubber necking pain in the ass that drives through road work over and over and over instead of avoiding it like a courteous person would do. Don't worry about what their doing. Just be happy you don't have to do it and kindly drive slow, stay out of their way and off your fucking phone.\n",
"What's amusing to me is that you really don't see much of this in places where they have a small window of opportunity to get the work done. Example: Alaska.\n\nMoving from Alaska to Texas, I was shocked at how long road construction takes and how much less you see the people doing things. \n\nIt was explained to me as: they don't have a deadline like northern workers do. They have a suggested finish date and can therefore afford the time to go slowly year round.",
"If you think about it, you always see them resting, but the next day the work is finished. \n\nThose people sit in circles and combine their mana pools to cast building spells of Incredible strength.",
"An old post of mine edited to remove some of the snark from my original:\n\nI've worked construction for about 10 years now and there are many things that go on that most of the general public doesn't see, hear, or know about with roadways. There really is so much more to a construction job than just men with tools standing idly by while the work doesn't get done. With almost all highway construction, there are FUCK tons of inspections that have to be done, work that can't be done until another part of the job gets finished, safety issues to be taken into account, among many other factors that could prevent us from legally working. For example if DOT decides that the stone base underneath a new section of road doesn't comply with their standards, (whether it be due to moisture in the stone, shitty compaction, a fuck up in the grading, most of which is outside of our control) we may not be able to move on to the next phase of the work until the problems get ironed out. This means we either find something else to do, wait it out until the problem is fixed, or get sent home. We're also human. We need breaks for water, food, to shit, etc... ",
"Woah you mean the 45 seconds you see them they aren't working? That totally means they don't do shit!",
"Used to do line painting and flagging for asphalt work and it's strenuous work. there are lots of breaks when it comes to asphalt because for the physical toll it takes on workers. one crew I flagged for had 5 people go to the hospital for dehydration and sun exposure. and not to mention equipment for any of these jobs are usually shit and breaks mid-job. Some jobs you have only the foreman is doing the work and laborers are sitting around waiting to assisting him/her.",
"Simple answer. \n\nEveryone has a task to perform. And when they're not doing that job, they're standing around as a \"laborer\" which generally means theyre not doing something. I speak from experience as I was a bulldozer operator who was sometimes not bulldozing so I was a laborer for $21/hr. .. lol",
"By the time most people get their sleepy ass out of bed they have completed the majority of their day.",
"Their job is usually to find the spot that needs to be repaired, dig it up and stand by to fill in the hole once the work is done. So, the main reason is because they are probably waiting for the skilled laborer in the hole to finish maintenance to whatever pipeline or waterline under the road.",
"I do software work on manufacturing equipment, which often involves traveling to a site for the planned startup. Often, something unrelated to software will delay the startup by a few days. While I can (and sometimes do) go help out the rest of the crew doing their jobs, the fact is that they have a different set of skills that is better suited to whatever they're working on than I do. The job may get done slower as a result of me trying to help.\n\nThe value of me being there is that when something software related happens on the machine, in there to see it (sometimes before anyone else does) and do what needs to be done to fix it. The budget for the machine installation is measured in millions, my few hundred per day is essentially unnoticed even in the obscure case where nothing in my area happens, but the cost is not having me available is one of customer dissatisfaction and downtime on a brand new machine that is finally running.",
"Sometimes it is simple - they forgot to plan what you will do. Crew comes to work, gets started, halfway through the day they are done, call the office and ask 'what's next chief,' and office says give us a minute, we don't know. Three hours later, they have something or tell you to go home. Three hours can go by fast in the office, while standing around for three hours next to the road goes by very slowly. Just my view as a construction engineer and previously a laborer.",
"If it is during a paving project, they are usually waiting on trucks to bring asphalt or for the \"tack\" to set up so it'll stick to the road. Usually trucks is the culprit.\n\nSource: I'm a road worker"
]
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"https://youtu.be/N8b3963VRW4"
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1vvclp
|
why do churches and cathedrals need buttresses but not skyscrapers?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vvclp/eli5_why_do_churches_and_cathedrals_need/
|
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"Buttresses were used before we had the materials and construction knowledge to build without them. If a newer church has a buttress, it's purely cosmetic.",
"Cathedrals are made out of stone, so it isn't easily self-supported. The wall can't support much more than the weight of the wall. Also, the walls are individual stones that are loosely mortared together (assuming they are mortared). The extreme weight of the roofs pushes outward against the walls, rather than straight down. Without a buttress roughly in-line with the force, the walls would fall apart.\n\nWith skyscrapers, the support beams is most of the weight of the building. They don't have to do more than support themselves, and provide more support per pound. They have no roofs to speak of, so the weight is straight down. They also have deep foundations and support pylons to distribute the weight into the ground, which have the same function as flying buttresses, but in-line is into the ground.\n\nedit: As ZarathustraEck phrased better than I did, a cathedral is wide open, with a roof. A skyscraper is a lattice of supports all the way through it. A better modern analogy would be a stadium, which often do have buttresses (though the weight is distributed so oddly, they may not be readily visible).",
"If you're speaking of churches and cathedrals with a ton of stained glass, it's because they couldn't figure out another way to keep those walls up. We're talking about some relatively fragile walls that needed extra support, and there wasn't much inside; churches and cathedrals are mostly a shell with an open area inside for people. Bring on the buttresses!\n\nNowadays, we've got things figured out. Skyscrapers are not shells the way those old churches are, and modern engineering and materials mean we can build a pretty solid core and still make all the outer areas of the building glass."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
[],
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||
1i7exz
|
how is fractional reserve banking legal?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i7exz/eli5_how_is_fractional_reserve_banking_legal/
|
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"Because if it weren't legal, banks would just have huge amounts of money sitting in their vaults they won't ever use. In general, having money not moving around the economy is bad for the economy.",
"It helps keep money flowing and there have been safeguards put in place to prevent everyone from rushing to the bank and withdrawing all of their money back in case of a crisis.",
"Why shouldn't it be?",
"Ok so imagine the bank is like a restaurant and they have sold quite a few cool gift cards to people for Christmas. If all the people the got these vouchers as Christmas presents came to the little restaurant on the same day there's no way they cold all get fed; the restaurant would have to have 100 tonnes of food - that's more than they could fit in their fridges!! Having all this food would mean some of the food spoiling; letting your food spoil is a very bad waste and a restraint that wastes food by letting it spoil isn't going to be a very profitable business at all. But luckily people don't all come on the same day, they want to eat at the throughout the year =) \n\nSo you see the bank is just like the restaurant; it would be silly for it to hold all the money because even though it might sound funny, money can spoil just the same as the food can! That's because money has something we like to call a time value. It just means if you have some money now its the same as having more money in the future! (money is very good at becoming more money) But only if you put it in the right places and not just leave it sitting around. The banks keep just enough sitting around so that all the customers they expect to come in will get as much as they need but not do much that it starts going to waste."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
dyu90z
|
why does the air feel so dry in cold weather?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dyu90z/eli5_why_does_the_air_feel_so_dry_in_cold_weather/
|
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"text": [
"Because it is. How much humidity the air can contain is directly related to air temperature.\n\nWhen the air is cold, it can't hold as much water as when it is warm."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
12i08y
|
why is new hampshire a swing state when the rest of new england surrounding it is strongly liberal?
|
Maine: Obama leading Romney by 14 points
Massachusetts: Obama leading Romney by 19 points
Vermont: Obama leading Romney by 33 points
New Hampshire: Obama leading Romney by 3 points
Any explanation?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12i08y/why_is_new_hampshire_a_swing_state_when_the_rest/
|
{
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"text": [
"The New Hampshire state motto is [\"Live Free or Die\".](_URL_0_) Not only as a result of this, New Hampshire residents tend to hold strongly libertarian philosophies. \n\nHistorically, the state voted for Republicans; between 1856 and 1988, the state only went for the Democratic contender six times (three of which were for FDR).\n\nHowever, in the last twenty years, New Hampshire has moved from being a Republican (classically liberal/libertarian) stronghold to a swing state. This may be attributable to the swing in the Republican party from libertarian ideals (paleoconservativism) to the socially-conservative neoconservative movement, which focuses on conservative \"values\" and a strong military much more than it does on a limited government and individual liberty.\n\nSince this internal shift in the Republican party, some voters have found that, despite the Democratic favoring of welfare programs, the party's platform much more strongly endorses an individual's ability to make certain lifestyle decisions without government intervention-for example, abortion rights and gay marriage-than the Republican alternative. Issues of this nature resonate strongly in the heavily individualistic political environment of New Hampshire."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die"
]
] |
|
3vxcw6
|
how someone can sue someone for over 10 million dollars, when the total damages is "only" around 1 million
|
The number is just something i made up.
For example:
Someone got hit by a car and broke their leg, which makes them unable to work for 2 months, thus losing their pay for those 2 months. The lost pay is 50.000 USD
The medical fees are 100.000 USD
The overall loss is then 150.000 USD because of the broken leg.
Then explain to me *WHY/HOW* they can sue them for *more* than they've lost.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vxcw6/eli5_how_someone_can_sue_someone_for_over_10/
|
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"text": [
"I'm also curious to know how they sue for emotional distress? How do you quantify and monetize distress?",
"They can sue for things that have no set numerical value such as pain and suffering as well as the opportunities that came with that job. He could been in position to get a sizable raise and have made much more then his current and future earnings. He can also sue for the money he would otherwise have to spend on the legal battle they are currently in.",
"There are several different types of damages that can be awarded. \n\nSpecial damages are awarded for quantifiable loss; medical fees, repair bills, etc\n\nGeneral damages can also be awarded to compensate for non-quantifiable things such as mental distress, loss of enjoyment of life, etc. \n\nAdditionally the claimant can be awarded exemplary damages, which is a sum of money taken from the party at fault in order to punish them for their actions.\n\nThere are other types of damages but those three are where the big bucks come from.",
"There are two different kinds of damages:\n\nCompensatory: The actual, monetary damages. In your example, the $150k. There are several different subdivisions of compensatory damages, but we won't get into that here.\n\nPunitive: Damages used to deter the defendant against committing the action again. They are not for reimbursing the plaintiff but punishing the defendant. The plaintiff in general has to show that the actions committed by the defendant go above and beyond what compensatory damages allow for. Basically, they have to prove intent. For example, if a person was injured in a car accident, but it was proven that the cause of the accident was the defendant driving above the speed limit, swerving and talking on the phone, then punitive damages could theoretically be awarded to *punish* the defendant. ",
"* You pay montly rent in advance of $300\n* You get kicked out to the streets on the 15th of the month, without refund, because of whatever reason.\n* You are unable to get someone to help you immediately, and that was your last money. You are forced to spend a night or two on the street along with what little possesions you had in the room, putting yourself in potential danger, and much discomfort.\n* You are forced to now take loans, or embarrassing situations where you rely on others for help.\n* You eventually get a date for small claims court in order to get your money back, but in the mean time you are screwed until then.\n\nDid you really only lose half of your rent money?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
alem5n
|
why does a digital clock, connected to a stable power source, not keep accurate time?
|
I understand how mechanical and battery-operated clocks can slow down, but why would a clock on an oven or other appliance continually lose time over a relatively short period of time (say 5 minutes lost over 5 months)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/alem5n/eli5_why_does_a_digital_clock_connected_to_a/
|
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"_URL_0_\nThere are many types of electric clock. Most are not advanced enough to clean the power supplied to allow for consistent time keeping. There is also the issue of quality, much like an expensive watch will keep closer time than a cheap watch. Much of this goes into the type/shape/quality of the crystal that is used to count current oscillation.",
"Most digital clocks of today regulate time via an oscillator. This is a tiny crystal that vibrates at a very specific and very constant frequency when an electric charge is applied to it (a phenomenon called piezoelectricity). The number of vibrations are counted by a circuit, and when they reach equivalent to one second (at 32,768 vibrations for quartz), the circuit adds one second of time, when 60 seconds are reached, circuit adds one minute and so on. This circuit, however, is not perfect, and the little quartz oscillator is susceptible to variations in frequency with temperature. So large temperature swings will make the clock less accurate. Modern \"connected\" clocks account for this by synchronizing with a time standard (a very large, very precise, atomic clock) over the internet or radio every so often. 5 min over 5 months is about a 2sec variation per day, which is considered acceptable for cheap quartz clocks. ",
"The crystal oscillators in a digital clock are pretty good, but not perfect. Let's say that an oscillator crystal is accurate to 1 part per million. That sounds really good, until you think about the fact that there are 2.6 million seconds in a month. So over 5 months, you'd expect a 1 ppm accurate crystal to gain/lose around 13 seconds or so. \n \nSounds like your digital clock's crystal is much less accurate than 1 ppm. \n \nOR....if you are making a really cheap clock (like one in an oven) you might not even use a crystal oscillator circuit for timekeeping. You might go old school and rely on the 60 Hz (or 50 Hz) signal coming in from the power supply. Even if your power utility is pretty good at supplying a stable AC voltage, a variation of many parts per million is considered perfectly acceptable. After all, their goal is to provide power, not tell time accurately. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_clock"
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[],
[]
] |
|
1rzngp
|
if black friday is enough to bring retailers from red to black, and there's not enough supply so that consumers can buy the products they want for the discount at the time, why isn't there a black friday every month?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rzngp/eli5_if_black_friday_is_enough_to_bring_retailers/
|
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"The overhead cost of Black Friday is actually quite large, extra staff, setting up stock, and so on. It works because there are just so many customers buying so many things, you make your profit from volume.\n\nIf you had a Black Friday every month you'd end up with the customers spread over the year, so you'd not make a lot more money and put operating costs up. Not to mention that people would me more inclined to wait for the month's Friday sale as opposed to shopping any other day of the month, meaning less full-price sales and lower profit overall.",
"Cost of marketing and staffing would be too high to get people ramped up enough to bite.\nPsychologically, it would remove the \"special\" feeling (\"high\") associated with thinking you got a deal (sort of like having Christmas every month, or Olympics every 2 years, etc; familiarity breeds contempt).\nIf people know everything goes on sale once a month, then why bother purchasing large/special items at any other time? Most people could wait 3 weeks from need/want to purchase.\nPersonal cash-flow: If we use credit properly then we built up the funds all year long to make those large and large volume purchases; although, most of the Black Friday purchases are made via credit that people won't pay off immediately (possibly making the consumer debt problems worse than they already are; but debt is what drives our economy to some degree even if it poisons it at the same time)\n"
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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] |
||
19w8s5
|
how do we know that animals like birds of prey and jungle cats have much better eyesight than us?
|
How do scientists measure quality of eyesight? I hope that makes sense.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19w8s5/how_do_we_know_that_animals_like_birds_of_prey/
|
{
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"Imagine you watch a bird hover over a field, and then suddenly dive down from a great distance. It fetches a small animal (e.g. a mouse) flawlessly.\n\nIf you measure or estimate the distance over the ground, then you can compare how good the eyes of the animal have to be to clearly identify a prey of that size."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
cl95wb
|
how is the tiered starting positions in car races considered fair?
|
In car races, starting positions are not in line with each other, but the finish line is just the one. Doesn't that give an advantage to whomever is in front?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cl95wb/eli5_how_is_the_tiered_starting_positions_in_car/
|
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"text": [
"Yes, it does give an advantage. It would be unfair if the starting positions were decided randomly - but they aren't. Drivers have to qualify by doing laps without any other cars on the course, and they get to start in order of how fast their qualifying time was.\n\nSo if you want to start first (pole position,) which is an advantage, you have to put up the fastest lap in qualifying.",
"It helps, but it makes less of a difference when the race is really long (i.e. a 100 foot head start isn't as big of a deal if you're going 500 miles). Short races normally have people/cars/horses lined up next to each other.",
"Starting positions are usually determined by lap times during the qualifying trials before the actual race or from some other qualifier. So this makes sure that someone with the fastest time during qualifying is not stuck in the back.",
"My father told me this:\n\nAssuming F1 Racing:\n\nEvery car *IS* different, some cars are better built than others. Imagine a Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby, you all build your own cars, but you all have to follow rules when building the car. This and the drivers capabilities/skill are the base two factors that define how good a team can be. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nNow there is the qualifying race. The best car with the best driver will most *likely* get the best time on the track, so they're at the top of the pole and get first dibs on the front starting positions. The worst car with the least skilled driver gets the worst time in qualifying and gets put on the bottom of the pole, at the back of the starting position.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nNow the part people I feel don't really notice is that the teams at the bottom of the pole *aren't racing against* the teams on the top of the pole. Lets say there are 16 positions in this race, we'll divide that 16 into 4 groups. All the drivers in group 1 are competing against each-other while everyone in group 2 is against their tier of skill. That's not a rule set in stone, position 16 could have a GREAT race and beat position 1. But the odds of that are slim. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nSome times the top tier drivers will get set back, and you'll notice that they'll climb back up the positions quite easily, I was told that it's because the racers in lower positions ahead of them will most likely let them get ahead (and they may *have* to let them get ahead) because they're not really trying to beat top tier. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nIf that wasn't confusing then great, if it was:\n\n & #x200B;\n\nTL;DR: The drivers at the top will race against the highest tier drivers in that said race, while the drivers at the bottom are racing against the lowest tier racers.",
"It's part of the game. Some races are gridded by qualifying times or season points. Fastest drivers in front so they're not bogged down by the slower drivers.\n\nSometimes the race organizers will reverse grid. Fastest guys behind. Force them to overtake. But we all know as race progresses, the slow guys always end up in back of the pack."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
83ze7c
|
does having a complex password really matter?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83ze7c/eli5does_having_a_complex_password_really_matter/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dvlmnig"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Yes. Password-guessing programs try every word in the dictionary, plus two-word pairs, plus words plus short or common numbers. If your password doesn't resemble any of this, it's safer."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
7jxz4b
|
how come you can feel a faint sore throat or other symptom but then the next day after good rest it worsened?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jxz4b/eli5_how_come_you_can_feel_a_faint_sore_throat_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dra1r68",
"draodgc"
],
"score": [
65,
2
],
"text": [
"By the time you are able to feel it, your immune system has lost the battle enough that you will get sick. \n\nWith cold/flu -like illnesses, some symptoms are directly caused by the virus, but others are collateral damage from your body destroying the virus. The sore throat is actually caused by the viruses replicating inside your cells and then causing your cells to explode so they can escape and infect other cells. [See this diagram](_URL_0_). So by the time there are enough of them for you to feel the surface layer of throat cells being a bit sore, it's too late! ",
"Post nasal drip causes mucus to go back down your throat if you lie on your back and for some reason it hurts I think"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://swh-826d.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Viral-replication.gif"
],
[]
] |
||
47wojr
|
if a democrat takes the white house this year, what happens to the gop?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47wojr/eli5_if_a_democrat_takes_the_white_house_this/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d0fybo6",
"d0fyfzc",
"d0fz6tv"
],
"score": [
3,
8,
5
],
"text": [
"Losing the White House (or, not regaining it) just means they won't be the party in the executive branch. Since it only goes back and forth between 2 parties, it usually doesn't cause an earthquake.",
"well the GOP controls:\n\n* 246/435 seats in the House of Representatives\n* 54/100 seats in the Senate\n* 31/50 governorships\n\nso they are doing rather well",
"It's really hard to predict right now what's going to happen as most political predictions rely on comparison to previous trends and we haven't seen anything quite like the Donald Trump candidacy in modern political history. He's completely thrown \"the Party Decides\" political theory into upheaval, at least for the moment.\n\nThat said, here's my best shot at predicting the future: it actually would be better for the GOP as a whole if the Democrats win a third presidency, as it would give the GOP an advantage in the midterm elections and allow them to hold on to their majorities in the House and the Senate. Whichever party holds the White House tends to lose their Congressional majority (if they have one), which we saw in 2014 and 2010 with Obama, and even earlier than that with Bush.\n\nIt also would be better for the GOP if Trump loses because of demographic trends. The GOP's most reliable demographic of primarily older white voters is shrinking as they, well, die off, and white Millennials aren't flocking to the political right quickly enough to counteract this (some are, but not enough to replace those that are getting old). Trump has extremely low favorability ratings among key demographics (Hispanics being the most noteworthy) at a time when it would be reaaaally smart for the GOP to start welcoming the Hispanic vote into the fold.\n\nHowever, as a few other posters have noted, a Clinton presidency would give the Democrats four years to solidify the agenda begun under Obama and potentially the ability to replace a few Supreme Court justices.\n\nThe TL:DR version: politics is always more nuanced than sound bites and even if a Trump win OR a Clinton win \"destroys\" the GOP, all it means is that the party leadership will reorganize themselves in an attempt to attract a new power base of voters. Parties shift identities all the time, which is why the former \"Dixiecrats\" are now the liberal/progressive party (see LBJ and \"we've lost the south for a generation.\") It's possible (although incredibly unlikely, in my opinion) that the Republicans might disband the current party and reform under a new name (as happened to the Whig party), but I don't see this as terribly realistic.\n\nIf by \"destroy\" you mean the possibility that the Republicans will all disappear and turn America into a one party state; that is pure fiction, as much as such a future might delight my evil environmentalist heart.\n\nSource: a green hippy-environmentalist who reads a lot."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6p4lgs
|
what is the purpose of creating super-huge elements that only last a few nanoseconds.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6p4lgs/eli5_what_is_the_purpose_of_creating_superhuge/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkmiv5a",
"dkmivfj",
"dkmix50"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Often times, science isn't done with any practical application in mind. It's all about discovery. Perhaps, in the creation of a super heavy element, we discover some new field of quantum physics. Making them stable is less important than just seeing what happens as they're made and decay.",
"its just experimental. \nmaybe the element they get out has interesting or very useful properties, you don't know until you try",
"It helps us to learn more about how atoms work. But no, these specific elements are not going to be stable. A few even bigger ones might be *somewhat* stable.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zt0qv/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_scientists_creating_new/"
]
] |
||
d5byl9
|
why do high speed trains have blunt noses instead of pointed ones?
|
Looking at pictures of high speed trains, it seems that most of them, and all the new ones, have rounded noses, some of which, like the new ICE-4, have [very blunted ones](_URL_0_), even more so than the [previous generation ICE](_URL_1_). It seems that noses that end in a sharp point are almost never used. Why is this? Shouldn't sharp edges perpendicular to the airflow be able to slice through the air and therefore create the least drag? I would have thought that an optimal nose shape for a high speed train would be one similar to that of a fighter jet, with a pointed nose.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d5byl9/eli5_why_do_high_speed_trains_have_blunt_noses/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f0l31wg",
"f0l4s8s",
"f0lgv0v",
"f0lxk59"
],
"score": [
5,
6,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"You need a bluntish nose to fit the coupler. \n\nTwo train segments coupled together experience *far* less total drag than 2 more pointy separate train segments. \n\nAlso I'm guessing pointy noses only really start paying major dividends at transsonic speeds, just going off the fact that they were used for Concorde aircraft but basically none of Boeing or Airbus's subsonic jets, though again that could be simply a matter of the blunt design fitting into terminals more neatly.",
"This has a lot to do with the way trains enter and exit tunnels.\n\nThe shape is biomimicry from birds that dive into water and don't create or create a very minimal splash. This concept was extrapolated to high speed trains to reduce the sonic sounds that would be emitted from exiting tunnels.",
"Pointed parts create air whirlpools, these increase drag and thus reduce speed.\n\nIt's the same reason why airplane wings have upward tips, it redirects those whirlpools away from the place where lift is generated. If you ever made paper airplanes, you should have noticed that planes with upward tips fly better.\n\nAs for ELI5 ... that's the ELI5 part I understood in university fluid mechanics. I failed. This can be quite complicated and mathematical stuff. But the TL;DR (which is how I approached studying) is that pointy bits have bad fluid mechanic characteristics.",
" > I would have thought that an optimal nose shape for a high speed train would be one similar to that of a fighter jet, with a pointed nose.\n\nTrains have a significantly higher length-to-width ratio than any other vehicle, which means drag affects them differently than it does a car or a plane. Also, even the fastest trains in the world are still nearly an order of magnitude slower than the fastest jets, so their requirements are different."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://assets.new.siemens.com/siemens/assets/api/uuid:d70e529b9bbe7d6da895ea62d2d7ac1eacacf088/width:1125/crop:0:0,08989:0,84035:0,70859/quality:high/version:1534798907/ice4-im2016090990mo.jpg",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/DB_AG_406_001-8.jpg"
] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3qrv4r
|
what caused the chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster? i've heard it had something to do with the fuel rods being laced into hot cooling water or something.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qrv4r/eli5_what_caused_the_chernobyl_nuclear_power/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwhsy1r"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"They were testing their emergency power backup plan. In the event of a power outage, they had diesel backup generators, but they needed 60 seconds to reach full power. They had a system where the plant's steam turbine would provide energy for that 60 second gap but it had failed several times before. They fixed some pieces of the system and were testing it again. \n\nDuring the test, steam bubbles appeared in the core causing a nuclear chain reaction that catapulted the energy output of the nuclear core to 10x it's normal output. The emergency method \"SCRAM\" was used to stop the reactor. It is still debated whether this was operator error, bad instructions, or something else. The initial story from the Soviet government was that the crew fucked it up. \n\nAnyways, the control rods used in the SCRAM were poorly designed with graphite tips and resulted in a power spike. This was known, however was not quickly disseminated because previous tests had been successful despite the initial power spike in shutting down the reactor. In this case, the power spike was massive and caused an enormous steam explosion as huge amounts of water were instantly vaporized. The 2000-ton reactor lid, to which the reactor was fastened, was violently ejected through the roof of the building, and the graphite control rods caught fire and blew up the entire thing, sending radioactive fallout into the air where it rained down for miles. It was pretty bad.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
24pj5y
|
why does the water in the toilet bowl go frothy when i pee?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24pj5y/eli5_why_does_the_water_in_the_toilet_bowl_go/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ch9dzij",
"ch9fo1x",
"ch9isby"
],
"score": [
3,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"It's pretty much like making any other foam - you vigorously mix together something solid (dissolved stuff in your urine) with air, and bubbles form. The structure is supported by whatever solids are present. In some cases (like making meringue from egg whites) the structure is pretty solid, and the bubbles hold up. In the case of pissing into water, there is really no protein to hold the bubbles together, so they quickly collapse.\n\nNote that yellow urine froths more easily than clear due to more dissolved solids.\n\nEdit: There's a medical condition in which your urine contains too much protein - _URL_0_ that leads to very frothy urine. More protein = stronger structure = more foam that lasts longer.",
"It's much the same process by which Stella Artois is made.",
"Proteins from shed epithelial cells in your urethra, trace bacteria and potentially your blood cells increase the surface tension of the mixture of water and urine, allowing it to froth when it is combined in the bowl.\n\nIf it's extremely frothy, that is a symptom of illness, as is turbidity."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteinuria"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
4bg0a6
|
why does adding salt to water cause metals submerged in the water to rust more quickly?
|
Also, why does water rust metal faster than open air (if at all) because iron rusts when exposed to oxygen and air would seemingly expose the iron to more pure oxygen than water or saltwater.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bg0a6/eli5_why_does_adding_salt_to_water_cause_metals/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d18uasw",
"d18z8v2"
],
"score": [
9,
2
],
"text": [
"Rust is a reaction of iron with oxygen to make iron oxide (Fe2O). In dry oxygen, very little happens. The outer layer reacts and protects the rest in a process called passivation. But in the presence of water, you can have the following reaction: \n\nO2 + 4 e- + 2 H2O → 4 OH-\n\nWhere oxygen takes 4 electrons and reacts with two water molecules to makes hydroxide ions. The electrons come from the iron:\n\nFe → Fe2+ + 2 e-\n\nBut to make rust we need another reaction with iron:\n\n4 Fe2+ + O2 → 4 Fe3+ + 2 O2-\n\nIn the process of making rust, the ferrous (Fe2+) and ferric (Fe3+) ions also react with water to form Fe(OH)2 and Fe(OH)3 (ferrous hydroxide and ferric hydroxide) and hydrogen. These hydroxides can then lose their water to form still more iron compounds. It is all these reactions that end up making the rust flaky, so it falls off the iron and exposes new iron that can start to rust.\n\nAll of these reactions are sped up by having more ions in the water, so it conducts electricity better, so that the iron and oxygen can exchange electrons. Pure (distilled) water is a very bad conductor of electricity but salt water is a lot better.\n",
"Salt makes water able to conduct electricity\n\nWhen you have different metals in water that's conductive (a piece of metal is never 100% pure, so it has some differences) this will cause a small electrical current to flow (like a battery). This happens because the \"weaker\" metal oxidizes (that is, loses electrons easily)\n\nSo, basically, the process of losing electrons is easier in conductive water"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
99141c
|
how did humans learn to crossbreed plants to make them more edible? what process did they use to do this?
|
My fiancé showed me some before and after pictures of common fruits/vegetables prior to cross breeding vs. produce of today, and it made me curious. I figured I’d ask Reddit and see what you guys know on the subject.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99141c/eli5_how_did_humans_learn_to_crossbreed_plants_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e4k7oth",
"e4qtv1o"
],
"score": [
10,
2
],
"text": [
"If you find out farmer Bob has nice looking corn but you have bigger corn you might decide to trade seeds 50/50. Since plants reproduce just like anything else eventually all the plants nearby have a big old gangbang and thier babies are bigger and nicer looking. \n \nHowever just like any farming community sometimes inbreeding/bad luck will lead to crap mutations but those ones you just don't let have kids (ie pollinate). \n \nBut the simplest way comes from going \"These seeds came from my best plant so I will only plant these seeds and not the ones from the small plants.\"",
"This would have onlly occurred at the point where early humans began to settle down into village-sized permanent settlements.\n\nThe same process works for both plants and animals…\n\n Once early humans discovered that edible grains and such could be planted and would grow reliably, it was a matter of selecting the individual plants that produced the biggest seeds and grains and pods and constantly re-planting those. Early corn was no bigger than your thumb, for instance. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5jgum3
|
if caffeine promotes wakefulness by blocking adenosine binding to its receptors, therefore postponing sleepy time, how does it also *reverse* existing sleepiness, when presumably it's already too late to block adenosine from binding to its receptors?
|
So if you're reading this you probably know already that one of several mechanisms caffeine uses to promote wakefulness, alongside the better known action of stimulating dopamine release, is to antagonise the adenosine receptor - which is central in regulating circadian rhythm.
As I understand it, sleep clears these receptors out, and then throughout the day, adenosine circulates in the body and slowly starts to fill up all of its receptors, which in turn - as more and more of them become bound - tells the brain that it's time for a snooze. So in other words, the fewer unbound AD receptors there are, the more drowsy you are likely to become until your next sleep cycle wipes the slate clean and resets those receptors.
Assuming my understanding of this mechanism is correct, how does caffeine manage to bring you back from already feeling tired or drowsy? My understanding would be that all it can do adenosine-wise is to block / antagonise existing unoccupied receptors - it cannot retroactively "bump" adenosine out of the way and antagonise a receptor which has already bound to adenosine. So hypothetically, if one had 50 adenosine receptors and 48 of them were already bound to adenosine, you'd be feeling fairly exhausted already and would be pretty close to crashing. All caffeine can do is to make sure the last two receptors cannot be bound, for the time being - it cannot reverse the binding of adenosine to the already-bound 48 receptors.
This suggests to me that all it should be able to do is arrest the progress of drowsiness - not reverse it. So if you're already on the verge of falling asleep, it shouldn't be able to pull you back from that, just keep you suspended where you already are on the "sleepiness scale".
What am I missing here? I have clearly misunderstood something, as we all know a decent cup of coffee or a can of red bull is perfectly capable of jolting us awake even if we were on the brink of unavoidable sleepy time. Is dopamine a stronger stimulant than adenosine is a depressant? Does the dopamine release caused by caffeine offset the fact that you already have enough bound adenosine receptors to signal the brain to start yawning and making for bed?
Or am I fundamentally misunderstanding the whole caffeine - adenosine - sleep axis to begin with?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jgum3/eli5_if_caffeine_promotes_wakefulness_by_blocking/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbg2o3w"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"The misunderstanding here is that adenosine doesn't bind to its receptor and then stay there until you sleep. Adenosine, and really any neurotransmitter, binds to its receptor, affects the receptor cell, and then it is detached from the receptor and is either reabsorbed by the cell that released it or it hangs out in the synaptic cleft. Based on how adenosine works in this case, I would say that it ends up staying in the synaptic cleft until it is broken down during sleep. The receptors don't have adenosine bound to them for hours on end, they just constantly have adenosine binding and unbinding from the receptors. Presumably the concentration of adenosine will build up during the day, producing a larger effect as it does this cycle with its receptors. So caffeine will just out compete adenosine for its receptors as it cycles through and will take away the drowsiness that adenosine is causing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
73qv0g
|
how does the atkins diet work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73qv0g/eli5_how_does_the_atkins_diet_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dnsfsap",
"dnt0q6p"
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text": [
"Protein takes a long time to digest and can make you feel full for a long time. Carbs are sort of the opposite, they stretch your stomach if you eat a lot of them and they digest quickly leaving you feeling hungry. Low carb diets are statistically the best for losing weight consistently and often the recommended diets from dietitians however the speed difference wasn't any higher than a low fat diet, it was just more consistent. [Harvard studies](_URL_0_) [compiled studies](_URL_1_)\n\nThe original idea of the Atkins diet was to have you eat more proteins and less carbs to feel full on less calories. The secondary goal of the new Atkins diet was a high fat versions of it which was meant to put you into ketosis. This had become almost a fad diet as of late, you can learn a lot more on the keto subreddit. Many people are very successful on it. ",
"Every diet works in the same way; expend more calories than you consume. \n\nWith so many people wanting to lose weight, product and marketing people espouse the singularly unique benefits of the latest new diet to sell their book, supplement, blender etc. \n\nThe Atkins diet, as described by the person above, was once the latest thing, a fad, and it ultimately professed that by not consuming the readiest source of energy (carbohydrates), your body would always be in fat burning mode as it converted stored energy (fat) to glucose, that in turn can fuel your body. \n\nMany people achieved great results and swear by it. \nMany struggled with it \n\nThe reality is that every type of diet works so long as you consume less energy than you expend. The 'best' diet is the one you personally find it easiest to stick with, as consistency is what drives results. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/low-carbohydrate-diets/",
"https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/23-studies-on-low-carb-and-low-fat-diets#section2"
],
[]
] |
||
3srq0u
|
how does the radio lose reception as a car enters a tunnel but the cell phone still works?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3srq0u/eli5_how_does_the_radio_lose_reception_as_a_car/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwzud52",
"cwzuwdg",
"cwzv493"
],
"score": [
5,
5,
5
],
"text": [
"Radio is often broadcast from a small number of relatively powerful transmitters a long way away. Dealing with small gaps in radio coverage (like tunnels) isn't something that's generally dealt with - although some larger tunnels will have some sort of broadcast system for their own radio station for drivers to listen to in emergencies within the tunnel.\n\nIn the case of mobile phones, local coverage is more of a concern - if you can't use your phone, you're not making the company money. They will often put base stations along busy routes, with the antennas aligned to provide better coverage along a route. In a long, straight tunnel, it's possible that they could have aimed one of the antennas straight into the tunnel mouth and will be providing sufficient coverage just from that.\n\nIn some circumstances, where it's been deemed profitable enough to do so, the mobile networks can install small cells within the tunnel itself.",
"AM radio is 1MHz. FM radio is 100MHz. Cell phones are 1000MHz. (Very roughly.) Now let's flip this around to wavelengths:\n\nAM radio is 300 metres. FM radio is 3 metres. Cell phones are 0.3 metres. Guess which signal fits best into car tunnels?",
"Some tunnels have cell phone repeaters installed so that if there is an emergency someone can call it in. The fact that you can still continue your call is an added benefit. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2tdend
|
why does a youtube channel with, for example, 5 million subscribers only get about 1 million views or less on their videos about a week after they post them?
|
An example would be SeaNanners.
Also with a channel like smpfilms, at almost 600k subs, his videos over the past few months/years only get about 100k, and a lot of the time, even less.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tdend/eli5why_does_a_youtube_channel_with_for_example_5/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cny0gfc",
"cny0w19",
"cny1vy1"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Subscriptions don't guarantee views. I have plenty of Youtube users I've subscribed to. I get email links when they post new videos, and I generally look at their titles and descriptions, then if it's something I care about, I'll watch it. Most of the time, this isn't the case. I'd wager most casual Youtube users are the same way.",
"Not everyone watches every video \nDead accounts \nAfter a while, people \"grow out\" of certain comedy/entertainment \nTime constraints \n",
"This video does a pretty good job of explaining part of it.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLJQ0gFHM8s"
]
] |
|
11tzv4
|
how are votes counted in usa in major nationwide elections and where is the greatest vulnerability for election fraud?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11tzv4/eli5_how_are_votes_counted_in_usa_in_major/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6pk95h",
"c6plglx",
"c6plkmd"
],
"score": [
2,
9,
3
],
"text": [
"The electronic voting machines have been showed to be extremely vulnerable to various hacks and manipulation that leaves virtually no traces, in my opinion that's one of the greatest risks for fraud at the moment. ",
"Maybe not quite simple enough for an actual 5 year old to understand, but this is basically how it works.\n\nThe US is broken up into states. States are broken up into counties (or parishes, if you're Louisiana). Each county government has an elections department, usually called the Registrar of Voters (RoV). Each county is further broken up into voting districts called precincts. Each precinct has a polling place, where everyone who lives in that precinct goes to vote. These polling places are organized by the RoV, and staffed by RoV volunteers.\n\nOnce the polls close, the ballots (whether they are paper ballots and/or electronic voting machines) are transported from the polling places to the RoV. This is usually done either by RoV personnel or by county sheriffs. If you voted absentee, or live in a state like Washington were all ballots are vote-by-mail, your ballots are mailed to the RoV. The RoV then counts the ballots and verifies the results, which can take some time. The RoV then reports the results for that county to the state department of their state government (which, admittedly, is a confusing name), who verifies the statewide results of the election. I'm not sure if there's anything on the federal level that states then send their results to (I know there's the FEC and the EAC, but I don't know if either of them do this), so hopefully someone here can fill in that bit of information.\n\nSo the vast majority of the grunt work for elections, even a nationwide one like the presidential election, is being done by the various RoVs throughout the country at the county level, which means the greatest vulnerability for voter fraud probably rests with them. However, most people who work at RoVs take their job very seriously, and the RoV itself is usually organized in such a way that any sort of corruption or bias is taken out of the equation (things are checked and rechecked by many different individuals before being approved, for example). In addition, the RoV is usually politically and organizationally (and sometimes physically) separated from the rest of the county government to prevent undue influence. It would take either a large, well hidden conspiracy involving many different people or mass incompetence for election fraud to come from an RoV. Not to mention, in a nationwide or statewide election, corruption in one county is not very likely to influence the outcome of the race (possible, but not likely).\n\nThe other big possible vulnerability, and the more popular one, is the voting machines themselves. A lot of people like to think that the voting machines can be hacked, or altered in some way by the companies that make them, in order to skew the results. It's definitely a concern, but RoVs will check and test their machines in order to make sure they are accurate and working properly.",
"Nice try Mitt."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
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