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846ada | why are buses so square? doesn't it severely reduce fuel efficiency? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/846ada/eli5_why_are_buses_so_square_doesnt_it_severely/ | {
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"I would imagine it's more about the cost of space than the cost of gas. If a vehicle was a bubble, less could fit into an area, so more land is required to store, park and manufacture. When you can fit more passengers and cargo into a single vehicle per trip, that outweighs the cost of the 10% less efficiency. Just a guess.",
"Most busses aren't on the highway; wind drag isn't a big deal when you only get up to 30 mph. For those that do get on the highway, it's all about maximizing space and seats. The biggest drag is not from wind but just from gravity and moving a mutli-ton piece of plastic and steel from point A to point B. Buses are generally limited in size by certain practicalities (beyond a certain size and they need more axles and can't fit in tight streets), and taking out several rows of seats to change the front shape of the bus makes each trip more expensive per seat. "
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6la0an | what purpose does the wedding quote "speak now or forever hold your peace" have and what happens if someone does object? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6la0an/eli5_what_purpose_does_the_wedding_quote_speak/ | {
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"It's a hold over from the past when marriages were prearranged with a contract and sometimes previous betrothals could be a legal impediment. That line means if you know of any legal impediment like a previous contract or secret marriage/consummation this is your last chance to bring it to light. This isn't an issue now. If you spoke up now you'd probably just piss everyone off. "
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duz3ef | with generations.millenials reached young adulthood in the 2000's amirite? but that means that they're around 35+ and have had kids now in their teens so actual millennials must be around 24+ but thats gen z?! it just confuses me. can someone explain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/duz3ef/eli5_with_generationsmillenials_reached_young/ | {
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"Depending on who you ask, millenials are people born 1980-1995 so the oldest ones are almost 40 and the youngest are almost 25",
"Depends on when you were born. Depending on who you ask. This was a response I found on google. \n\nBaby Boomers: 1940-59 \n\nGen X: 1960-79 \n\nGen Y (Millennials): 1980-94 \n\nGen Z: 1995-2010"
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1zhz33 | nato | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zhz33/eli5_nato/ | {
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"Expanding upon the explanation of NATO simply being a military alliance...\n\nThe NATO alliance is also responsible for standardizing a large number of military items and procedures. Everything from the types of ammunition used in certain weapons, the exact dimensions of ammunition magazines, the type of accessory rail on a weapon system, the way in which you speak on a radio, joint operations doctrine, electrical and carpentry standards and a large number of things are determined by NATO agreements."
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4f4abi | california's housing crisis | I'm a Floridian who hasn't been in California for years, could someone explain the housing crisis? Is this a bubble or is it just the sheer demand for homes there? Are foreign investment homes driving this up artificially, and if so by how much?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f4abi/eli5_californias_housing_crisis/ | {
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"I would rather think of it not as a bubble more as a rise and fall based on various factors. I do not think necessarily its a bubble ready to pop and collapse and crash hard. Rather there is a huge population fueling the area (Southern California) more than exceeds available homes (Supply and Demand). Also limited land, unless you consider going further and further away from the main cities. Even Riverside and Temecula are fairly up there for how far they are.\n\nThrow in the various issues in China with massive amount of wealth leaving the country for many different reasons and you have a lot of people with millions of dollars of cash in hand and houses priced within there budget.\n\nLook at the Vancouver market where I heard there it is dominated by a lot of foreign buyers. Also compared to say 20 years ago, the 'average home buyer' tends to make more money than they did in the past (I know, obvious).\n\n* Lot of relatively high wealth in California compared to other areas, to continue fueling the purchases of higher priced homes.\n\n* Very good weather / climate that is highly desirable for external buyers\n\n* Lot of fear in China on the market stability and mixed in with a traditional savings mentality as well as hyper capitalism creating a very rich group of buyers, gives an opportunity for them to tie their cash into something more stable. (And potentially live in a lot less smoggy / nice area / education for children / less risk of government intervention.\n\n* People love to flip homes as there are infomercials on the radio doing seminars how to make money, fueling the demand.\n\n* It is now more mainstream to own multiple properties so the average person (when possible) is more likely to get additional property to rent it and hold on to it for future assets, etc.\n\nCan the market make a correction? Sure, and there are a lot of pent of demand for property waiting on that decline in value to snatch up property. Like the decline in 2009 and by 2012+ it was pretty going up. In fact the sweet spot was right after the previous 'bubble popping' for a specific reason (Adjustable loans defaulting), and up to around 2011 (relatively speaking).",
"Part of it is that a few decades back, the voters of California, via a ballot proposition, made it so that property taxes could only go up on a property by 2% a year.\n\nSo if you're a home owner, or a business owner, or just happen to have some land, this means that your property value can, say, triple, but you don't have to pay any more tax on it. This has two consequences. (1) There's no incentive to sell. If I've owned a home for 20 years, I'm just going to sit on it until I die because it's gaining stupendous value, at effectively no cost to me. And if no one is selling homes, the value of homes will go up. And (2) There's every incentive in the world for home owners to support politicians who will at all costs prevent new housing from being built. If the city council approves new housing, the value of my home might only increase by 5% a year instead of 10%. Heaven forbid! Thus you've got a bunch of cities in the Bay Area that will happily approve tons of new office space for < insert tech company here > , but will steadfastly refuse opening up more residential space so that influx of employees will actually have a place to live. I don't know how things are elsewhere in the state, but in Silicon Valley, it really is just a case of lots of people and not enough homes."
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3za4ck | are mayors of small towns recognized in any way by the federal government? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3za4ck/eli5_are_mayors_of_small_towns_recognized_in_any/ | {
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"I am not sure what you mean by \"recognized\". The mayor is, with varying degrees of authority depending on the city/town, the top elected official in that municipality.",
"Mayors or their equivalent if there is no mayor have the power to request emergency funds from FEMA and similar federal programs when there is a disaster which overwhelms existing local ability to respond, or multiple mayor/executives can petition together if the disaster spans multiple jurisdictions.\n\nMayors and city councils routinely request federal money for schools, roads, dams, and other vital infrastructure and programs. Most (if not all) state and federal highways are paid for by the state or federal government, but the act of maintaining them falls to county or local municipalities. In *most* cases each county maintains a rest area for each portion of each Interstate that passes through it in each direction, though they are coordinated by the state. The local municipalities take bids from local or regional contractors for the work, then submit the budget to the state/federal government to be \"paid back\" so to speak. Schools, universities, dams/power grid, and other things that are considered vital and/or must meet a national standard (like the power grid) will receive some money from the federal government being sent to the local level, or to the state who then re-distributes it to local municipalities."
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6kqhqi | why do american front doors (on tv and movies) have a 2nd door attached to them that seems to close when one opens and vice versa? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kqhqi/eli5_why_do_american_front_doors_on_tv_and_movies/ | {
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"are you talking about screen doors to keep bugs out when we have the door open for ventilation? or perhaps security doors meant to allow you to interact with people at the door without risking them shoving their way in? ",
"It is a screen door (used for ventilation while keeping out bugs, or a storm door (glass door used to protect your wooden door from debris tossed about by storms, and to allow light in the front door without letting in too much air). "
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3j0flb | why most of the old british colonies and common wealth counties chose cricket or rugby as favourite sport over football (soccer)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j0flb/eli5_why_most_of_the_old_british_colonies_and/ | {
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"Not sure if it's true. However cricket and Rugby Union would be more lekely to be played by the \"upper\" classes of Brits of the era."
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b6zuv2 | how come breathing is the only autonomous system we have direct control of? | Have tried stopping your heart? Metabolism? Breathing?
How come we can control our breathing but cannot, eg, heartbeat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6zuv2/eli5_how_come_breathing_is_the_only_autonomous/ | {
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"We actually cant control or breathing. If you hold your breath, your brain will force you to start again.. also some people can slow their heart rate to the point of a dr. Declaring them dead. It would be great to have more control of our own brains but that lil bastards gonna do what it wants. ",
"Blinking comings to mind as being the same sort of deal",
"It's not, I would consider blinking another system we have control over as well",
"There is no reason to have conscious control of heart rate and metabolism so humans never developed that. However, there are very good reasons to have conscious control of breathing. Vocalization is one example that requires a lot of complex control.",
"It's good that your breathing is mostly autonomous. That way, you don't forget to do it and die.\n\nHowever, it's also useful to be able to directly control it, for instance, when you go underwater, and while you are eating or talking. If you couldn't directly control breathing while underwater, your lungs would fill with water immediately, and you'd likely drown. If you couldn't control it while eating, you'd get food in your lungs and choke. If you couldn't control it while talking, that would make talking very difficult."
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243w5g | why is it extremely difficult to sleep after stopping smoking weed? | What happens in the brain that causes said insomnia? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/243w5g/eli5_why_is_it_extremely_difficult_to_sleep_after/ | {
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"Ingestion of cannabis increases melatonin production. \n\nYour brain becomes accustomed to higher levels of melatonin than normal, so when you stop smoking, it no longer has the amounts of melatonin it's used to. \n\nYou can combat this by taking 10mg of melatonin about an hour before bed, then slowly taper off your intake of the melatonin supplement until you can sleep soundly on your own."
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23b4kp | why do people enjoy playing games that simulate warfare? | I love paintball, and today I had an interesting thought.
When I first when paintballing, I was about 14, and visiting my family in Canada. There was this huge outdoor obstacle course and different terrains, it was like the army could do war game exercises there.
The game consisted of at least 15 vs 15, mostly family members and other kids who were there.
My first experience, I was very scared. The tone of the older guys yelling and communicating was what at first made it intimidating. A primal fear washed over me.
Fear of pain coming in at any second when you stuck our your head to see if you could see anyone from the enemy team was even worse.
(Ended up getting shot in the neck, which was the only place I wasn't protected)
I remember immediately thinking about the many scenes of Saving Private Ryan, and how completely terrifying modern warfare must have been like.
I'm 20 now, and I have none of those same feelings when I occasionally paintball. I enjoy the idea of out smarting people, and to brandish my finesse as an athlete. I also realize it's a friendly game, which makes it very enjoyable. I find that it's very comparable to playing an FPS on my xbox.
So my real question is, why do people enjoy simulated combat so much?
I feel that if most people who are like me were to actually be put in a modern firefight, we would be collectively shitting ourselves in fear. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23b4kp/eli5_why_do_people_enjoy_playing_games_that/ | {
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"All the thrill and drama of being on the battlefield without the looming threat of terrible injury or death.",
"If you want to go Freudian, people's motives are comprised of the Life and Death instincts(/drives). A capability to express these instincts in a safe and controlled manner allows us to feed the instinct in a safe and non-threatening way. Essentially, yes, I'm implying that violent video games are essentially the equivalent of masturbation for violent drives."
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3n8vdy | will silicone bits used for data eventually erode away like paper? | I'm in history class wondering if info on computers will ever end up like ancient documents we are unable to read. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n8vdy/eli5_will_silicone_bits_used_for_data_eventually/ | {
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"Yes, probably far more quickly than ancient documents as well. Harddrives dont handle the elements very well. Even well preserved I would imagine a very old harddrive would have issues starting back up.",
"It's silicon, not silicone. Very different despite name similarity. Also the data isn't really stored in silicon, how it's stored can vary plenty by the exact technology used.\n\nIn any case, though, there is a shelf-life, and it's usually measured in decades at best. Magnetic tapes from the 80's are at risk of becoming unreadable already. One of the tradeoffs made with most of the high-capacity storage media.\n\n",
"In addition the media disintegrating, a major problem will be accessing the data. \n\nIf the scenario you are talking about is information more or less abandoned and found much later by a different group of people, it's very likely they won't have the means to get the data off the media. Their computer systems (if they have any) will be different from ours and likely not compatible. ",
"Magnetic and optical media is less durable than paper - all the things that will destroy your paper document will destroy your magnetic/optical media and magnetic/optical media decay much faster over time. They're all certainly less durable than carving your words in stone.\n\nHowever, a lot of the 'lack of durability' arises from simple information density. The more closely packed your information is, the more likely that minor damage will destroy it. So it's unlikely we're going to move to a more durable method of media storage.\n\nThat being said, we're creating durability by constant maintenance - most notably the constant replication of digital data. As long as people are interested in certain information and it is not arbitrarily restricted from replication, it can effectively live forever. I have no idea what the Bible was originally written on, but you can get a copy of the Bible from so many different places in so many different formats that you only really need to worry about the world losing that text if we suffer a civilizational collapse.",
"We don't store data in silicone. We use silicone to make things liek breast implants. \n \nThere are several ways to store computer data, and all of them do degrade with time. \n \nA Hard Disc Drive (HDD) stores data using changes in magnetism of a thin magnetic layer on a platter. Over time, these will degrade, faster if the HDD is stored in a hot place. But even at room temperature the bits will degrade. There is error correction circuitry that helps mitigate this, but at some point, it can't do the trick and the data is lost. \n \nFlash memory (USB thumb drives, SD cards, etc.) store data within silicon transistors using electrical charges. The charges are forced onto or off of a \"floating gate\". It is called \"floating\" because it is completely surrounded by electrical insulators. There is no direct electrical connection. Over time, the charge can very slowly leak off of the floating gate. Again, error correction circuitry helps, but at some point it can't do enough. \n \nThings like CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray store data in various ways, all of which change the reflectivity of the disc in tiny spots so that a laser bounced off the disc is either scattered or isn't. The most permanent of these are when tiny pits are made in a thin metallic layer on the disc. But over time, the coating that is put on top to protect the disc from physical damage degrades and makes it impossible to read the data correctly. Again, error correction circuitry is used, and again it can't save things forever. \n \nSo no computer media is permanent, the ones I've listed above and others. But fortunately, storage is cheap and getting cheaper. The best way to preserve data forever is to make copies over time. So long as the original hasn't degraded to the point that the error correction circuitry can't fix any errors, the new copy starts the clock over again on whatever media it uses. So if you have valuable data, every year or so make multiple copies of it in various places. And then in a year or so, make copies of those. Etc. "
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bhxzws | why do humans and animals make weird faces and movements when they’re about to sneeze ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhxzws/eli5_why_do_humans_and_animals_make_weird_faces/ | {
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"A sneeze is an involuntary response to foreign material in the nose. In order to clear the passage it takes a large amount of pressure and on getting the stimulus your/their body takes over and forces and extreme contraction to try and clear the nasal passage.\n\nHence looking goofy. Function over form."
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307v5n | why do live streams take so much longer to load than youtube videos of comparable or even higher quality? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/307v5n/eli5_why_do_live_streams_take_so_much_longer_to/ | {
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"I'm going to assume you're comparing YouTube to something not owned by google. Then the answer is probably that youtube is supported by google and google has some impressive infrastructure. ",
"Because live streams have to compress the video on the fly. Youtube can use a much better compression algorithm because there is no real time limit. ",
"Maybe because when watching a YouTube video you \"download\" the video from Google's servers but when you're watching a live stream you have to \"download\" the stream from the guy that is \"uploading\" (streaming) it?"
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43seor | why do some websites tell you that they use cookies and have a 'got it' button, if almost every website uses cookies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43seor/eli5_why_do_some_websites_tell_you_that_they_use/ | {
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"The EU made it mandatory for websites in that region to inform users that they're putting a small file on the users computer, that can be used to track that users browsing habit on that and other sites.\n\nPrivacy laws are a big thing in Europe, so it was a long thing common. It basically means that you now consent to them doing that, whereas before unless you were tech-savvy, you have no idea. \n\nIf you're not in Europe, and/or browsing a European site, you might still see it, as it's easier to just make it a global site change, than to filter it depending on where the users are coming from. \n\ntl;dr: EU made it mandatory to tell people they're being tracked by cookies, as most people have absolutely no idea what a cookie even is, much less what they do, and people ought to consent to that kind of thing.",
"It's an EU law.\n\nMany websites are not operated from the EU, so the law doesn't apply to them."
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22t9vp | the united states involves itself in many worldly conflicts like ukraine, but why doesn't it intervene in the bad conditions in africa? | There's still genocide, rape, poverty, and hunger in a lot of places on the continent. When I hear about these things and then see on the news that the US is involved in a more advanced country such as Ukraine, I think of the people in Africa who may not be able to protect their freedoms versus people who probably could.
Edit: Wow, I guess I didn't know much about it! Some of my friends and I were just discussing it in my history class. Thanks for the insight! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22t9vp/eli5_the_united_states_involves_itself_in_many/ | {
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"America hasn't intervened in Ukraine.",
"The US has dabbled in Africa many times in the past, to many different degrees, with mixed results. The US is heavily involved in regards to diplomacy, trade, and various types of aid and development projects. It has also undertaken a number of different military interventions at various points.\n\nThe reality is that sometimes it works great and things get better, sometimes it goes terribly and things get worse, sometimes it goes so-so and things don't really change all that much.\n\nAfrica is a big continent with lots of different countries, many of which are suffering from differing problems. Helping them solve them is not as easy as the US just \"getting involved\".",
"Because Africa is mainly a European problem. Ever since the colonial days Europe has screwed that continent up so much that America is basically sitting out. Not like Africa isn't without national resources: Uranium Gold silver platinum Oil are are in large supplies there. What needs to happen in Africa is for one man or woman to stand up unite the continent and then clean it up. They are so broke up right now that even the big evil US wants to stay out. But we do have an African command set up and we are currently in MANY operations (covertly) Inside Africa. ",
"You mean, like, Somalia?\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_",
"We currently have troops in Uganda to hunt down terrorists. ",
"Why Ukraine is more important than some random Africa country?\n\n1. US promised to protect Ukraine because it gave up nuclear weapons. If US will not protect Ukraine, it will stop all 50 years of nuclear de-escalation attempts. Small countries will have another proof that nobody except them can protect them, and start to develop nuclear weapons. And US will have no excuse to stop them.\n\n2. Ukraine is a big country that willingly wants to be US and EU ally, Russia want to stop it.\n\n3. Russia started to behave too aggressively. Chechnya, Georgia, now Ukraine. Rising anti-American empire is not a good thing. Especially when it looks like they want to collect USSR back, and some of ex-USSR countries are EU members now.\n\n4. EU wants stability near their borders. War will cause much trouble (refugees, gas supply, etc.)\n\n5. Russia just ignored all treaties it had with Ukraine and ignored territorial integrity assured by UN membership. It also invaded country on completely made up pretext. It just broke all world relationships and laws built after WWII.\n\n\n",
"We have gotten involved in many regions of Africa, and send billions in aid yearly. \n\nAs to Ukraine, we have not intervened, we are bound by treaties to get involved and support them should their sovereignty be threatened, as happened. And Russia is still a major rival, though is no longer the outright enemy now. ",
"The reason the US seems to be so involved with Russia is because Russia is a large and powerful country. The US can't simply allow them to go bossing around other countries without following whatever international rules there are. Africa isn't powerful enough to be a threat to the US and they simply have way too many problems that we can solve.",
"Were there...jsoc has operated in over 30 countries in counterterrorism operations.just because you dont see or hear it doesn't mean it isn't happening.some countries are just not ready yet,if we take one party out,another steps in and just starts all over,it would be like taking out the nazis and then jews start committing genocide against others....intervention in Africa is just shuffling the decks",
"The US is only interested in Ukraine to prevent Russia from gaining more pwoer",
"The US does have diplomatic relations with various African countries but Africa is a very had nut to crack. Also Europe is responsible for a lot of the events that led to Africa's current problems. \n\nTake a war torn nation in Africa for example. You would have first to gather enough information to decide which side you want to aid. As a third party intervening, you also have to win the hearts of the people - people who remember how European expansion screwed them over. \n\nYou then have to find the enemy and take them out. Problem is that these factions are very formidable guerilla fighters. And lets say you do defeat the enemy, you know how to reverse the damage social and industrial damage that they did and spend resources from your homeland to build up a foreign nation, spending a ton of manpower and dollars waiting for the country to be able to sustain itself.\n\nAfter a decade in the Middle East the US is going to be a bit more careful about which countries they try to aid.\n"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993)",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Task_Force",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Operation_in_Somalia_II"
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35qbpg | why are indigo and violet separate colors on the spectrum and not grouped together as purple? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35qbpg/eli5_why_are_indigo_and_violet_separate_colors_on/ | {
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"Isaac Newton had a strange relationship with the number 7. When naming the colours of the rainbow he split purple into indigo and violet to make 7 colours. "
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4dlzi9 | if schedule 1 drugs cannot be used for research how do we have medically-available drugs like meth and heroin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dlzi9/eli5if_schedule_1_drugs_cannot_be_used_for/ | {
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"It is possible to do research with Schedule I drugs. It's hard, however, to get the necessary government permits to do so.\n\nThis is because something in Schedule I is deemed to have no medical value, and you have to show why you want to do research on something with no medical value. It's a legal catch-22.",
"Methamphetamine (and salts and isomers) is Schedule 2 (at least in the US), not Schedule 1. That's why methamphetamine hydrochloride is an FDA-approved prescription medication. "
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1f2jlh | hipsters. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f2jlh/eli5_hipsters/ | {
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"Any explanation would ruin their appeal.",
"They just wanna be different, man. People like attention. They like to feel like they're a part of *something*. So hipsters are part of their own kind of something: things that are unpopular or associated with \"hipster culture\", or just too new to have been adopted by the general public. There's plenty of types of hipsters, in that regard.\n\nWhy do some people hate them? I doubt as many people hate them as they claim. Some people legitimately hate hipsters for reasons of their own, such as how hipsters often show off their current trends. A lot of other people just \"hate\" hipsters because at one point of time, it just became \"cool\" to hate hipsters (there own kind of being a part of something).\n\n^(Edit: fixed spelling)",
"Lenny Bruce was a real hipster, these new ones are just some sort of a bathroom variety."
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3yerym | why is turkey not punished for shooting down a russian jet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yerym/eli5_why_is_turkey_not_punished_for_shooting_down/ | {
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"Because Turkey is part of NATO, so any military repercussions would require the rest of NATO, most notably the US, to defend Turkey. Refusal to do so would make NATO pointless. Turkey says Russia violated their air space, other countries enjoy having sovereign space as well and support Turkeys actions. Also, it sticks it to Russia for being dicks in Crimea/Ukraine, without war.",
"The Russian jet violated Turkish airspace.\n\nThe Russian military has gotten into a bad habit of ignoring borders, despite constant warnings by the west to stop. A Nato member state finally retaliated. Perhaps now that there are real consequences, Russia will think twice."
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1vyaw5 | in a revolution, why does the army, police force, etc, support the government (the situation in ukraine now) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vyaw5/eli5_in_a_revolution_why_does_the_army_police/ | {
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"Because that's their job? Because they disagree with the rebels? Their sense of duty outweighs their sense of social justice? The government will kill their families if they don't?\n\nLots of reasons. It will vary from situation to situation.\n\nEdit: There are plenty of examples of them *not* siding with the government, whether actively fighting or just refusing to work.",
"Generally because they are employed by the Government and it is their job to protect them. However, there have been plenty of examples of the military overthrowing governments.",
"Because it's the government that gives you your paycheck, and chances are you have mouths to feed at home. (at least your own). And when push comes to shove, do you care more about your own security (and your families) or more about the security of a complete stranger?\n\n(also know as biting the hand that feeds)",
"Where do their paychecks come from? ",
"Actually, another good reason is simply peer pressure.\n\nJust after WWII there were a ton of questions about why so many Germans went ahead with some of the atrocities in the Holocaust. So somebody made an experiment called the Milgram Experiment.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe test was really simple, there would be two subjects, one was a teacher, and the other was a learner. The teacher would say a word from a list, and the learner had to say a specific response to each word the teacher said. If he got it wrong the teacher would apply a shock and up the voltage. The dial went all the way to \"DEADLY\".\n\nNow, in reality, the learner was in on the experiment and never received shocks, but the teacher didn't know. (he was the subject of the test and didn't realize it)\n\nWhen there was a proctor in the room, 65% of the teachers would go all the way to the deadly voltage of 450 volts. The majority of people would rather go with the flow than against it.",
"Using the US as an Example.\n\nThe President is the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces. The sitting President outranks every other military member.\n\nAdditionally, we swear an oath:\n\n\"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.\" \n\nSo, in the case of US service members we are legally, and ethically obligated to do so, even if we do not agree with those decisions.",
"In addition to all the other good reasons posted, militaries naturally segregate their soldiers from main stream society. Basic training 'programs' young men to accept the military lifestyle and culture, and the friendships that are forged are usually stronger than those formed in childhood or school. Soldiers live in barracks or base housing, separate from civilians. Role models are educated in military institutions that promote a desired viewpoint. An attitude of sacrifice develops, in contrast to what soldiers come to view as an attitude of entitlement and selfishness in main stream society. \n\nThese things are also part what makes standing or regular army troops more \"reliable\" than reserves, who can't be permanently segregated from main stream culture.\n\nSoldiers tend to be less 'indoctrinated' in developed and democratic countries where standards of education are higher, and when they consider themselves defenders of the people. "
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10k32w | please define quantum. | My son asked me to define quantum, I know it's a very small energy amount but beyond that, I don't know. While I'm at it, could you define quantum mechanics to me as if I was five. I've heard the term bandied about with all sorts of ill informed definitions but what is the Reddit definition? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10k32w/please_define_quantum/ | {
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"A quantum is a finite amount. That's really all it means. \n\nIt's a bit like a volume knob- you know how some volume knobs can be adjusted smoothly and continuously, whereas others just click across maybe 10 different values, and can't select in between? The latter volume knob is quantized.\n\nQuantum Mechanics refers to a group of theories that say that the universe is quantum- there's a finite increments of length, energy, mass, whatever. It's not continuously variable. You can have a length of 1 or 2 or a billion, but you can't have a length of 1.5.\n\nIt really came in existence with the photoelectric effect in 1905, and the field of study flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, with famous physicists you've probably heard of like Fermi, Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac, etc. Prior to 1905, the common belief was that the universe wasn't quantized- you could have any amount of anything you wanted. The photoelectric effect, conducted by Einstein, was the first experiment that showed that light is quantized- it exists as photons, and there's no way to absorb a fraction of a photon- you either absorb the whole thing, or nothing.\n\nAt the heart of it, that's really what quantum mechanics means. ",
"Let me put my 2 pennies here and try to explain it like you're seven, from a more abstract and mathematical POV (some theorists study quantum mechanics have never in their life made use of an accelerator/spectrometer. This is just another example of the kind of intellectual compartmentalization in our academia).\n\n\nSince a few hundred years ago physicist have always been assuming, without much ado, that a * b - b * a = 0. (For the sake of discussion, think of a and b as numbers). And they verify it with the experimentalists. The experimentalists said, 'a * b - b * a is not exactly zero. Look, it equals 0.000012...' theorists went 'meeeehhh, whatever, look at your instruments, dude, I venture to say that a * b - b * a = 0 within tolerance.'\n\n\nAnd time changes, and fast forward perhaps 300 years or so. Measurement technologies have progressed a great deal, and when the experimentalists make measurements the non-zeroness is observable with a much smaller tolerance, in other words the non-zeroness can no longer be satisfactorily explained by lack of instrumental precision.\n\n\nAns that is sort of the 'fundamental' reason why quantum effects can only be detected at a very small scale: a * b - b * a is so damned close to zero (yet non-zero) that classical physics have been enjoying the happy coincidence of assuming it to be zero.\n\nP.S. Do excuse the ugly formatting and less than perfect writing by a sick man"
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4ox3vd | how do some companies get away with selling merchandise that parody famous brand logos while others don't? | I'm sure we've all seen it before: clothing, bumper stickers, and all sorts of stuff that features a recognizable brand logo, using the same font and colors, but slightly altered for parody's sake. To pull an example out of thin air, a red and white cursive logo that says 'Joke-a Cola'. In other cases, it's the parody of a company mascot like the Energizer Bunny. I've seen tons of this stuff throughout my life, and I've always wondered, 'Is this stuff allowed to be made and sold?' And even if it's just a parody, isn't this still a breach of copyright law?
Adding to that, sometimes the people that make these parodies don't get away with it. A few years back, I remember seeing a shirt being sold online that mimicked the logo of some country club and there was hardly a resemblance, but the country club managed to get a cease and desist that kept more shirts from being made. In recent news, the WWE released a shirt for John Cena in the style of the Pabst Blue Ribbon logo which is being disputed. Are some companies just more lenient than others when it comes to this stuff?
**EDIT:** My question has been answered in great detail, and thank you to everyone that replied! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ox3vd/eli5_how_do_some_companies_get_away_with_selling/ | {
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"Firstly, it's important to distinguish between copyright law and trademark law.\n\nCopyright law protects creative works/media like songs, books, movies, television shows, video games, animations, etc. from being copied/redistributed without permission.\n\nTrademark law protects a company's brand/identity (e.g. logos, slogans, \"trade dress\" [distinct appearance], etc.) from being used without permission.\n\nSo there are a couple of things to note right off the bat:\n\n1. The primary area of law that relates to the sale of this type of merchandise is trademark law rather than copyright law\n2. Under copyright law, parody is considered a protected art form anyway or, at the very least, it can be used as a \"Fair Use\" or \"Fair Dealing\" defense (depending on the country). \n\nWith respect to #2, this basically means that you don't need special permission or a license to create a parody of another (copyrighted) creative work even if you created the parody work with the intent to derive commercial value from it (e.g. to sell it).\n\nOkay, now for trademark law. Basically the principle behind trademark law is that if a \"reasonable person\" could confuse your store/merchandise with the official one then it's a no go. Also, you must not make it appear as though your store/merchandise has been endorsed or licensed by the official one.\n\nIn other words, you can't (for example) open a computer repair store and call it \"Apple PC Repairs\" because \"Apple\" is a protected trademark in the computer/electronics industry and a reasonable person could confuse your store for a genuine \"Apple\" computer repair store.\n\nHowever, the lines start to get blurry when you're dealing with cases such as parodies. It basically comes down to whether a reasonable person would confuse your parody merchandise for real/official merchandise.\n\nThe other key factor that comes into play in trademark law is how similar your industry/product is to the industry/products of the other company which you are allegedly infringing the trademark of. So if my products/merchandise have nothing to do with the types of products/services the other business sells, then it may be okay.\n\nFor example, someone can potentially create a product called \"Apple Shoes\" with an apple as their logo and that may still be okay because—as far as I know—Apple (the computer/electronics company) does not have trademark protections that extend to the footwear industry and also there is an argument that a reasonable person is not going to expect Apple (the computer/electronics company) to be producing footwear.\n\n",
"Parody is 'an imitation of something for comedy purposes'. \n\nParody is allowed under the law, but just putting a closely related logo or motto on to make something look like it is made by the trademark owners is not parody.\n"
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6i60yt | how is the nationality of a baby born on a flight decided? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i60yt/eli5_how_is_the_nationality_of_a_baby_born_on_a/ | {
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"Aren't pregnant women not supposed to be flying?"
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2xagq1 | - if i were shrunk down so i was only an inch tall, how far of a drop could i survive? | Could I still survive a fall from a one story building? I would be hitting the ground at the same speed as I would be at my current size. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xagq1/eli5_if_i_were_shrunk_down_so_i_was_only_an_inch/ | {
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"The question is too arbitrary. You couldn't be shrunk down to 1 inch because your organs couldn't work at that size, so where do we draw the line of which laws of physics apply to you? Does the same force required to kill you or is there some kind of scaling? Are your bones the same strength? They would be entirely different strength wise at that scale. It's unanswerable."
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20irsw | how does heat absorption in soil effect the environment? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20irsw/eli5how_does_heat_absorption_in_soil_effect_the/ | {
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"It can make the soils dry, reducing their volume and consolidating them. It can also dry out organic matter and make it more difficult to decompose and be reabsorbed. It can also dry out live organic matter such as plants and roots in the soils, making them more brittle (depending on the soil) and crumbly. The bacteria in the soil may also be unable to perform ineffectively. The microclimates of areas may change too.\n\nThe question does depend on what you are looking at. I don't think I answered this well as I'm rather tired and I'm not amazing at soil science when I'm tired. Hope it helped."
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4nt32r | what exactly is the process of drying? | Is it the heat that dries it out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nt32r/eli5_what_exactly_is_the_process_of_drying/ | {
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"Drying is water, turning from a liquid on the object being dried, into gas and going somewhere else (into the air around the object). At almost any temperature you're likely to find yourself in, this will happen. Leave an uncovered cup of water on a table for a few weeks and the cup will be empty. This process is faster at higher temperatures (assuming other conditions like humidity are the same), which is why heat seems to dry things."
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8col3n | what's the incentive to pay medical bills when they don't effect your credit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8col3n/eli5whats_the_incentive_to_pay_medical_bills_when/ | {
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"Even if they don’t effect your credit, they can still have effects on you. Debtors can garnish your wages for unpaid debts, and send collectors after you ",
"They DO affect your credit... when you're paying to the hospital, doctor, etc. they don't report the balance of your debt to the credit bureaus, but if you don't pay and they turned over your debts to debt collectors then the delinquency gets reported and the debt collectors do report debt balance. "
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5ax8ci | what is the difference between programming & scripting? also, is "coding" the act you're performing while programming or scripting, or is coding something totally different? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ax8ci/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_programming/ | {
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"Scripts are usually a set of coded instructions that are run by the computer on the fly. Programs can be scripts but often they are 'compiled' code. In a compiled prgram, the computer converts the code into a special binary file that will run the instructions faster. Compiled programs are often shipped to users without their source code, so you can't see what is inside. Scripts *are* the source code.\n\n\"Coding\" usually refers to writing either compiled programs or scripts. Maybe in some circles in implies one more than the other, but you can't depend on that.",
"They all mean pretty much the same thing. \n\n\"Programming\" is the more formal term, \"coding\" more colloquial. \"Scripting\" has a bunch of other associations, some of them technical, but those are pretty moot nowadays (most \"scripting languages\" routinely use a compiler). What remains is a vague implication that it's high level, ad hoc and the result not meant to be \"production quality\".",
"Scripts are file which are read by another program and let them program execute different operations in a specific order.\n\nA script on it's own cannot do anything, it always requires some sort of mother process which actually runs the operations. An actual program can technically run without anything else being on that computer. Many programs rely on other programs for specific functions, and many of these programs that others rely on are part of the operating system itself, but technically you can actualy write a program which runs on an empty computer. You just have to place it in a spot where your computer finds it when you press the power button.\n\nNow the words programming, scripting and coding are mostly interchangeable. I say mostly, because while you can call scripting programming or coding, the other way around is not as accurate.\n\nWhen should you use which? Well mostly at how complex the task is you are writing. You can write very simple scripts which just do something small to help yourself. That you would refer to as scripting in most cases. But you can also write very (infact extremly) complex scripts which can rival the complexity of standalone program. In such a case you would rather use the word coding or programming.",
"To age things up a bit and expand a bit on what people have already said: what people are referring to as scripts are generally referred to as \"interpreted\" code, where a program reads a text file containing the code and converts the written instructions to machine instructions on the fly. It'a also possible to have a program which is composed of both compiled code and interpreted scripts. Many video games use scripts to control the AI and other game logic while the compiled code handles things like the sound/graphics work.",
"Strictly speaking, nothing - but a \"high level\" program is often referred to as a script (and this also depends on the language), so scripting is a specific kind of programming.\n\nWhat I mean by \"high level\" is that each instruction does a lot of stuff under the hood. For example:\n\n1. Walk to the front door\n\nvs.\n\n1. Calculate the direction to the front door\n2. Turn to face that direction\n3. While you are not near the front door:\n 1. Put your left foot forward\n 1. Put your right foot forward\n\n\"Coding\" is just slang for programming.",
"In my mind coding == programming, and scripting is a special kind of programming that you write something, typically short, to be executed by an interpreter. Usually when coding/programming/scripting the majority of time is spent in reading, thinking, and constructing the logic model in your brain. Only very little time is used to actually type the code out in the text editor.",
"Originally — and I mean back in the '50s and '60s — the term \"coding\" did not mean \"writing programs\". It meant \"manually translating a program into numeric machine language\".\n\nA scientist or engineer would decide what they wanted a program to do — for instance, calculate a particular mathematical function. A programmer would write a program out by hand, on paper, expressing the steps to carry out that function. A coder would translate each line of that program into numeric codes that a computer could understand. Then a keypunch operator would type those numeric codes on a machine that made punched cards; and a computer operator would feed the punched cards into the computer to run the program.\n\n[\"Autocoder\"](_URL_0_) was an early word for what we now call an *assembler*, or a low-level compiler. An autocoder replaced the work that was done by a human coder, allowing the computer to translate programs from a \"coding language\" into machine language.\n\n[\"Coding\"](_URL_1_) is still used in a similar sense in social science. Taking survey responses and translating them into numerical data is called coding.",
"Coding, programming and scripting all mean writing code. The difference only appears after the code is written and you want to run the code. There are two main ways to go from written/typed code to running your code: Compiling or interpreting. Scripting means interpreting while the other two could go either way (compiling or interpreting). \n\nScripting is like speaking English in Europe. Most people speak some of it, so you can get by in most countries, but it can be a little slow to get your message across. However coding/programming in the compiled sense is like learning another language so you can do business faster in a specific country. It only helps in one country, but it can speed things up quite a bit.\n\nSo if you are just visiting, stick to English (scripting). If you are a regular traveler to Spain and France, learn some Spanish and French (compile). There are also hybrid approaches these days (translation apps that let you speak English, and out pops Spanish or French depending on what you need)"
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3b3c7j | how do solar panels tie into the grid and provide constant electricity? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b3c7j/eli5how_do_solar_panels_tie_into_the_grid_and/ | {
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"Well the panels don't supply constant electricity, they only provide electricity while they're receiving sun light.\n\nIn order to make them effective they need to be tied to a battery supply that can store unused electricity generated during the day. The batteries then supply energy while the sun is gone.\n\nin terms of connecting to a wider grid, power companies use battery like systems to store and regulate the amount of electricity in the network so the solar panels would just add their electricity into the system the same way a power plant would and the power company would regulate whether that electricity is stored or used.",
"Picture the power grid like a road network. \n\nThe main divided highway is like the big power lines you see on the tall latticed steel towers. They deliver a lot of electricity, but under tightly controlled circumstances, and you can't just use it as-is.\n\nThe various sources of electricity, such as solar panels, are like the main roads feeding into the highway. They need their energy converted into a form that can be transported efficiently. This is done with a piece of equipment called a *transformer* that converts whatever electricity your solar panel is producing into a higher voltage that is transported more efficiently. This is like the merging lane on a highway; you need to match the speed of the other cars to get on.\n\nThe same happens in reverse to get the electricity to your house. The transformer converts the electricity back down to a lower voltage that your appliances can use. Similar to the off-ramp from a highway, you need to slow down to play nicely with the traffic on the regular roads.\n\nAlso, solar panels *don't* provide constant electricity. They only work when it's sunny. When it's not sunny, the on-ramp from that panel is closed. Electricity doesn't run back towards the solar panel because it's a one-way ramp."
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b754g9 | how does _url_0_ (aka google), manage it's storage and bandwidth costs when thousands of videos are uploaded and stored daily? do the advertisers actually cover its costs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b754g9/eli5_how_does_youtubecom_aka_google_manage_its/ | {
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"Do advertisers actually cover the costs? Yes. That's the business model of google. That's how they set their prices.\n\nHow does google do it? They have a lot of infrastructure, and a lot of smart people working for them who spend all their time at work coming up with ways to reduce the amount of bandwidth used, and the amount of computation required to produce results. They've built their whole company on this kind of technology, and they're among the best companies in the world for dealing with huge data sets, and storing them safely and efficiently. It's the reason that Google the search engine was able to out compete it's competitors in the early days. In most cases, it was better at finding related results, and faster too.\n\nEdit: A couple of people have pointed out that Youtube is loosing money, but that Google as a corporation is able to cover the loss.",
"YouTube is actually losing money now. I guess Google, as in the search engine, has enough ad revenue to make up for it."
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dwcpdq | why can’t we move/feel our arms after the blood circulation is cut off, for example, when we sleep on it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dwcpdq/eli5_why_cant_we_movefeel_our_arms_after_the/ | {
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"It’s not the circulation that is cut off that makes your arm unable to be felt. It’s cutting off the nerve communication to the brain that is doing it."
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1s6bcs | why does there have to be poor and rich in an economy? will it ever be possible for everyone to be considered well off? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s6bcs/eli5_why_does_there_have_to_be_poor_and_rich_in/ | {
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"* Some people will always be stronger, faster, smarter, better looking, or luckier than others, and will be able to use those to their economic advantage.\n* Rich and poor are relative...the poor in the US generally have enough food, shelter, and protection...this makes them among the richest people in human history.",
"There will always be poor and rich in society. Not that the distribution of wealth is always fair, but a lot of the time those who work harder or have developed the \"right\" skills will become the rich. That, however, isn't really what you are asking.\n\nConsider the United States at the turn of the 20th century and in the 21st century. In both periods there are people of immense wealth and absolute poverty, but consider middle class (especially what would be called the working class). Think of the things that people have in their houses today: televisions (cable, satellite), computers, mobiles, other expensive electronics, refrigerators, air conditioning, multiple automobiles, and probably hundreds of other things. Even more basic: indoor plumbing (hot water), electricity and lighting, clothing. These things that most people have today and consider essential to living, were considered luxury items 100 years ago. (understanding that somethings weren't invented yet, but would still be considered luxury if they had)\n\nThe point I'm trying to make is that, although there are people with uber-wealth, 100 years of technological advances, political changes, and economic changes have made the middle/working class a decent place to be.",
"The real answer is scaricity. There is not enough of anything for everyone to have as much as they want. And since rich and poor are relative, there are some people who will not have everything they want and will be considered \"poor\".\n\nIt is probably possible that everyone's basic needs for food, shelter, health care, etc. could be met so that everyone would be \"well off\" but until (if we ever) reach a post-scarcity level, like in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, there will still be rich and poor people.",
"The only way I can see there being no rich and poor in an economy is if nothing has any value--if there are machines that can create whatever a person desires with no real cost to doing so, and enough of them so that everyone has access to one.\n\nIf we get to that point, then I could see there being no rich or poor because there would be nothing to sell or buy or create or consume--you just make what you want."
]
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4htf84 | nuclear fusion is often hailed as the energy source of the far future! how does it work? is this theoretically possible to be using harnessing nuclear fusion for transportation such as cars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4htf84/eli5_nuclear_fusion_is_often_hailed_as_the_energy/ | {
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"If the electrical grid is powered by fusion, and you have an electric car, then your car will run on fusion power, after a fashion.",
" > Nuclear fusion is often hailed as the energy source of the far future! How does it work? \n\nFusion (merging of lighter atoms into a heavier one) is the opposite of Fission (splitting of a heavy atom into lighter ones) that fuels todays nuclear plants, the problem with Fission is that the elements that net energy from it are highly radio active. \n\nFusion nets energy for lighter elements when joined into a heavier one, neither of them need to be radio active like todays nuclear power, but just like today's nuclear power, there are enormous amounts of energy in the nuclear reactions compared to the energy from chemical reactions such as burning coal or oil.\n\nThe problem is that enormous amounts of energy are also required to trigger these reactions, with the best of todays technology, about the same input energy is needed as you get out. But we know that it's potentially possible to do it more efficiently, because this is how the energy in our sun is made, that heats us every day.\n\n > Is this theoretically possible to be using harnessing nuclear fusion for transportation such as cars? \n\nIt is certainly theoretically possible to harness the energy, perhaps not in something the size of a car (certainly not in a foreseeable future anyway), it would rather be as fusion nuclear power plants converting the nuclear energy from heat into electricity so you can charge your electric car with it from the wall plug at home."
]
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40t4g9 | why does raw poultry potentially go bad after 1-2 days in the fridge while raw steak may last for 5? | Info from _URL_1_ and _URL_0_ but I'm just wondering why bird meat can go so fowl (so sorry) so fast. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40t4g9/eli5_why_does_raw_poultry_potentially_go_bad/ | {
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"Poultry is not as dense as beef. Bacteria can permeate poultry easier and faster than beef. This is the same reason why you have to cook poultry at least till medium and not rare, which can otherwise be done with beef. ",
"Not exactly sure this applies to spoilage, but the explanation why we get more foodborne diseases from poultry goes something like this: The main way bacteria to get onto meat is during slaughtering, as it's usually bacteria already living on them. When you skin a cow you take away a huge potential contamination risk and the large body makes it easy to get meat that's from the \"inside\" and is thus \"cleaner\". Now imagine a chicken compared to a cow, and how you keep the skin on it (at least until further cutting later on). It's a much messier process, hence more bacteria."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.foodsafety.gov/blog/meatinrefrig.html",
"http://www.rd.com/health/healthy-eating/how-long-can-you-store-meat-in-the-fridge-or-freezer/"
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[],
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|
l4tgc | what caused the economic recession? what exactly are credit default swaps, derivatives, hedges, etc.? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l4tgc/eli5_what_caused_the_economic_recession_what/ | {
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"If you have a spare afternoon or two I'd check out these two Khan Academy playlists on the [Credit Crisis](_URL_0_) and the [Paulson Bailout](_URL_1_), and if you want to learn more about how banks work check out this [Banking and Money](_URL_2_) playlist as well; there's a few others on finance and credit as well if you want to look for them.",
"OK. Brace yourself. I can make this reasonably straightforward, but I can't make it short, because it's a long story.\n\nWhen a big corporation puts a pile of money in a bank, the deposit isn't FDIC insured. Because the bank is not insured, the corporation demands collateral. That's right - the *bank* has to provide collateral before the corporation is willing to deposit money. The bank gets its collateral back when the corporation gets its money back.\n\nBut where does the bank get the collateral? The answer is tricky. Here's what they do. Bear with me.\n\nThe bank gets two people: me, Mr. Wild-Eyed Speculator, and you, Mr. Cautious Depositor. I am willing to take huge risks in exchange for big profits. You just want to make a deposit, and you want to be sure you'll get it back - you want collateral.\n\nThe bank pairs us up. It takes a 5 million dollar investment-slash-crapshoot from me, and a 5 million dollar deposit from you, and it buys 10 million dollars worth of mortgages. Then it gives you a deed. Your deed reads:\n\n* Dear Mr. Cautious Depositor: If for any reason we fail to give you your 5 million back in 1 month, you have the right to sell these 10 million dollars worth of mortgages, and take 5 million dollars from the sale. You must give whatever's left to that wild-eyed speculator.\n\nThat deed is your collateral. That reassures you that you'll get your deposit back, one way or another. Meanwhile, I get this deed:\n\n* Dear Mr. Wild-Eyed Speculator: These 10 million dollars worth of mortgages are getting sold in one month. 5 million of the proceeds go to that cautious depositor. You get whatever's left. Let's hope it's a lot!\n\nMy deed is called the \"residual.\" \n\nNow: why would I take a deal like this? Answer: because I only invested 5 million, but I'm getting all the profits on 10 million dollars worth of mortgages! That's twice as much profits as I would have gotten if I'd just bought 5 million worth of mortgages.\n\nNow: why is your investment safe? Because you are in control of 10 million worth of mortgages, covering a deposit that's only 5 million. Yes, some of those mortgages could default. If 10% default, then the mortgages are only worth 9 million. If 20% default, the mortgages are only worth 8 million. But that's still plenty, plenty for you to get your money back.\n\nBut what if 51% default?\n\nWell, that isn't going to happen. Even during the great depression, there weren't that many defaults. Spoiler: not during the housing bust, either. Not even close, really. Yes, some mortgages do default - but not 50 percent of them. This really is good collateral!\n\nThere's a problem, though. The bank needs to pair one wild-eyed guy with one cautious guy. But there are three times as many cautious guys showing up at the bank as wild-eyed guys.\n\nThe solution: pair up three cautious guys for each wild-eyed guy. That alters the numbers a little... the cautious guys start losing money if 25% of the mortgages default. But that never happens. Right? That never happens. That's still safe, right?\n\nUh-oh.\n\nSo one day, the housing bubble pops, and homeowners start defaulting. Thousands of cautious guys show up at the bank. They all shout \"hey, this mortgage deed is supposed to be collateral for our deposits, but this deed isn't worth as much as our deposits any more! We want our deposits back! Give us our deposits!\"\n\nWhen all of a bank's customers withdraw their deposits at the same time, that's called a \"bank run.\" Banks cannot survive bank runs, because they only have a small percent of the money that was deposited in the vault.\n\nThe bank tries, desperately, to get some quick cash by selling the mortgages in a hurry. But to sell them fast, they have to lower the price. This makes the banks lose money even faster.\n\nPretty soon it was obvious that some banks were going to go bankrupt. But no banks were admitting it, so nobody knew which banks were going to go bankrupt. Since nobody wants to have a deposit in a bankrupt, closed bank, depositors started withdrawing their deposits from *all* the banks. So the bank runs spread like wildfire. Soon all the commercial banks were in big, big trouble.\n\nThe banks started falling like dominoes, but the government stepped in at the last minute and helped some of them survive. Even so, the banks were all terribly cash-strapped, because most of the people had withdrawn their deposits. So the banks had no money to loan. They all stopped lending money.\n\nThat was the beginning of the end.\n\nEven good corporations sometimes need to borrow a little to get through a difficult month. But since no banks were lending money, the corporations couldn't borrow. So every time a corporation had a bad month, they'd either go bankrupt or have to lay off employees. Basically, the inability to borrow turned every minor setback at any company, anywhere, into a major catastrophe. \n\nThat was how the economy tanked.\n\n-\n\nSo to finally answer your question: what are hedges, credit default swaps, and derivatives? Honestly, I don't know the exact details, but basically, these are all means of pairing a wild-eyed guy with a cautious guy. The cautious guy is essentially transferring his profits to the wild-eyed guy, and the wild-eyed guy is basically insuring the cautious guy's deposits.\n\nSome people say the whole thing was about greed. I don't see it that way. The banks were trying to meet a real need: cautious depositors really did need a safe place to put their money, and the banks were trying to come up with a way to make these depositors feel safe. \n\nThe real problem, as I see it, is that the system they've built is just too fragile. It reminds me of the banking system back in the 1800s: bank runs were a huge problem back in the 1800's, and the banks back then tried and tried to solve the problem, and never succeeded. In the end, the solution was the FDIC. Now the commercial banks are experiencing runs, and I don't expect them to be able to solve the problem without government help. This is going to happen again, and it will be triggered by something different.\n\n",
"If you have a spare afternoon or two I'd check out these two Khan Academy playlists on the [Credit Crisis](_URL_0_) and the [Paulson Bailout](_URL_1_), and if you want to learn more about how banks work check out this [Banking and Money](_URL_2_) playlist as well; there's a few others on finance and credit as well if you want to look for them.",
"OK. Brace yourself. I can make this reasonably straightforward, but I can't make it short, because it's a long story.\n\nWhen a big corporation puts a pile of money in a bank, the deposit isn't FDIC insured. Because the bank is not insured, the corporation demands collateral. That's right - the *bank* has to provide collateral before the corporation is willing to deposit money. The bank gets its collateral back when the corporation gets its money back.\n\nBut where does the bank get the collateral? The answer is tricky. Here's what they do. Bear with me.\n\nThe bank gets two people: me, Mr. Wild-Eyed Speculator, and you, Mr. Cautious Depositor. I am willing to take huge risks in exchange for big profits. You just want to make a deposit, and you want to be sure you'll get it back - you want collateral.\n\nThe bank pairs us up. It takes a 5 million dollar investment-slash-crapshoot from me, and a 5 million dollar deposit from you, and it buys 10 million dollars worth of mortgages. Then it gives you a deed. Your deed reads:\n\n* Dear Mr. Cautious Depositor: If for any reason we fail to give you your 5 million back in 1 month, you have the right to sell these 10 million dollars worth of mortgages, and take 5 million dollars from the sale. You must give whatever's left to that wild-eyed speculator.\n\nThat deed is your collateral. That reassures you that you'll get your deposit back, one way or another. Meanwhile, I get this deed:\n\n* Dear Mr. Wild-Eyed Speculator: These 10 million dollars worth of mortgages are getting sold in one month. 5 million of the proceeds go to that cautious depositor. You get whatever's left. Let's hope it's a lot!\n\nMy deed is called the \"residual.\" \n\nNow: why would I take a deal like this? Answer: because I only invested 5 million, but I'm getting all the profits on 10 million dollars worth of mortgages! That's twice as much profits as I would have gotten if I'd just bought 5 million worth of mortgages.\n\nNow: why is your investment safe? Because you are in control of 10 million worth of mortgages, covering a deposit that's only 5 million. Yes, some of those mortgages could default. If 10% default, then the mortgages are only worth 9 million. If 20% default, the mortgages are only worth 8 million. But that's still plenty, plenty for you to get your money back.\n\nBut what if 51% default?\n\nWell, that isn't going to happen. Even during the great depression, there weren't that many defaults. Spoiler: not during the housing bust, either. Not even close, really. Yes, some mortgages do default - but not 50 percent of them. This really is good collateral!\n\nThere's a problem, though. The bank needs to pair one wild-eyed guy with one cautious guy. But there are three times as many cautious guys showing up at the bank as wild-eyed guys.\n\nThe solution: pair up three cautious guys for each wild-eyed guy. That alters the numbers a little... the cautious guys start losing money if 25% of the mortgages default. But that never happens. Right? That never happens. That's still safe, right?\n\nUh-oh.\n\nSo one day, the housing bubble pops, and homeowners start defaulting. Thousands of cautious guys show up at the bank. They all shout \"hey, this mortgage deed is supposed to be collateral for our deposits, but this deed isn't worth as much as our deposits any more! We want our deposits back! Give us our deposits!\"\n\nWhen all of a bank's customers withdraw their deposits at the same time, that's called a \"bank run.\" Banks cannot survive bank runs, because they only have a small percent of the money that was deposited in the vault.\n\nThe bank tries, desperately, to get some quick cash by selling the mortgages in a hurry. But to sell them fast, they have to lower the price. This makes the banks lose money even faster.\n\nPretty soon it was obvious that some banks were going to go bankrupt. But no banks were admitting it, so nobody knew which banks were going to go bankrupt. Since nobody wants to have a deposit in a bankrupt, closed bank, depositors started withdrawing their deposits from *all* the banks. So the bank runs spread like wildfire. Soon all the commercial banks were in big, big trouble.\n\nThe banks started falling like dominoes, but the government stepped in at the last minute and helped some of them survive. Even so, the banks were all terribly cash-strapped, because most of the people had withdrawn their deposits. So the banks had no money to loan. They all stopped lending money.\n\nThat was the beginning of the end.\n\nEven good corporations sometimes need to borrow a little to get through a difficult month. But since no banks were lending money, the corporations couldn't borrow. So every time a corporation had a bad month, they'd either go bankrupt or have to lay off employees. Basically, the inability to borrow turned every minor setback at any company, anywhere, into a major catastrophe. \n\nThat was how the economy tanked.\n\n-\n\nSo to finally answer your question: what are hedges, credit default swaps, and derivatives? Honestly, I don't know the exact details, but basically, these are all means of pairing a wild-eyed guy with a cautious guy. The cautious guy is essentially transferring his profits to the wild-eyed guy, and the wild-eyed guy is basically insuring the cautious guy's deposits.\n\nSome people say the whole thing was about greed. I don't see it that way. The banks were trying to meet a real need: cautious depositors really did need a safe place to put their money, and the banks were trying to come up with a way to make these depositors feel safe. \n\nThe real problem, as I see it, is that the system they've built is just too fragile. It reminds me of the banking system back in the 1800s: bank runs were a huge problem back in the 1800's, and the banks back then tried and tried to solve the problem, and never succeeded. In the end, the solution was the FDIC. Now the commercial banks are experiencing runs, and I don't expect them to be able to solve the problem without government help. This is going to happen again, and it will be triggered by something different.\n\n"
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40cvn2 | why does it seem so much quieter outside in winter than ir does in summer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40cvn2/eli5_why_does_it_seem_so_much_quieter_outside_in/ | {
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"text": [
"Birds are gone or hiding. Bugs are hiding. People aren't outside as much.\n\nAlso, snow absorbs sound."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
b8wlo4 | do siamese twins control one side of the body each or one head controls everything, or both have i put on both sides or something else? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b8wlo4/eli5_do_siamese_twins_control_one_side_of_the/ | {
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"Long answer short, *yes*. They can be all of the above. Some twins can even share senses, like a pair of twins in Canada who can see through each other’s eyes and have conversations with eachother in their conjoined mind (A Thalamic Bridge connects their Thalami, which is how that is accomplished). Conjoined twins are quite remarkable, and offers us a totally different glimpse into how brains can function. "
]
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||
5kaqx6 | why is investment banking such a lucrative field? | Why do so many people want to become investment bankers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kaqx6/eli5_why_is_investment_banking_such_a_lucrative/ | {
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"Because the companies that buy services from IB firms are willing to pay top-dollar to get the work done right.\n\nA few examples of these services are IPOs (offering stock to the public for the first time) and M & As (mergers and acquisitions). It's typically not worth it for the client to have dedicated staff or expertise on hand since these types of transactions don't happen frequently for the client. Also, it's extremely costly for the client company to screw these transactions up, so they're willing to pay IB firms that have a reputation for handling these deals a lot of money."
]
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|
3dkh2i | why do the rocks that make rings on planets all stay on the same path? couldn't they orbit in a different direction? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dkh2i/eli5_why_do_the_rocks_that_make_rings_on_planets/ | {
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"They could orbit in different directions, but the result would be that they would crash into each other. Eventually, all the objects going in the \"wrong\" direction will be either knocked out of orbit or bumped into going the \"right\" direction.\n\nAfter millions/billions of years this process is already complete. All the rings that are left today are travelling in the same direction."
]
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[]
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||
5ajrz4 | if someone woke up from a coma after a few years, would their memories of the day before their coma seem like yesterday, or would they have faded over time? | If someone was in a coma for 2 years and woke up, would that person's memories from the day before going into their coma be fresh (such as remembering very minor, irrelevant details as if it was actually yesterday), or would they be gone as if 2 years had passed?
I ask because, with no new memories being created during a coma, I'm just wondering if the latest memories would be retained, or if the brain would simply forget them after so long, despite no new memories being created. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ajrz4/eli5_if_someone_woke_up_from_a_coma_after_a_few/ | {
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"Usually when someone wakes up from a coma they're still groggy as hell. Think how you feel right when you wake up, but make that last for a few days, possibly longer. Depending on what caused the coma, possibly *months*. \n\nYou're not really going to be remembering anything very clearly. But yeah, it won't feel like two years have passed. ",
"I'm not sure there is an answer to this that would be universally applicable, but there is a theory called \"decay theory\" that proposes that short term memories are formed in the brain like trails are cut through a jungle, and as such, do fade with time alone. \n. \nMore here: _URL_0_",
"Great question. As mentioned, it's not an on/off switch waking up like that (as depicted in films and TV). It could be months and years of return to normality, if you are fortunate enough - sometimes a personality is changed forever. The idea of decades passing and waking up in an older body is terrifying to me.",
"This one is a little complicated.\n\nFirst, people in comas are so because of brain damage. So it is unlikely that someone would wake up from a coma and not have memory issues because of TBI (traumatic brain injury).\n\nSecond, memories in the brain aren't like computers or video tapes. It isn't hard to remember things from a year ago because of all the \"new\" memories. Memories are more like paths in the woods, the more they are used the more clear they are. The more you remember something that happened to you, the more clear the memory will remain.\n\nThird, traumatic events tend to leave more powerful memories than regular days. There have been studies showing adrenaline can increase memory development. Any event that lead to a coma would probably be pretty traumatic over a normal day, so it would be hard to compare you remembering a day a year ago to a coma patient remembering their accident upon waking up after a year.\n\nSo if someone woke up from a year long coma today, would they have a better memory of Nov 1st 2015 than you? I don't know.",
"They may not remember weeks before the accident. They may not have any memories at all. It all depends on what part of the brain was injured. \n\n\nI was unconscious for one day. I have no memory of the month before and have trouble with memory gaps after. I must have driven the nurses nuts. \"What happened? Where am I?\"\n\n\nMost of what I \"remember \" are facts that I was told and research into how I got injured.\n"
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4msumq | "you're not dead until you're warm and dead". how does the brain survive oxygen deprivation when your blood is cold? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4msumq/eli5youre_not_dead_until_youre_warm_and_dead_how/ | {
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"It can't survive oxygen deprivation period. *But* the caveat is that cold temperatures reduce the rate some biochemical processes occur at, including cellular respiration, where your cells are using oxygen to produce energy. So, potentially, your body and brain will burn through their available fuel less quickly. ",
"Same reason a ham sandwich will last a real long time in the freezer. Cold slows down chemical processes a lot. \n\nThat being said: most people that fall into cold water just regular old die and the effect where very cold water preserves a person's life for extremely long times without oxygen is very rare and relies on nearly impossible luck. ",
"This is a saying to prevent hospitals from thinking (incorrectly) that someone is dead. It isn't a statement of fact.\n\nA person can be cold and dead, but sometimes they are actually cold and alive, but the cold hides the fact that they are alive.\n\nSo hospitals don't stop trying to save you until you are \"warm and dead\"."
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6xo46r | how can one "grow out" of asthma after being diagnosed?? | Edit: how is it possible to grow out of asthma? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xo46r/eli5_how_can_one_grow_out_of_asthma_after_being/ | {
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"I was diagnosed with Asthma 10 years ago. I've been told to quit smoking exercise more and to stay away from what triggers it. Nothing has worked . I keep mine under control with a daily maintenance inhaler. Qvar 80 is the best by far.",
"When I was a child, dander and many plants triggered my asthma. Over the years, medications have become better, and daily exposure to plants damps down the reaction. I don't think it's worn out the asthma reaction, as I still can't be near a cat, but I've been OK with plants since I was 30."
]
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[],
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1utj3g | what the difference between treble, middle, and bass is. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1utj3g/eli5_what_the_difference_between_treble_middle/ | {
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"text": [
"They are general names for different frequency bands. Bass being the low frequencies, treble being the highest and mids being those in between."
]
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[]
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||
53sndf | why does broccoli get greener as its cooked/heated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53sndf/eli5why_does_broccoli_get_greener_as_its/ | {
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"text": [
"it starts to wilt so its skin gets thicker. similar to how a dick is darker if its soft compared to if its hard. hopefully you're older than five so that analogy is not inappropriate."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
84oy5f | why do most males inherit sex-linked diseases from their mother? | I was told that males inherit colorblindness and hemophilia from their mother just because they have one X chromosome. This is to say that it is only possible to get them if mother is a carrier, as she passes the disease that is present on the X chromosomes, and since the males have one X, the only possibility once again, can be passed onto the X of the male and not the Y. But why exactly it works that way, I don't really understand... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/84oy5f/eli5_why_do_most_males_inherit_sexlinked_diseases/ | {
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"Barring a few exceptions, sex in humans is determined by whether you have an XY or an XX chromosome pair. Men have 1 X and 1 Y chromosome, while women have 2 X's.\n\nNow, the gene that ensures that you're not colorblind or don't have hemophilia is present only on the X chromosome. The Y chromosome does not have it.\n\nSo, the only way (as a man) to inherit colorblindness is to inherit it from your mother, as she's the one who gives you an X chromosome. If you got an X chromosome from your father, you're a women.",
"A chromosome is a certain section of DNA that contains genes. Colorblindness and hemophilia are both genes that are found on the X chromosome, which is one of the two sex chromosomes in humans. With a few exceptions, females have two X chromosomes, while males have one X and one Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is much smaller than the X and does not contain any of the colorblindness or hemophilia genes.\n\nSo if a female is born, she inherits an X chromosome from her mother, and another X from her father. If one of those chromosomes has a \"bad gene\" like hemophilia, it's likely that the X from the other parent has a \"good gene\" version that will counteract it. The female would need to inherit a bad gene from both parents in order to have the disorder.\n\nBut a male only has one X chromosome. And since males always get the Y chromosome from their father (their mothers don't have one to give them!), they always get their X chromosomes from their mothers. So if your mother is carrying a bad gene on one of their two X chromosomes, there's a 50/50 chance that the male child will get the good or the bad one. If they get the bad one, now they've got a disorder like hemophilia. If they got the good one, they won't!",
"Here's a SUPER de-scienced explanation.\n\nDad has one X + one Y.\n\nMom has an X + another X. \n\nTo make another boy like Dad, you need X + Y, but you can only take 1 from each parent. So the Y has to come from Dad, which means the X has to be from Mom.\n\nIf the X Mom gives you carries a bad gene, the son is guaranteed to get it.\n\nThis isn't the case with having a daughter (XX) because in that case Mom gives one of her Xs and Dad gives his X. Mom might give a bad gene on her X but Dad's good X can sometimes be enough to cover it up."
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94quki | how does bail work? so if you pay the fine you can just get out of jail time scott free? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/94quki/eli5_how_does_bail_work_so_if_you_pay_the_fine/ | {
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"When you are arrested, the court places you in jail while you await your trial.\n\nBail is an amount of money that you deposit in order to guarantee that you will come to your trial. In exchange for bail, you are released from jail while still awaiting your trial. Once you show up to trial and the trial is over, you get your bail money back.",
"No, bail only works after you're arrested but before you go to trial. If you are found guilty at trial, you can't get out of your sentence by paying money.\n\nIn America, you are innocent until you're proven guilty. So that time after you've been accused of a crime but before you are tried for it is an awkward in-between time. You haven't been proven guilty yet so you should be treated as if you are innocent. But you also can't just run away; you have to face your day in court. Bail is the compromise; the court holds the money until you return.\n\nIf you return to face your trial, you get your money back whether you are guilty or innocent.\n"
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1zfujg | how do satellites maintain altitude in space? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zfujg/eli5_how_do_satellites_maintain_altitude_in_space/ | {
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"They are constantly falling towards the earth but their forward momentum makes them miss the planet and keep going around it .",
"Actually satellites do lose altitude over time due small amount friction that causes them to slow down. to overcome this problem satellites are usually equiped with small *rocket* engines allowing them to remain in orbit for longer duration.\n\nedit: rockets, not jets.",
"Great question! \nFirst, let's look at what a satellite in orbit is doing. A satellite is being pulled constantly toward the Earth. It's falling toward the Earth. However the satellite is travelling so fast, horizontally, that by the time it would have hit the Earth it's on the other side of the earth. I think wikipedia has a great illustration _URL_0_.\n\nSecond, the atmosphere gets thinner as we increase altitude, very slowly tapering off to zero. From this chart you can see that it's pretty much non-existent by about 37km _URL_1_. However, It's not truly zero, and so we have drag. There are very small amounts of gas particles at high altitudes, Drag decreases the horizontal velocity. If we do nothing, eventually we hit thicker atmosphere, and burn up.\n\nFinally, a satellite maintains it's altitude by maintaining it's horizontal velocity by firing it's rockets in the prograde direction (direction of positive velocity tangent to it's orbit). This is done periodically with hot or cold gas until fuel runs out, then eventually the satellite re-enters the atmosphere.\n\nBonus: Look up Lagrange points on wikipedia. Basically a Lagrange point is a location where the pull of gravity between two bodies (say the Earth and Moon) is nearly equal, resulting in a very stable orbit. Maintenance is still required, just less.",
"Imagine that you're throwing a ball in a park. The ball goes away from you, but ends up falling to the ground, because of gravity, the force that keeps us from flying away. Now, imagine that you gained the powers of, let's say, the Hulk. You're now bigger, and can throw things at greater speed. The ball now travels further before falling to the ground. \n\n\nLet's make things more interesting and say you got the power of every superhero you can imagine, and throw the ball again this time with all your power. It now goes even faster with your superhuman strength, but it's still being pulled to the ground. However, because you're throwing it so fast, the ground seems to be moving downward as the ball also moves downward. This is because of the curvature of the Earth. Your ball is still falling into the Earth, but because it's moving so fast, it never hits the ground as the ground moves away from it as well. Congratulations! Your ball is now a satellite of the Earth. ",
"This is why I love physics, and if you want to try to feel how this works, look at Kerbal Space Program, it does a great job of simulating orbits. Now the fun stuff:\n When a satellite (which is really just anything in orbit, including the Moon), is making its way around the Earth, it is actually moving incredibly fast, even if it is in \"geosynchronous\" orbit. The entire thing depends on the basic laws of Inertia, outlined in Newton's First Law of motion. To paraphrase, \"An object in motion tends to stay in motion.\" When an object is going around a circular or elliptical orbit, it is actually being constantly being flung into orbit at potentially thousands of meters per second. _URL_0_ As the object tries to fly away, the Earth is constantly pulling it in. When the velocity at which the object is being flung away is canceled out by the acceleration caused by gravity, then the object is said to be in orbit. Due to the way that the length of the orbit grows in relation to the distance from the Earth, the further away an object is from the Earth, the slower it is going relative to the Earth. For instance, the International Space Station (ISS) is orbiting at only around 420 Km above the Earth, meaning that it only takes 93 minutes for the station to make a complete lap around the Earth, and it is travelling at 7.6 Km/s (17,000 mph for the Imperial users). The Moon, on the other hand, is about 384,000 Km above the surface, so it only has to travel at about 1 km/s to maintain orbit. That means it takes about 28 days for the Moon to go all the way around the Earth.\n\nTL;DR Falling at the ground and missing..."
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9kmvjv | how did we discover how to make antidepressants? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9kmvjv/eli5_how_did_we_discover_how_to_make/ | {
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"Two semi-accidents in the 1950s. A lot of drugs in those days were sort of stumbled onto by trying lots of different chemicals that were very close to ones which worked well.\n\n* Some people had noticed that isoniazid, a drug we still use tuberculosis, made some people more energized. It was the first drug called \"antidepressant.\" A related drug, iproniazid, was being tried for tuberculosis, and oddly seemed to make patients unusually happy. It turned out to be stopping a chemical that breaks down certain neurotransmitters in the brain, the first monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) antidepressant.\n\n* Scientists had been trying all kinds of related antihistamines to help with nausea, itching, and sleep. One was tried to help calm patients with schizophrenia, and turned out to also reduce hallucinations. This was chlorpromazine (Thorazine), the first antipsychotic. This was a big deal, so people started trying drugs with similar structures. One promising candidate also made people very sleepy, but didn't help with psychosis, and strangely made manic patients MORE energized and out of control. So, they tried it on the depressed patients, and it worked. That was imipramine, the first tricyclic antidepressant (TCA.)\n\nEssentially all antidepressants approved since have been more or less related, working on the same targets or in similar ways. SSRIs and SNRIs were just an attempt to make tricyclics without as many side effects.",
"Like you’re five? Here goes...\n\nA long time ago people got sick with germs. One germ caused bad coughing and fevers. It was called TB. Doctors found some kinds of pill to treat it. Doctors noticed that people taking one kind of that pill also seemed more active. People who were sad weren’t so sad anymore. So doctors gave these pills to people who were sad-sick. They worked! But they also messed people up by accident sometimes. People couldn’t even take those pills with some types of cheese. The pill would make their blood get all pushy. Pushy blood would push on their brains and their other body parts from the inside and make them sick.\n\nLater, some other doctors knew that people also get itchy. Itchy people would use a pill. That pill made sad-sick people better too. Scientists made other different pills kind of like that itchy pill. Then they tested lots of these new different pills. They would try them on sick-sad people. Some of the very sad people got better with one of those pills. Also people could eat cheese. Some weird stuff would happen sometimes. Like their heart would start beating too fast, or mouth would get dry, or they felt sleepy, or they wouldn’t be able to poop.\n\nThen much later doctors noticed another itchy pill made sad-sick people not so sad. And they made other different pills that were like that pill for itchy people. And one of those types of pills worked. It would make sad-sick people less sad. Also people could eat these pills with cheese. And unlike the other pills, their heart wouldn’t act funny, their mouth wouldn’t be dry, they wouldn’t feel so sleepy, and they wouldn’t have trouble pooping. But there were other weird things that would happen sometimes with these pills. Like when a mommy and daddy love each other very much, but mommy or daddy can’t get super-happy when they give a special hug to each other. But the people who were sad-sick were not so sad, so that was better.\n\n\n\n",
"Oops. I didn’t read the sidebar.\n\nOkay, in lay terms:\n\nFor each of the three initial generations of antidepressants, the discoveries came from serendipitous discoveries of side effects from tuberculosis medications (in the case of MAOI drugs) and antihistamines (in the case of tricyclics and SSRIs). Derivatives were discovered which were more effective at treating depression each time, with advances steadily starting in the 1950s through the 1990s. \n\nSince then, the cell receptors and biochemical pathways have been better defined by molecular biology, leading to newer candidates for drugs being found and (successfully) tested in clinical trials."
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2z1kuf | in canada, what is bill c-51? and if passed how does it affect us regular citizens? | I've been getting a lot of hearsay about this bill lately. What does Reddit have to say? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z1kuf/eli5_in_canada_what_is_bill_c51_and_if_passed_how/ | {
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"So a few months ago, some RCMP officers were run over by a political extremist. We had been aware for some time before that that this extremist wanted to go join ISIS - he had posted it on Facebook and bought plane tickets to Syria.\n\nThe RCMP cannot legally arrest someone for their political opinions. Someone can publicly support ISIS and even want to join, but unless they start planning a terrorist attack in Canada, we can't do anything about it. So the officers arranged numerous meetings between the extremist and his Imam to try to talk him out of extremism, and had to watch him 24/7 in case of spontaneous acts of terrorism.\n\nThe bill would make it legal for the RCMP to arrest Canadians who support terrorist groups and revoke the passports of people that they fear are leaving the country to join extremist groups. If the law had been in place, this young man could have been arrested before he could hurt anyone.\n\nThe objection comes from the fact that it is in essence the termination of freedom of speech laws. Any idea that the government deems 'extreme' would be outlawed, and supporting it would become a crime.\n\nIt's a very difficult situation. I urge you to fully think through the ramifications both of supporting and opposing the bill. Can you really agree with the statement 'The RCMP should not be able to do anything to prevent Canadian citizens from joining ISIS'? Equally, can you agree 'There will never be a movement in Canada that the government and press considers extremist that people should legally be entitled to advocate'?\n\nIt's not easy to pick a side on that debate. I wish you the best of luck and insight.",
"It's similar to a bill recently passed in Australia granting the government and its departments more control over the nation in the name of terrorism. Its main provisions would facilitate information sharing among 17 (and some say more than 17) federal institutions, give police powers that would allow them to preventatively detain or restrict terror suspects, ban the “promotion of terrorism,” allow the public safety minister to add people to Canada’s “no-fly list,” and enhance the powers of Canada’s spy agency CSIS.\nBecause of ambiguous language in the bill it gives them power of a greater scope than one would think. Who defines terror? Who decides what is or isn't considered terrorist behaviour or advocative of it? The way this affects Canadians is that it increases the potential of being detained without a real reason, or being placed under an unnecessary curfew, and possibly having your private information shared between government agencies without your knowledge or consent.",
"I feel like anyone for this bill doesnt think there could ever be the existence of a systemically corrupt government. That or they dont see or understand how over the course of 100 years that could potentially happen. "
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fs1fyw | where do we get all our clean and drinkable water from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fs1fyw/eli5_where_do_we_get_all_our_clean_and_drinkable/ | {
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"The cheapest and most common source comes from rivers or reservoirs that are renewed by precipitation. Where precipitation isn't abundant, some places rely on ground water found deep underground. However, while technically renewable, it takes a long time to renew, so it's not a viable long-term option for a large community. Some coastal regions rely on desalination, that is, removing salt from seawater to make it drinkable. This is an expensive process but is common in arid, coastal regions such as the middle east."
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20188q | eli:5 why don't we use straws for hot drinks? | The benefits of using a straw (less messy, avoids having the drink wash over your front teeth) don't seem to have anything to do with temperature, so why don't we ever use straws for hot drinks like coffee, tea, and hot cocoa? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20188q/eli5_why_dont_we_use_straws_for_hot_drinks/ | {
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"When you take a sip of a hot drink you are bringing in air along with it to cool it down. If you were to use a non plastic straw (which would obviously melt with certain temperatures) the heat isn't being dissipated quick enough so you will burn your mouth/tongue."
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5mqn0c | when a person has an electric shock that travels along their nerves, does the electricity travel the same way as normal nervous signals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mqn0c/eli5_when_a_person_has_an_electric_shock_that/ | {
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"Good question. \n\nWhen a nerve encounters a stimulus (such as pressure) proteins on the nerve cell's membrane called transport channels open, basically letting in *some* positively charged sodium ions. Once it reaches -55 millivolts, the membrane begins to depolarise at a much faster rate. \n\nNow, things called voltage gated sodium channels, and voltage gated potassium channels open, letting yet more positively charged sodium ions in, while letting some negatively charged potassium ions out. \n\nOnce that portion of the nerve reaches 30 millivolts, the voltage gated transporters close, and begin to re polarise. \n\nIn the time between when that section of the cell reaches -55 mv, and when it's restored to -70 mv(which is it's default voltage), its in whats known as a refractory period, which is where that section can't generate another impulse, as the voltage gated transporters wont re-open for a short while. This keeps the impulse moving in one direction. \n\nSo yes, I think that an electrical shock would result in the electricity traveling in the same direction. \n\nEdit: made it slightly more specific. \n\nEdit 2: u/DoneUpLikeAKipper made me give this some more thought, and now that I think about it some more I realise that it would only stimulate an impulse if it raised the voltage inside the nerve to -55, which would activate the voltage gated transporters. If it where much higher then the refractory period that the channels enter would be irrelevant because they only prevent the impulse flowing backwards by stopping the ions from traveling, so the current would just flow in whatever direction. I might have messed something up though. ",
"At work we had hundred of contacts with a 55v current , one day i rested my hand on these contacts accidental, i saw movement out of the side of my eye and when looking straight on realised my thumb was moving without any thought on my part when i very gently moved my hand i could get the thumb to move up and down without any thought of ding so on my part.\n\nSo yes i believe electricity in lower current travels through your nervous system and higher currents probably do too just damaging the nerves so not seeing nerve stimulation",
"There is a misunderstanding here: The electric shock itself doesn't travel along your neurons. They are not cables. What happens is that the electric shock triggers an action potential on the part of the neuron it hits. The triggered action potential will, however, propagate in both directions of the neuron - while action potentials normally only propagate in one direction."
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8dp93j | how come when you look closely at an object it hurts your eye? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dp93j/eli5_how_come_when_you_look_closely_at_an_object/ | {
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"Your eye can't focus at extremely close distances. You may be causing eyestrain by forcing it to attempt to do so. Or I guess you could be poking yourself in the eye. \n\nBeyond that, certain activities we tend to do at short range (reading a book, reading a computer monitor) are fatiguing for the eye muscles (lots of scanning and small movements, potentially strong contrast) and also may result in eye-strain which is uncomfortable. "
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71flqn | how are old black and white movies remastered to technicolor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/71flqn/eli5_how_are_old_black_and_white_movies/ | {
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"It's essentially someone painting colours over the black and white image. These days with software, of course. Open a black and white image in Photoshop, set the brush tool to 50% opacity or to Hue/Color instead of Normal, and start painting colours over the image, and you're doing the same thing. They have to guess or decide what colours to make things, so the colours you see aren't accurate at all, and it can be slow, painstaking work. \n\nThese days, there are algorithms that can try to automatically do this, analyzing the image and making guesses on appropriate colours. In fact, there's a subreddit and bot for doing that right here: /r/colorizebot. It works by analyzing existing colour images and trying to determine similar shapes and textures -- oh, that big flat thing with wavy shapes must be the ocean, which in other images is always blue, and that tall thing that branches out is a tree, which in other images is green. Sometimes it does a pretty good job, but it's still just making up guesses. You can never get the actual accurate colours, because that information isn't in the picture."
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2iamht | if i have a cut in my mouth, the cut doesn't get infected, but if someone gets bitten, it's common for the bite mark to get infected. why? | I have often had cuts in my mouth when I'm sick, but they don't get infected. My friend punched someone with strep throat in the mouth, cut his hand on his teeth, and almost had to get his arm amputated because of the infection. Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2iamht/eli5if_i_have_a_cut_in_my_mouth_the_cut_doesnt/ | {
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"Saliva has an enzyme in it (called Lysozyme) that breaks down bacteria, which is why your mouth sores aren't infected as easily as a cut on your hand."
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4u9t7e | the recent wikileaks leaks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4u9t7e/eli5_the_recent_wikileaks_leaks/ | {
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"Edit 2: /r/the_donald just created a mega thread with a quick summary of all the most corrupt information discovered. [Read it here](_URL_0_?) \n---------\n\nGoing to assume you mean the Clinton Email leak:\n\nPeople have been suspecting Clinton and the DNC being corrupt for ages, the leaks show the DNC doing everything possible to harm Sander's campaign, colluding with the media to stop any anti-clinton coverage, possible money laundering, and worst of them all: paying millions of dollars to spread clinton propaganda on Reddit (no joke).\n\nAccording to Assange, this is only the tip of the iceberg.\n\nEdit: This post blew up fast! For anyone wanting examples of the corruption:\n\n/r/DNCLeaks, /r/SandersForPresident, and /r/The_Donald have spent the past day or so analysing the leaks. If you guys want specifics those are the best places to look.",
"In a nutshell, the Democratic Party said that they weren't colluding against Bernie Sanders during the primary. The e-mails prove they were. This means the Democratic Party was pulling some very undemocratic manoevures in order to prop a favorite candidate up instead of giving equal time to everyone.",
"Well, the most interesting part to me is the proof of a \"lib eral media\". There are emails showing the communication between a CNN journailist and the DNC, with the DNC essentially serving as editor for the piece the journalist prepared.\n\nThe DNC emails also show them ready to get in touch with the president of MSNBC because they disagree with an opinion offered by MSNBC on-air talent.\n\nPolitifact, Politico, CNN and MSNBC all to some degree get their news directly from the DNC. You can't call that \"news\".",
"I recall how quickly Reddit anti Hillary comments were down voted recently. Their damage control blatantly overreacted to control opinions and perhaps a reason the DNC was hacked. Dems own this one solid.",
"Is anything actually going to come of this though? I doubt it will, sadly. ",
"Does this have any ability to essentially disqualify Clinton and/or the DNC from being part of the upcoming election?",
"Why do they only release a little bit here and there? I don't think Wikileaks is real. I think that releasing all of the material at once is the only honorable thing. And how do they get new leaks all the time? Wasn't their load of material from a few years ago?"
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3muhy9 | if objects in motion stay in motion, and the big bang created the universe from a singular point, shouldn't the center of the universe be empty? | Please help me understand this. If the universe was created from from a singular point in space and objects in motion stay in motion, wouldn't everything in the universe be expanding from the point of the initial big bang in space. Also, shouldn't the center of the universe be empty unless there was a greater force than the big bang to send objects back in the direction of the initial big bang. I can understand, for example, an asteroid passing earth heading in the general direction toward the origin of the big bang, but I feel like this is only relative to our prospective from earth while both the earth and the asteroid are still moving away from the center of the universe. This could account for the universe constantly expanding, but I can't comprehend a scenario where there could be anything in the center of the universe unless a greater force existed or there was more than one big bang. Hopefully I explained my question well enough that people can understand what I'm asking and I can provide crappy sketches of what I'm talking about if anyone needs a visual aid. Thanks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3muhy9/eli5_if_objects_in_motion_stay_in_motion_and_the/ | {
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"It's a common misconception that the universe started from a singular 'point' and expanded outwards in space. \n\nThe 'space' is part of the universe as well. The expansion is the expansion of space. \n\nEverything and 'everywhere' were basically squashed together in the past. As we move forward, 'everywhere' is getting more and more spread out, which means there's more space between 'everything,' but there's no 'edge' and no 'center.' \n\nDoes that help?",
"Imagine a flat map. Now, imagine that it's printed, as is, on a balloon. As you add more air to that balloon, is expands outwards from a single point. Everything on the map drifts away from each other, and the farther they are, the faster they drift.\n\nHumans are limited to 3 dimensions, but the universe is made up of more. We are like the surface of a balloon, existing in a thin slice of the universe. It is inflating, but we can't see the point it's spreading from - only that every object in the universe is moving away from us, and the farther they are, the faster they're moving.",
"It didn't start from a single point. The big bang happened everywhere. The universe was infinite from the first instant. There is no center to the universe (or every place is the center depending on how you see it).",
"If the Big Bang theory of rapid inflation is correct, there was no \"singluar point in space\". Rather, everything, *including space* was part of the singularity.\n\nIn the inflation model, everything gets further away from the observer because no matter where you go, you're still at the \"center\", because everything that exists is in the center and it's sort of stretching out.\n\n",
"There is no center of the universe, the expansion happened everywhere at once. \n\nJust imagine an infinitely long line with tick marks every 1 meter. Then imagine something causes that line to become stretched so that all the tick marks are 100 meters apart. There was no \"center\" to that expansion, but still every tick mark moved further away from one another. ",
"what was once singularity(one point) is now the whole universe.\n\nthere was never an explosion in an empty room.\n\nall that is there in universe was once inside a singularity. where there was only energy. Then something caused the creation of space among that energy. The space kept expanding, causing the pure energy to settle into matter. Matter is nothing but compressed energy.\n\nEnergy doesn't require space to exist. It is when space is introduced, does the energy move around and compile into matter.\n\n\nWhen Big Bang happened, it happened everywhere. At that time, 13.7 billion years ago, everywhere was just a point.\n\ntldr; The Big Bang is still happening, and all the Universe is the point of explosion that is now expanding."
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4g1o6h | why are people not getting the gardasil shot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g1o6h/eli5_why_are_people_not_getting_the_gardasil_shot/ | {
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"It is relatively new, and people were claiming to have weakened immune systems and sudden deaths related to the vaccine. \n\nMy friend works in the Merck lab. In her opinion these are rumors and completely scientifically unfounded. She would *implore* you get vaccinated."
]
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[]
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||
8aa31x | why is so easy to eat unhealthy food but so hard to eat healthy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8aa31x/eli5_why_is_so_easy_to_eat_unhealthy_food_but_so/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"We crave, and are easily addicted to, sugar, salt, and fat. These are essential components of our diet. Our ancient ancestors couldn't get them as readily as we can, so whenever it was available they ate it. The problem for us is it's highly available now, but this urge to \"eat it whenever it's available\" is still innate to how our species evolved."
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3wi5e4 | what determines the maximum psi rating on bicycle tires of identical diameter/why does this seem to vary mostly with tire volume? | I've noticed that on all bicycles, a general trend is that as clincher tires occupy a larger volume in relation to their diameter (e.g. 26'ers ranging from mountain bike tires with 2.2' width as opposed to road bike tires with 1.5' width), the maximum PSI rating decreases. Why is this? Does this have more to do with that these are mtb tires as opposed to roadbike tires, or does this have to do with tire volume? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wi5e4/eli5what_determines_the_maximum_psi_rating_on/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Wider tyres have a larger contact area with the ground. Since there are more square inches (touching the ground) they don't need as many pounds per square inch (inside the tyre) to support the same number of pounds (of bike + rider)."
]
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|
zxcp2 | in terms of the "just war theory" what is the difference between a "legal war" and a "legitimate war" ? | I was asked this during a college interview. And I sort of guessed, saying that the Korean war was a "Legal war" since it passed the UN security council and stuff. :| | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zxcp2/in_terms_of_the_just_war_theory_what_is_the/ | {
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"It depends who you ask, when you ask them, if anyone else can hear their answer, and who you are. Often terms like \"Legal War\" and \"Legitimate War\" are used by politicians to describe situations of conflict so they don't look like bullies. In the broadest accepted understanding of the difference, a legal was has international support. Legitimate war is when you feel justified in military intervention and others may disagree in your cause. Killing Osama Bin Laden was an example of Legitimate War. The military intervention in Libya was a Legal War."
]
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|
4p630d | why is body dysmorphia not classified as a mental illness unless it causes discomfort? | ?? I just dont really get it? So if its not causing discomfort, would it then be considered a normal behavior? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4p630d/eli5_why_is_body_dysmorphia_not_classified_as_a/ | {
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"The issue isn't gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia itself, it's the definition of a mental illness.\n\nAn issue becomes a mental illness when it causes discomfort. Regardless of what the potential illness is, it's not classified as such until it causes problems. ",
"Because mental illness is always characterized by something that is \"problematic\". There is no form of schizophrenia - for example - that is not a negative - it's built into the definition. "
]
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1pw22k | why is there such a sudden surge in 3d printing on the internet lately even thought 3d printers existed years ago? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pw22k/eli5_why_is_there_such_a_sudden_surge_in_3d/ | {
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"text": [
"The techonology has started getting inexpensive enough that they'll become more widely used.",
"Key patents are about to expire which will cause an even bigger upsurge _URL_0_",
"A 3D printer can be bought for under $500 now. Years ago you'd be looking at thousands of dollars for a machine so obviously not as many people would own them.\n\nA similar example would be HDTVs. They were initially well beyond the price range of nearly everyone, but then a handful of years later nearly every household has one.\n"
]
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[],
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"http://www.designboom.com/technology/3d-printing-patents-expiring-in-2014-will-see-market-erupt/"
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||
a1k0oj | why do aircraft carriers not tilt to one side in the water? they have big control towers on one side of the boat and nothing to counterbalance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1k0oj/eli5_why_do_aircraft_carriers_not_tilt_to_one/ | {
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"That superstructure isn’t that heavy relative to everything that goes into the construction of an aircraft carrier, plus they can balance the load by filling ballast tanks.",
"They do have things to counterbalance that weight, but they just aren't on the outside of the ship. Shifting heavy internal equipment toward the other side can easily counterbalance the added weight of the tower, and there is no way you can tell that by looking at the outside.",
"They do have things to counterbalance it , including things inside the hull below the flight deck that you don’t see from the outside as well as the shape of the hull. ",
"It's an interesting question, most ships tend to be symmetrical, so not an issue. \n\nA lot of the weight of the ship will be below decks, in the engines and presumably tanks of fuel and water. Whereas the tower is mostly empty space, where people work \nPresumably these are balancing each other. \n",
"Aircraft carrier cross section: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nMost of the heavy stuff (engines, etc.) are down at the bottom where they really help stability. Other things can be moved around down below (and there must be ballast tanks). But the flight deck extends out further on the side opposite the tower, so it may be close to symmetrical for buoyancy/balance even without moving things below decks."
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38dd69 | why is it okay to show people dying in hundreds in hollywood movies, yet no one dares to show a bit of a nipple on screen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38dd69/eli5_why_is_it_okay_to_show_people_dying_in/ | {
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"Because american culture is more prudish about sex than violence. The psycho social development of the US as a nation is a bit to much to cover here, but in short it has a lot to do with the NE, which was founded by a bunch of rather violent religious fundamentalist (too many folks forget the puritans started a rather brutal civil war in england, executed the king, then went on an anti catholic rampage that bordered on genocide in ireland) controlling a hefty part of the politics at the founding of the nation.",
"The MPAA Ratings regime allows a quasi-independent organization to provide certain types of movie censorship through an arrangement between movie producers, distributors, and theatres. Purportedly to help inform parents about movie choices for their children, the MPAA Ratings cabal applies undocumented rules to determine what footage goes into movies shown in theatres. That's why you often see different \"Director's Cut\" versions on DVD. Many locales have delegated censorship rights to this cabal by blocking the advertising of unrated films or films rated \"X\", the MPAA code for too extreme for children.\n\nAs to why violence is OK and sexuality is not, there is literally no way to explain the MPAA Ratings cabal's decisions. In the film industry, the only way to find what a film will be rated is to actually submit it. If you don't get the rating you want, you make some cuts and try again. It makes no sense, but the majority in the industry fear that if the rules were taken off there would be less room for artistic flare in a rush to the lowest common denominator of imagery. Looking at the sort of images any kid with an Internet connection can view for free, this concern might be realistic.",
"There are already good responses here about how the norms are enforced, but the why is a sociological/anthropological one relating to American culture. The way (mainstream) US media culture has developped has been heavily influenced by right-wing evangelical Christians and more generally, socially conservative elements of US insititutions. Social conservatives believe (among other things) that society should be more like what they imagine it used to be. For example they believe that changing social relationships like the way men relate to women, or how the poor relate to the rich, is wrong. This was especially strong during the Cold War, when social conservatives believed that the conflict was between \"the American Way of Life\" and revolutionary Communism. Sex, and more sepcifically the female body and its sexuality, are seen as a weakness, and therefore not conducive toward defeating the \"Reds\". Furthermore the \"Reds\" were seen as pro-gender equality and pro-sex (which is a highly dubious claim), and therefore morally corrupt and culturally weak. There are several ways that they have acheived this status quo. The most obvious is by providing material assistance (such as props) to sympathetic movie productions, and using media influence to make it difficult to make divergent films.\nIn other words, US social conservatives have influenced the US film industry and artistic output. Nowadays this has less to do with winning the Cold War, and more to do with defending \"American\" or \"Family\" values, and has its own momentum. We see it in practice as nudity being difficult to get past the *de facto* censors who apply ratings. Without a \"PG-13\" or lower rating, films have a very difficult time being screened in the US.\n"
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2hmgez | why is my cat obsessed with me after taking a shower? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hmgez/eli5_why_is_my_cat_obsessed_with_me_after_taking/ | {
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"This is an educated guess, but most likely because you have a different smell. Cats have a great sense of smell and identifies other by it, they \"know\" you because they know your smell and after a shower you are a new \"human\" that they need to befriend.\n\nThis is also a reason why if you have two cats and one is taken to vet the other will sometimes hiss at it when you come home, because smell tells it that a \"new\" cat has come in to their territory."
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72fw0q | us tv networks + internet - what do channel line ups and packages look like? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/72fw0q/eli5_us_tv_networks_internet_what_do_channel_line/ | {
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"There are no nationally funded TV channels. CSPAN, CSPAN2, and CSPAN3, while they carry a very large feed of unfiltered and uncommentated programs from the US capitol and other political arenas, are a private non-profit entity.\n\nNews channels are private, for profit entities run by media conglomerates. Each conglomerate slants the news in favor of their viewerships so they can get more advertiser dollars. There's also no TV tax in the US. TV stations work based on advertising and cable companies get money through subscription fees.\n\nAs far as internet providers, you're usually stuck with one cable provider and one DSL provider, though in certain areas Google has come along and spent enough money to get the local government to allow them to plow fiber in.\n",
"Lets Start with some basics of American Utilities companies and procedures.\n\n**Television**\n\nTelevision is broken up into several subcategories. You have Broadcast Networks and Cable Television Networks. Note: These are not analogous to Antenna vs. Cable Television.\n\nBroadcast Networks, are your standard American Broadcast Company (ABC), Columbia Broadcasting Service (CBS), FOX, and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). These are your network television providers, or are most often associated with the local news networks. These 4 (sometimes more) are by law established as free to access networks that utilize primarily Antenna based transmissions. As these networks grow, or gain competition, they are required to remain free-to-broadcast, meaning you don't have to pay any monthly subscription fees or access fees to get things like local news. However, these are still public entities, and rely on advertising, viewership and other sales in order to continue operations, and have become very wealthy as a result.\n\nCable networks, are not analogous with \"Cable TV\", though their roots do stem from the invention of Community Access Television, CATV. Cable networks first started appearing in local networks where CATV systems were designed with local content and programming. After the first CATV system was built, local municipalities and other organizations had lots of free space, not dependent on radio waves through the air, and so began to produce their own local content. These eventually started being shared and rebroadcasted as producers and things grew. Stations like CNN, FXX, USA, TNT, TBS etc. all started as local or regional stations, and did not fall under government jurisdiction like the Broadcast Networks above.\n\nCATV networks began charging for the services that the Community Antenna networks began providing, and also sharing information back and forth. As they got larger, small, regional companies like Alert Cable, Adelphia and Carolina Cable were bought up by multi-state conglomerates to become the likes of Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, Brighthouse and the other Major Service Providers (MSOs). Cable companies quickly stopped and diverged from producing content, and the two became separate. \n\nSo, Cable Networks started to divide the space between Broadcasters and Cable networks, as you can only recieve Cable Channels by using a Cable Network. CATV eventually morphed into being known as a \"Cable Provider\" because of the transmission medium, similar to Satellite or Fiber Optics. Essentially though, Satellite and Fiber are still just CATV systems, just using different transmission means than before. Broadcasters on the other hand, are still able to be recieved with just an antenna with no subscription, and are limited to only a few local providers and your major 4-5 networks. Currently as of 2017, you have still ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and The CW (formerly UPN and The WB before the merger). And before anyone says it no, PBS is not a broadcast network, they are more a local station that has many affiliates but is the only large scale non-profit and goverment funded educational television source. They are a public broadcaster, and considered Public Televison, but are not included in the Major Networks of most cities.\n\nCATV networks you do have to pay a subscription service for, and monthly base rates for just your local stations are around $15-$40/monthly depending on your location. That only covers your subscription fee and taxes for local stations, and doesn't include any of the aformentioned \"cable networks\". Currently the list includes in most areas some variation of the following:\n\n* ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, The CW\n* PBS (3-5 stations depending on where you are)\n* El-Ray\n* C-Span\n* other local government and local broadcast stations\n\nYour \"Cable\" channels start after that, and depending on the provider, can be cut up in a multitude of ways. This is where negotiations with the Production Companies come into play. Discovery Networks, Viacom and the like, the companis like mentioned before that split off and started producing content, well now they sell it to various cable and satellite companies for redistrobution instead of making and producing locally for one service provider. Your baseline cable packages vary in price, between $12-80/month on top of the broadcast rate.\n\nThen you have your \"Cable Premiums\". These are going to be HBO (gotta have your thrones), Showtime (gotta have your Longmire), Cinemax (gotta have your... skin-e-max), Epix, Starz, Encore and TMC/Sundance. These \"Premiums\" are basically your Adult Programming, and do not have to be purchased in addition with the Cable channels, but again you MUST subscibe to at least your broadcasters to have access. In recent years, HBO and Showtime have begun offering their own streaming services like HBO Go, and bypass the Provider level and become an Internet based provider like Netflix and Hulu, where now an Internet connection is required.\n\nIf you get Antenna only stations, you will normally only get around 5-15 channels, depending on your local area. Some have more, and some have less, but the Majors will normally always be present, though quality is an issue. This quality issue was the direct reason leading to the development in CATV in the first place, to bring antennas down into the areas where radio was having difficulty reaching. Thus the name, **C**ommunity **A**ntenna **T**ele**v**ision, and not \"**CA**ble **T**ele**V**ision\" like it is colloquially known.\n\n**Internet**\n\nInternet, is of course a more modern phenomenon, spanning only the past 40 or so years. Originally what we now consider \"Internet\" was actually a government project for Universities and Government entities to communicate and share information privately using Dial-up modems and analog telephone networks.\n\nUp until around 1997, you only had one choice in service. Dial-up/DSL/T-1 through the local telephone company. Internet networks were completely dependent and intertwined with public telephone. Since by law, every house had to have access to 911 service, it made for a convenient way to distribute internet by means of additional, already accessible, twisted-pair copper wires.\n\nIn 1997, CableLabs, in conjunction with around 30 other corporations, developed DOCSIS, the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. With this new development, CATV networks superseded their original intended function of being a television service, and were able to add Internet to their arsenal as well. Cable networks were able to provide services without using additional coax lines to the house unlike dialup, which required you use either phone or internet, or have separate numbers dedicated to each service. Cable Internet was able to utilize technology in the network to do TV and Internet at the same time without interference.\n\nSatellite providers like Hughes-net or Gen5, Fiber-optic Providers like Google or Verizon FiOS and even Mobile Data providers like Verizon or T-Mobile began their own versions of offerings, however still cannot compete to the scale and size of CATV or Telephone networks due to many years of both saturation and technological investment. Satellite has great download capability, but lacks in upload capability and is for very obvious reasons prohibitively expensive. Fiber-optic is amazing bi-directional capability but is prohibitively expensive and is running into alot of roadblocks due to federal regulation and local government push back to increasing construction costs and size. Finally Mobile data is extremely portable and scale-able, however is beginning to feel MASSIVE strains from over-utilization and restrictive bandwidth requirements that make it prohibitively expensive as well, although has been fairly well adapted in comparison to the Fiber and Satellite.\n\nInternet Services generally range between $10-$500/month or more, depending on your requirement, limitations of provider, service tier choice and any overages you may see based on usage. The most expensive of these, tend to be Mobile Data and Satallite, due to restrictive and often used \"overage fees\" can easily be in the $200/mo range. CATV and Fiber options tend to be less expensive, often operating between $15-100/mo depending on what bandwidth size you request. Dialup is fairly obselete in urban areas but is still widely used in rural areas, and often now is $100/mo or more due to it's aging obselecence but required nature.\n\n**Streaming Services**\n\nAhh... the raging bastard-child between Television and Internet services. Services like Netflix and Hulu are popping up left and right, trying to craft out a new market for themselves and stay relevant currently.\n\nAll kidding and jokes aside, Internet based streaming is a relatively new phenomenon of course, and is still evolving and disrupting the landscape in which we consume service. With service tiers between $5/mo and as high as an insane $50/mo, each provider is crafting it's own library of unique original content, as well as historical content. None of these services is considered a \"public option\" as they do not rebroadcast local news affiliates and cannot be held to any standards but they are convienent for those who are looking for a more a-la-carte option for their viewing pleasure.\n\n\nSo, there you have it, a short breakdown of Television, internet, and everything in between. These are not all hard truths, but many are my own observations from working in the technical fields of Television repair and come from alot of my own extensive research. This isn't meant to be all inclusive, and if you have questions, feel free to ask for any clarifications. However most of what's above, is as simple as it can be made and yet still be readable so... TL;DR, TV is complicated."
]
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1wa2ix | why didn't feminism happen until relatively recently in human history? | Every society has had women, but the first wave of feminism didn't happen until the enlightenment at the very earliest. Why didn't it happen sooner? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wa2ix/eli5_why_didnt_feminism_happen_until_relatively/ | {
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"Because for the majority of human history men had no real rights either, at least not most of them. Feudalism and serfdom ruled the world for a very long time, and this gave real power only to the nobility. (And even then not always all of them.)\n\nLord Bumblewant or whatever owned some large fief, and if you lived on that land you were one of his people. You had to pay him rent and he he was the ruler of the land in all ways that mattered, and the next ruler would usually be his firstborn son. In proper serfdom you didn't have to pay rent, you were literally property of your lord and he could force you to do anything he pleased.\n\nIt wasn't until 1918 that a man could, regardless of his wealth, vote in the UK for example. They were a bit late in that, plenty of other countries came earlier but nonetheless for the most part in the Western world it wasn't until the 19th or 20th century that all men could expect a vote even if they weren't nobility, land-owners or otherwise more than just citizens.",
"Everything began to change massively around the enlightenment and the industrial revolution. Our sensibilities are continuing to shift. \n\nYou could name most any topic,and the past few hundred years resulted in vast sea changes of thought and experience (for the average human).",
"Because until very recently, physical strength what the primary contributor to your value to society. A strong person could plow more of a field, throw a spear farther, or fight off more bandits. \n\nIn addition, division of labor was a key component to the success of early societies. By dividing responsibilities, men and women could specialize at the tasks they best suited for, and be more successful as a team.\n\nIndustrialization changed all this...physical strength was no long of utmost importance, and abundant food and relative safety meant the traditional division of labor became less important. Those are the changes that made feminism possible."
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3kw0qf | if two magnets with opposite attraction will repel each other, can't humans just make magnets that 'repel' from earth's magnetic field? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kw0qf/eli5_if_two_magnets_with_opposite_attraction_will/ | {
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"text": [
"The problem is that earths magnetic field is very, very, very weak. And there's also the question of why we'd want such a magnet."
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6jg28v | if scientists know that a chemical imbalance causes depression / other mental illnesses, why can they not be simply cured with meds? | I know they are used as treatment in some cases but often it is through trail and error. Why is it not much simpler or rather to say, is not treated as easily as blood sugar leves? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jg28v/eli5_if_scientists_know_that_a_chemical_imbalance/ | {
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"They do. There are many drugs such as SSRIs, MAOIs, TCAs etc that are used to change the level of some chemicals in the brain that are responsible for the condition of clinical depression. But the problem is that depression is a multifactorial disease and most of the times drugs are used as a temporary fix to stabilise the patient so a more permanent course can be take such as therapy. Also the prolonged use of medication can lead not only to dependence but cause many unwanted side effects.",
"For the record, there's plenty of trial and error with blood sugar levels. \n\nAnd sometimes, depression isn't just a chemical imbalance. Even when it is, we have a vague idea of what happens when we hit the brain with drugs, but we don't completely get why it works. Depression is a whole lot more complex than blood sugar issues.",
"Actually the answer to this goes back farther. Despite the often heard claim that \"depression is a chemical imbalance\" we don't really know this. There is actually quite a bit of evidence going against this theory, and it certainly is far more complicated then low seratonin levels cause depression.\n\nThe main reason people believe(d) that this was the case it that drugs (SSRIs, like prozac) that appeared to raise the concentration of seratonin in the intercellular fluid (csf) by blocking neurons reuptake of the neurotransmitter appeared to help with depression. But further research really hasn't supported this hypothesis.\n\nIn short, we are far from understanding what exactly is going on in the brain of people with depression, in part due to how incredibly complex the human nervous system is.",
"In medicine, some conditions can be \"cured\", which means that following an intervention the condition is gone. Think strep throat. \n\nMost chronic conditions must be \"treated\", meaning they get better as long as the intervention lasts, but get worse if the intervention stops. Think high blood pressure or an under active thyroid gland. \n\nFor conditions that can't be cured, it usually means that the body's physiology is behaving in a way that either the patient doesn't like or presents some long term risk. My body, for instance, is prone to having a higher than normal blood pressure. There's nothing inherently wrong with that from my body's perspective, unless you want to live a life with a lower rate of heart disease and stroke, which I do. \n\nDepression is in the \"treatment\" rather than \"cure\" zone, at least with 2017 technology. ",
"The word \"simply\" is the sticking point...\n\nWhat imbalance? Which imbalance(s)? How imbalanced is it? Does the medication have side effects?\n\n\"Imbalance\" isn't even the right word, really. It was proffered under the guise that there was one proper balance. But it turns out the systems are more complex and \"balance\" isn't necessarily a good thing.\n\nBy analogy... Anikin Skywalker brought \"balance\" to the force by becoming Darth Vader and killing all the Jedi. That wasn't necessarily the outcome they were looking for.\n\nSo I take a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. That increases the serotonin available in my synapses. But I had to try several SSRIs at various doses to find the one that hit the right areas in the right ways. On the wrong drugs, for example, I got massive diarrhea because serotonin is also a regulating substance in the gut.\n\nThis didn't bring my levels \"into balance\" because they weren't \"imbalanced\" they were insufficient. That is, there wasn't some other quantity or force for them to be balanced against. My car isn't 'unbalanced' when it runs out of gas, it's just empty.\n\nSo \"simple\" and \"imbalanced\" are both misused by the popular mythology when it comes to this sort of thing. "
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nv3wc | why does my radiator/heater make a noise that resembles a hammer tapping on a hollow metal pipe? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nv3wc/why_does_my_radiatorheater_make_a_noise_that/ | {
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"The noise is made in radiators that use hot water.\n\nRadiators control the temperature by opening and closing a valve that starts/stops hot water passing through pipes.\n\nAny water under pressure that's suddenly stopped causes a shock wave to flow back through the water, like an echo in a sound wave. That shock wave flowing back makes the hammering noise.\n\nAnd you're quite right about the name, it's actually called a [water hammer](_URL_0_)",
"There's little hamsters slaving away to generate your heat. The sound is made when they get sloppy and their tools hit the pipes.",
"The noise is made in radiators that use hot water.\n\nRadiators control the temperature by opening and closing a valve that starts/stops hot water passing through pipes.\n\nAny water under pressure that's suddenly stopped causes a shock wave to flow back through the water, like an echo in a sound wave. That shock wave flowing back makes the hammering noise.\n\nAnd you're quite right about the name, it's actually called a [water hammer](_URL_0_)",
"There's little hamsters slaving away to generate your heat. The sound is made when they get sloppy and their tools hit the pipes."
]
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2mh22l | why does weed make orgasms feel so much stronger? | I never really understood why vs not smoking it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mh22l/eli5_why_does_weed_make_orgasms_feel_so_much/ | {
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"It releases the same chemicals that an orgasm does, so when you orgasm while you're high, you have a lot more of those chemicals in your body, thus making you feel better",
"Nice try weed salesman, but you'll never make me smoke the devils cabbage!"
]
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[],
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21fdqw | the 'zero-tolerance policy' i keep reading of | Yeah. I'm not American, so it would be great if someone yould explain that term to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21fdqw/eli5_the_zerotolerance_policy_i_keep_reading_of/ | {
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"It just means that any rule breaking is punished severely the first time, and there is no 'grey area'.. either you broke the rule or you didn't. So if there is a rule against bringing toy guns to school, and you bring a colorful water pistol that doesn't even look like a gun, you'll still get the full punishment, and not something like \"just don't do this again.\"",
"Essentially, School created rules where they do not inquire into WHY and HOW FAR you broke a rule and punish you accordingly, but instead automatically (and without exception) punish you if you break a rule.\n\ni.e. No Drugs Allowed rules: people who bring an inhaler to school and people who bring hard heroine to school are punished exactly the same.",
"Schools do not allow any weapons at school. They can't differentiate, and there are not exceptions. That's why you see kids getting expelled for bringing butter knives, or pointing your fingers like a gun."
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2ipe3g | what would happen if earth was 100 meters closer to the sun? | EDIT: Thank you for the replies.
How much Earth would have to be closer to the sun so that something would happen to Earth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ipe3g/eli5_what_would_happen_if_earth_was_100_meters/ | {
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"Very little. The Earth does not stay a constant distance away, and deviates by far more than 100 meters throughout the course of its orbit.",
"Absolutely piss all. 100 meters is nothing in astronomical terms.\n\nUsain Bolt can run that far in 9.58 seconds.",
"Not much. You've never been 100 meters above sea level? \n\nThe Diameter of earth's orbit is about 300 million kilometers. If we were 100 meters closer that'd cut the diameter by 200 meters total. You're talking a 0.000000066% change. Effectively it'll do nothing other than shorten our year by about 2 seconds.",
"Since Earth's orbit ranges from [91 million miles to 94 million miles](_URL_0_), probably nothing.\n\n"
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsis#Perihelion_and_aphelion_of_the_Earth"
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9nffk6 | why so many animals scrunch their nose, furrow their brow, and narrow their eyes when getting ready to attack? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9nffk6/eli5_why_so_many_animals_scrunch_their_nose/ | {
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"One side of this is that other motions (such as baring your teeth) cause certain other parts of the face to move (especially with a more mouth/snout structure like dogs). The other side is that things like the eyes and ears are some of the more sensitive parts of the body, so by narrowing their eyes, furrowing their brow, and folding their ears over it makes those parts smaller/more protected targets for the fight they are about to be in.",
"Also squinting helps narrow your field of vision allowing your brain to concentrate on what matters, your target. \n\nThis is why survival / search and rescue experts recommend “creating a box with your hands” when scanning large areas with your eyes. It helps your brain target less visual stimulus and makes it easier for your brain to process. ",
"Most animals don't want to fight. Fighting means risking injury, and injury in the wild is often a death sentence. Universal signs of aggression like baring teeth and scrunching brows let potential aggressors know to frick off or risk injury",
"Why did I just scrunch my nose, furrow my brow, and narrow my eyes to figure this out lol. "
]
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3h6xlo | what has family video done differently than blockbuster that has kept them in business? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h6xlo/eli5_what_has_family_video_done_differently_than/ | {
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"From Wiki: \n \n > In addition to the brick and mortar store front, Family Video has branched off into other markets such as real estate, 24-hour fitness centers, and cable television. The company also sells new and previously used items online. Family Video expanded into the Canadian market in 2012. \n \n > In 2013, following the continued decline of competing video rental stores, Family Video formed a partnership with Marco's Pizza providing space for the franchise in many of its stores. The company is using the partnership as a way to deliver video rentals with pizza orders. Family Video also leases space to other retailers such as hair salons and fitness centers.",
"You would be surprised how popular video rental places can be in the right cities. The family and elderly heavy town I live in has two different video rental places within a couple miles. It's worth noting that both offer other products (one is a family video with a Marcos pizza connected, the other is a Hastings which sort of act as a catch all entertainment store.) ",
"Worked there for quite a while, and while this isn't the only reason, I believe a large part of its success is its control over its employees. \n\nManagers and even the part-timers watch their hours very tightly. We had weekly projections for hours and schedule employees accordingly. In small town stores, there was often only one employee working on week nights, even when it got busy. District managers monitored all of the stores and would always inquire about going over on hours. \n\nThey also had an on-call policy that would allow the store to call you in when it got busy, but you weren't paid for any of the on-call time. So you sat around waiting to get called in. \n\nWhile it was extremely efficient, it was a pain in the ass as an employee. \n\nFamily Video also never goes crazy with new ideas or trying to branch out. \n\nI think that the property management aspect and the fact that many people still prefer going to the store for movies is also a good explanation as to their success.",
"I worked at Family Video for a few years, and I think the biggest difference is how they handle late fees. They often sent out mailers with coupons to forgive all late fees, to keep people coming back in and renting. The employees were also encouraged to ask customers pay for some of late fees, but if a customer didn't want to pay anything on them and still rent they could. Additionally, employees receive commissions for upsells like rent 3 get one free, selling a \"half off\" card, and adding in candy and popcorn for a bundle. Additionally, they rent porn.",
"Being the only place in town to acquire porno DVD's certainly helps. A friend of mine used to work there and he said about half the rentals were from the roped off 18+ section.",
"Aside from the company branching out into different markets, I've found a few ways Family Video stayed ahead of their competition. \n\nPizza, porn, and being old fashioned. First, they try to build their stores around other businesses to help lure people in. They have even begun to partner up with Marco's Pizza to offer cross promotions like giving away a free DVD rental with your pizza delivery. Secondly, unlike Blockbuster, an undisclosed number of Family Video locations have a \"back room\" where adult movies can be purchased. Lastly, people still enjoy browsing through a store rather than searching for something online. When coupling that with Family Video's prices being often times cheaper($3 for new releases) than a digital copy or what Blockbuster's prices were, Family Video becomes a major contender.",
"I am here to tell you that the Family Video store in my city of about 23,000 in Iowa is a stand alone building. It is in a residential area. No pizza joint, no nothing else. It does really well. Block Buster went under years ago in this town. They are open every single day of the year. The quality of the copies of the movies that they rent, are shit. I have never rented a movie from them that didn't freeze up. Pisses me off. It will be their downfall.",
"What the hell is Family Video?",
"I asked this same question when i was interviewing for a job with the company. i was told the reasons are as follows: All new releases are one night only. Meaning they have a real high turnover and can make bank off of late fees.\nThey also occasionally call customers who haven't rented anything in awhile, and offer them things like free rentals and half off rentals for a week.\nMost of the employees are intelligent and genuinely love movies so the can hold a conversation and recommend movies you might like. ",
"There are a lot of great answers about business model here, but there's an important fact missing too.\n\nBlockbuster limped on for a long time, the last location closed last year if I recall it was somewhere in Hawaii. \n\nSecond, they might have been able to limp along longer if not for the class action lawsuit over fraudulent late charges that took a big chunk out of their available cash."
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6albif | why hasn't the latin american drug trade been wiped out? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6albif/eli5_why_hasnt_the_latin_american_drug_trade_been/ | {
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"High demand for drugs in the US is the only thing standing between today and drug-free Latin America.",
"More will appear.\n\nAs long as there's sufficient demand, someone will find a way to produce.\n\nCrashing the demand is the only way to really kill off the cartels for good, but nobody's figured out a good way to do that.",
"1. Citizens of wealthy countries keep sending money into these poorer countries, paying their citizens to make drugs.\n2. Some portion of the law enforcement workers and government workers in these countries, rather than trying to enforce the law, are actually working for the drug producers.\n3. Drugs are often produced in inhabited areas. Just bombing the production areas would kill innocent people.\n4. The production areas are so numerous, and it's so easy to make more, that it is not easy to just wipe them out. ",
"You don't just bomb a country like deciding to punch your friend at 3rd grade recess. You also wouldn't knowwhere half the targe are. The US gets enough of it's trade from South America that bombing strike would likely trigger an international incident, and sanctions and a depression in the US as a result, then all the drug cartels would simply rebuild in a few months, and an economically ravaged US would have an even worse drug problem, and likely be subject to South American terrorism in retaliation.\n\nSo it would have the opposite effect of what you want."
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cngplr | how do we know instruments used in measuring the properties of distant objects (e.g. the mass of a star) are calibrated correctly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cngplr/eli5_how_do_we_know_instruments_used_in_measuring/ | {
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"Calibrating any measurement instrument is a combination of trial-and-error and testing agreement with mathematical models. If an instrument is measuring the thing it is designed to measure, doing this consistently, and getting results that make sense according to calculations about what they could/should measure based on how they work, then we would generally take them to be reasonable instruments. As our understanding grows, and as we encounter, analyze, and correct errors based on unexpected influences (e.g. human error, poor construction, degradation of the instrument, etc.), the idea of an acceptable instrument may change a bit, but the general idea is there.",
"They often point it at a bunch things we know the properties of first. \nProperties we can confirm by other methods. \nEG: We know the speed of light thanks to a bunch of physics experiments. \nWe know from this other bunch of physics experiments that this clock is really accurate. \nSo when we shoot a laser beam to measure the distance between us and the moon we know from the experiments its safe to divide the speed of light, by the bounce back time, to figure out how far the moon is.",
"For nearby stars we can use trigonometry by measuring the distance of Earth sixth months apart in its orbit, giving us one length. We can then measure the angles to the nearby star and calculate the distance. This works for our planets too. \n\nIf we have an instrument that, say, measures the distance to the same stars based on brightness or some value and it’s the same values we got using trig, we could say it was calibrated. \n\nI’m sure in practice it’s more complex than my layman thoughts."
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52zyo7 | how does the lunar calendar work? | Today is August 15 on the lunar calendar. Also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is supposed to have the roundest, brightest moon of the year. I want to know how the calendar is adjusted such that the 1st and 15th of every month always has a full moon. To my knowledge it can also predict the hottest/coldest days of the year. How does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52zyo7/eli5_how_does_the_lunar_calendar_work/ | {
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"Lunar calendars give \"preferential treatment\" to the moon and Gregorian calendars give preferential treatment to the sun. It's hard to find some sort of consistent way to balance both in a calendar so what happens in a solar/Gregorian calendar is that the months aren't exactly a lunar cycle but the year is very very very close to a trip around the sun. In a lunar calendar, the months match up to the moon cycles, but the seasons shift since it's off from the spin around the sun.\n\nMy understanding is that some lunar calendars make up for this by having a short month that resolves the remainder of the sun trip."
]
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4k5y5j | why were the russians able to have an agency in the us during the cold war? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4k5y5j/eli5_why_were_the_russians_able_to_have_an_agency/ | {
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"You mean an embassy? Because the United States and Soviet Union had diplomatic relations. Countries that have diplomatic relations with each other have embassies in each other's countries.",
"If the USA had kicked out the Sovjet embassy the Sovjets would have done the same overseas and the USA would have one source of information less. So it's also a lesser of two evils things."
]
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3lao5w | how does a small vr headset like the oculus rift work to 'fit' a huge world inside? | How does such a small device like the Oculus Rift 'fit' such a huge world inside of it? I mean I can't focus on things that close to my eyes yet when I put it on it on things that are really far away appear... well really far away and it really does feel like I'm there. What is this magic? Also how does it make objects appear 'to-scale'. For example if I make a simple gray room in 3dsmax, and view it on a monitor I can see how big something is in relation to something else but I can't tell "how big" something is, in the Rift, even with no identifying objects for reference I am able to tell that the room is "about 3 meters by 4 meters". How does this work?
edit: I should clarify for those that haven't tried one things can be made to 'look' far away on a monitor, but you can still tell they are on a flat screen infront of you, in the Rift you if a wall is made to look 3 meters away, to your eyes it really is 3 meters away and not 'on a surface infront of you'. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lao5w/eli5_how_does_a_small_vr_headset_like_the_oculus/ | {
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"It's because of depth perception. It's basically the same concept they use in 3d movies. Human brains interpolate the depth and scale of objects and environments based how our eyes both see a bit different view of the world, as they are a few centimeters apart. As both eyes give different information, our brains deduct from these differences how far or close objects are and what is their scale.\n\nFor example [look at this image](_URL_1_). The two photos are taken from a slightly different angles. Now if you cross your eyes so that the two images overlap and merge together as a third clear image in the center, you will see the insect as an 3-dimensional insect on a flat computer screen.\n\nEDIT: or as a video example. [Here's a 3d-video](_URL_0_) where both images have slightly different perspective. What Oculus Rift does it feeds the left image to the left eye and the right image to the right eye, so you get a 3d-view of the animation."
]
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"http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/3d/stereo/mantis3.jpg"
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4a47o0 | why do we have eyebrows? what purpose do they serve? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a47o0/eli5_why_do_we_have_eyebrows_what_purpose_do_they/ | {
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"1) Help to keep sweat and moisture away from eyes. 2) Important part of non-verbal communication. ",
"They keep dust and sweat out of your eyes and aid in body language. That's pretty much it. Nothing too fancy, but more important than you might think.",
"in addition to the other answers, there is also the matter of injury\n\nIf the head gets cut or bumped it is likely to be on the brow ridge. Having hair there both helps to prevent blood getting in the eyes and encourages clotting of the wound.",
"Super super important for keeping sweat outa yer eyes. Had a kid on my cross country team who shaved his off so he'd look like Marilyn Manson, and oh boy did he regret it. "
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5o6lhu | how do we create "easy" ai in video games? | I understand how artificial intelligence works in general, but my question is how do developers make "easier" AI in video games? AIs that make mistakes and can be easily outsmarted or outperformed by a human? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5o6lhu/eli5_how_do_we_create_easy_ai_in_video_games/ | {
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"Depends on the game really.\n\nIn games like chess you can adjust the difficulty by telling the computer to not look so far ahead.\n\nIn games like FPS's it's actually hard to make a good playing AI, movement and tactic-wise. They try to make the AI as good as possible here.\n\nAiming-wise, on the other hand, AI could be made unbeatable of course, so they can for example penalize the AI's aim by randomly \"poking\" it in a certain direction, making it wait for a while before shooting to simulate human reaction time, etc.\n\nIn games like Warcraft III, they actually had to make the hard AI cheat by mining more gold than the player, and still if you were good, you could beat it easily.\n\nSo I really think that the problem with AI being too good is only when it comes to precision, in which case they simply penalize it with randomness.",
"Most Game AI just detects certain events that occur and then chooses a set response from a list of responses. For example, a monster can trigger some logic when their HP drops below 20% to randomly either 1) Become enraged and charge at the player or 2) Run away and cast a self healing ability.\n\nIf this was an easy difficulty maybe this can be tweaked so that the monster runs away more often or maybe the healing is not as effective. Maybe the monster has less HP overall or has a lower attack rate.\n\nThis isn't what computer scientists would consider to be real AI. Real AI in games such as chess would look several moves ahead and anticipate the opponent's response to each of the possible moves and will choose the move that will put it in the best position. In this case lowering the difficulty will limit how many moves ahead the AI can look.",
"1) cut down what the AI can even see/know\n\n2) cut down the memory used for computation so solutions are rough/missing/incomplete deliberately\n\n3) pick an algorithm which is very simple and so not going to be slow to use and not able to very well out-smart a person\n\n4) use a good AI to beat players then add mistakes deliberately to go the wrong way, aim poorly for shooting, pick at random from available choices instead of picking the best choices for buy/sell (e.g. monopoly), etc.",
"There are a few common methods. \n\nFirst there are the obvious things like in shooter games an easier AI will do less damage and have less health. This is the easiest way since you don't have to change the core behaviour.\n\nAnother way is to introduce randomness and delays. A strong AI will calculate a precise solution and execute it as fast as it can. Introducing a random factor will reduce it's accuracy and introducing delays will make the solution invalid if you move.\n\nOther things include limiting the information that the AI can use such as making it ignore certain triggers like noise, limiting it's visibility to a certain distance and preventing it from making complex path finding."
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4pbws2 | why is "social justice warrior" considered an insult on the internet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pbws2/eli5_why_is_social_justice_warrior_considered_an/ | {
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"text": [
"Because it's sarcastic. \"Warrior\" implies they actually go and do something so it's an insult when used to refer to people who sit at their computer and comment on YouTube videos in between masturbation sessions.",
"Because so many of them act like all knowing pretentious idiots that are louder than they are smart. They also often tend to espouse ideologies are half formed or completely ridiculous while taking zero responsibility for their own actions and blaming faceless boogymen.",
"Because \"justice\" is open to interpretation, and those who like to tout themselves as social justice activists often have much different definitions of \"justice\" than many other people.",
"Because they are implying that these aren't people that actually achieve anything. They just sit at their computers and rant about things they don't like, for whatever happens to be the topic of the moment. They just want attention. People who actually want social justice aren't trying to get attention for themselves, personally.",
"They usually people who are off on random internet forums fighting for the rights and privaleges of others despite not belinging to that group. It may seem nobile to them, but is usually extremely pedantic to others. \n\nFor example, someone might refer to a Nigerian homosexual man as a \"gay black man\" and the social justice warrior might jump in and claim that the person would prefer to be called queer, he should be called \"African American\" or not referred to by his race at all, and his gender identity might not be of a male, so the person should be referred to by a gender neutral pronoun such as \"their\" or even by a [Spivak Pronoun](_URL_0_). In reality, the person being described would likely have no issue whatsoever being described as a gay black man, so the SJW went way out of their way to fight for a cause that simply did not exist beyond their own mind and/or small circle of hypersensitive friends."
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1x6wt9 | this may come off as a loaded question but why do artists still use itunes or the like when they could get more money via bandcamp? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x6wt9/eli5_this_may_come_off_as_a_loaded_question_but/ | {
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"How many people visit bandcamp on a daily basis?\n\nNow how many people visit I-Tunes?\n\nThe numbers will probably tell the story.\n\n",
"What's bandcamp? lol.",
"iTunes has the single best market penetration and visibility in the world of any online music store. Bandcamp has a user base in, at best, the low millions (and that's being *very* generous). Bandcamp is a local store compared to the _URL_0_ of iTunes."
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97fvtt | what does it mean when someone says that their life flashed before their eyes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/97fvtt/eli5what_does_it_mean_when_someone_says_that/ | {
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"Casual way of saying a near death experience and it's kind of literal you go through all your memories leading up to that one when I hit my head real bad I remember hanging out with my grandma who passed away when I was 5 then zipping thru my farm life into my city life all the way up untilthat current moment. I think it's just the brain calculating who you are .amnesias a real bitch "
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476shi | - how did they make eyelet lace before modern machinery existed? | I know eyelet lace has been around quite a while in various forms, but I always wondered how they made it without modern machinery. Like, how did they make sure all the little holes were even, and that the pattern followed the grain of the fabric? And how did they do all of the embroidery to finish off the holes? Seems like it would be a huge undertaking to do that all by hand. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/476shi/eli5_how_did_they_make_eyelet_lace_before_modern/ | {
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"Very, very slowly. :-) My understanding is that they counted treads, like cross stitch, to keep their pattern right. With old tools, I'm not sure how they cut the fabric out of the eyelets. That's not much help, but it's all I've got.",
"They did it by hand. It was indeed a very painstakingly slow and meticulous process which is why traditional laces are so expensive. There are stories of girls going blind because of the strain on their eyes.",
"We have a group here in town that does it. There's needle tatting, which is kind of like crocheting, and then there's bobbin lace, which you can see in this video. _URL_0_"
]
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|
6sbr26 | why are low-budget radio stations on the low end of the frequencies allotted for radio? | In nearly every city I go to, any channels from 91.9 Mhz and lower are non-profit stations, such as religious or college owned channels.
I figured it could be that when an analog dial was used to search for stations, these weren't passed over as much since they were at a dead end, and fewer listeners would equal less broadcasting costs.
But now with electronic dials that loop around when you get to the end of the stations, that wouldn't be relevant nowadays. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sbr26/eli5_why_are_lowbudget_radio_stations_on_the_low/ | {
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"Low frequencies travel further with less transmit power. This way the college radio does not require as powerful transmitters as the big commercial channels. The lower frequencies are also more vulnerable for atmospheric interference and thus are not appealing to commercial stations.\n\nBut I think this is mostly a local decision made by the FCC in USA, for example here in Finland most small local stations are in the high frequencies, perhaps their intention is to keep them local.\n",
"The FCC has reserved frequencies from 88.1 to 91.9 MHz for [Non-commercial Educational](_URL_0_) stations. It makes it easier to find public stations in different cities. In the case of low power stations, it allows for reuse of frequencies (and adjacent frequencies) among stations which are closer together than full power stations. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-commercial_educational#Reserved_channels"
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|
3tr1o8 | why do people think ww3 is coming and when should we be able to say it's actively happening? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tr1o8/eli5why_do_people_think_ww3_is_coming_and_when/ | {
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"People believe many things, only some of which are true. Since WW3 doesn't have an unambiguous definition, more possible interpretations exist, both true and false. In general, historians apply these labels after things are over.\n\nWW2 involved active combat between peer powers including the use of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, but not biological). While one could argue that some of the states currently at war have used scaled down versions of these weapons on civilians, we're nowhere near this today. We're not even heading in the WW3 direction.\n\nYou'll know it's happening, in the Middle East for example, when the US decides to \"solve the Islamist problem\" with unconstrained nuclear attacks on places like Mecca, Damascus, and Tehran. You can't even see there from today the possibilities are so remote."
]
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[]
] |
||
2uuu4t | why do we continue reading while we are thinking about something other than what we are reading? | While reading a textbook my mind tends to drift and i begin thinking about completely irrelevant things but i keep reading even though i won't remember it at all when i re-read it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uuu4t/eli5_why_do_we_continue_reading_while_we_are/ | {
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"In your case, it sounds like you continue reading because you have to. Whether you remember everything or not, your assignment is to read the textbook in a set amount of time, so you don't have time to stop and focus on your daydream. You know that you don't have time, so you keep reading.",
"To add on the the question, how do we do that? Read while think? I've always thought it takes same brain power to do. ",
"Our brain is really good at automating mundane work. It is very tiring for the brain to actually \"think\" about what it's doing, and can't be sustained for long periods of time. But what the brain can easily do is learn over time how to do stuff without thinking.\n\nIf you drive for long enough, you know how sometimes you just \"black out\" and just don't remember how you got somewhere. This is especially true when you're thinking of some big problem / planning something while driving.\n\nLike if you drive somewhere new and running conoversations with your ex in your head, trying to plan out your next phone call to your crush or just thinking about homework - and suddenly find yourself arriving at your workplace. And you don't even remember how you got here because \"your brain wasn't the one driving\", and wasn't paying attention to the route because it was busy (obviously it was your brain, but not the conscious / intentional parts of the brain).\n\nSame with reading. Your brain automated the \"turn text into sound I can listen to\" part. And like while driving - the brain can now do it while thinking of other things.\n\nSo now the automatic parts are just \"reading to you\", and like when someone else is reading to you - you can get distracted, daydream etc. and just not listen."
]
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[],
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|
3t4fl3 | light-years and the expansion of space? | [In the scale of the universe](_URL_0_) it states the observable universe is ~46 billion light-years away.
I don't get it. If the universe started 14 bil years ago, even with expansion, wouldn't the objects that were there when the universe started only be 28 billion light years away?
How does the whole concept of light-years work? I know a light year is the amount of distance light covers in one year, but I don't get what that really means when observing objects light years away.
If something is 20 light years away, how far away is it really and how do we know?
Lastly, how can we call it the "observable" universe if we haven't really observed anything from the beginning of time? What distinguishes this from the "entire" universe?
Sorry if my question sounds like it was asked by a village idiot :/ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t4fl3/eli5_lightyears_and_the_expansion_of_space/ | {
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" > I don't get it. If the universe started 14 bil years ago, even with expansion, wouldn't the objects that were there when the universe started only be 28 billion light years away?\n\nThe universe is expanding pretty fast. Basically, we can see light 13.7 bil ly away (which I'll get to), but in the 13.7 bil years that it took that light to reach us, the universe expanded enough so that those objects are now actually 46 bil ly away. An important point to note is not that those objects moved away from us through space. The space itself stretched, adding distance between us and those objects.\n\n > How does the whole concept of light-years work? I know a light year is the amount of distance light covers in one year, but I don't get what that really means when observing objects light years away.\n\n > If something is 20 light years away, how far away is it really and how do we know?\n\nSomething that is 20 ly away would be far enough away that the light we see is 20 years old, because it took 20 years for the light to reach us. So we would be looking at that object 20 years in the past. Because the universe is expanding, the object wouldn't be exactly 20 ly away, but it practically is, for such short distances.\n\n > Lastly, how can we call it the \"observable\" universe\n\nThe observable universe is only the portion of the universe that we can see. Right now, the edge of the observable universe is moving away from us faster than the speed of light, but long ago it wasn't, and light from the edge was able to get far enough to make it to us after all this time. But some things have always been so far away from us that their light will never reach us. Those things are outside of the \"observable\" universe, but they are still part of the entire universe.\n\nedit: got rid of an unnecessary sentence.",
"Your initial statement seems to think that the rate of expansion of the universe is limited by the speed of light--it isn't, at least not in relative terms.\n\nImagine you and I are on roller skates, and can be easily pushed apart. Now let's imagine we have a 1 meter ruler that over the course of a minute expands to be 2 meters. If we each held one end of it, we will move 1 meter in 1 minute.\n\nNow, let's take 20 of those rulers and fasten them together, and try again. The individual rulers aren't expanding any faster, but now over the course of a minute we move 20 meters. So even though space here is expanding at one rate--our relative distance is moving much faster than that.\n\nThe issue is that the entire universe is expanding--so the more space there is between two objects, the more 'universe' there is to expand between them, which effectively means they are moving away even faster.",
"Most of this can be explained with Hubble's Law. Basically, the universe is expanding at a constant rate, (The Hubble constant) the most accurate measurement being 67.8 km/s/Mpc. (Megaparsec) This means that a galaxy 1 Megaparsec away is moving away at about 67.8 km/s due to the expansion of space. Doing some algebra, one can find that the speed of light/Hubble constant = 13.8 billion light years. Huh. This means that, 13.8 billion light years away, the galaxies are receding at the speed of light. The reason this is legal is because empty space - most of the universe - is not bound by any physical laws, and can expand limitlessly. However, light doesn't travel relative to its source - going faster doesn't make the light you emit go any faster, for example. Therefore, the light from these galaxies is still approaching us at the speed of light. From that, we know that, by the time the light reaches us, we have already moved a distance away from it, and the source has also moved away from us. Here's a GIF which does a decent job: _URL_0_ \n\nThat was the hard question.\n\nNext, light years. If we observe an object as twenty light years away, then it was in that location twenty years ago. The way we measure distances that vast is using redshift (estimates velocity using Doppler effect) and the aforementioned Hubble constant. (e.g., the wavelength of this galaxy's light is shifted *x* amount towards red. That means it's going at *y* km/s away from us. *y*/67.8 will give us a rough distance in Megaparsecs. Just some calculus, nothing special.\n\nYour final question is partially answered by my first paragraph. To expand, the early universe was mostly opaque, rendering it practically impossible to \"see\" times from before ~12.5 billion years ago. So the observable universe is, in the end, how far we can see before those damn primordial clouds of hydrogen start hogging the view.\n\n...Please tell me that made sense."
]
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"http://scaleofuniverse.com/"
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[],
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"http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/expansion.gif"
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|
5utgx6 | how come when we look at direct light, (ex. lamp, lightbulb, sun, etc.) we see flares around the object? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5utgx6/eli5_how_come_when_we_look_at_direct_light_ex/ | {
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"The lenses in your eyes aren't good enough to properly let the strong light through without some light spreading randomly as it enters your lens, causing some light to \"bleed\" outwards from the bright spot. Your eyes' lenses are pretty transparent, but not perfectly transparent, so bright enough light is still able to \"light up\" your lens,in a manner of speaking.\n\nIt's sort of the same effect that happens with cameras, except those often have multiple lenses inside, creating multiple flares. High quality lenses have special coating that prevents flaring, but it's still not always perfect. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5ajtxb | how do air museums find and buy decommissioned military aircraft? | I know airworthy WWII fighters are worth millions, but how much would something that's not airworthy cost? How do they get transported there?
I remember someone at local air museum telling me they flew the F-16 there, but an airworthy F-16 would have to be worth millions and I know they didn't spend that sort of money on it. Plus I don't think there are any in private ownership. So I think they were lying or joking...
They also have a B-52. How much would something like that cost? I would guess the cost of transport could be more than the actual cost of the plane.
I remember Aviation Challenge (Space Camp for kids who like fighter planes) had all sorts of plane on display, including a Harrier , P-51, and Mig 17 (IIRC). I am curious how much it would have cost them.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ajtxb/eli5_how_do_air_museums_find_and_buy/ | {
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"Most of the artifacts in the museums are donated or borrowed. So the Air Force might donate a plane that is about to be decommissioned. If it is at the end of its service life or maintenance inspections discovers unservicable issues they might still be able to fly it to a museum or a bone yard before they strip the remaining valuable parts from it. They might also want to borrow aircrafts to museums. The Air Force might have spare aircrafts that is not needed unless there is a war. They might borrow these out to museums and research institutes on the condition that they maintain them and return them on short notice if needed."
]
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[]
] |
|
5jvobe | do babies communicate with each other? | I am a new mom and was wondering wether my baby realizes another baby and communicates with it? I could not find a decent answer online so maybe you could help and ELI5?! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jvobe/eli5_do_babies_communicate_with_each_other/ | {
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"text": [
"A little. One crying baby can sometimes set another one off.\n\nBabies do not have the brain capacity for language, though.",
"Maybe not babies but my mother sent me away for several months when I was about 3 or 4 because I was \"translating\" baby-talk for my sister who is 18 months younger. My mom is a grade school teacher and was concerned that I was interfering with her language development. I have no recollection of this but it is a popular family story.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
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|
b7ukh9 | why does freezing food reduce the “quality” of it when talking to chefs or purists? | When talking about food, for example sushi, why is the quality reduced when the fish has been frozen and then flown to another location? What is it about the process of freezing food that ruins it? Does the flavor profile truly change that drastically between fresh and frozen then thawed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b7ukh9/eli5_why_does_freezing_food_reduce_the_quality_of/ | {
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"Water expands when you freeze it and since everything you eat contains water, the freezing water ruptures the tissue it's contained in. For meat it alters the consistency and texture. For fruits and vegetables, it makes them mushy. ",
"So sushi needs to be frozen to kill parasites so even \"raw fish\" sushi has been frozen and is not fresh.\n\nWhat happens during the freezing process is that the water in the cells expands and ruptures the cell walls. This happens with meats and vegetables. The freezing process can be managed to reduce the negative effects on many foods.\n\nThe primary reason for freezing food is to preserve excess quantities like frozen strawberries and such. Of course freezing foods also allows us to save them for future use when they are no longer in season. "
]
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[],
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|
ddszjx | how does nvidia and amd make any money (besides selling their own graphics cards) if other brands are using their series under their own brand | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ddszjx/eli5_how_does_nvidia_and_amd_make_any_money/ | {
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"Nvidia doesn't produce graphic cards. They instead design them and \"lend\" the technology to the constructor like Asus or MSI. This makes them sign deal where they negotiate as they want to because they are the one on earth able to design such cards. ( AMD is way smaller than Nvidia).\n\nThis business model shows how they own the market. An other example is Arm's CPUs for embedded systems.\n\nThese make a flood of money because they are the top tier technology company on the world and they own precursor technologies. They don't even need to produce it themselves.",
"nvidia licenses their designs to actual card manufacturers like asus, msi, gigabyte, evga, etc. licenses are not cheap 1 time payments. more often than not they include tiers of minimum and incremental payments per unit of use.",
"NVidia doesn't produce graphics cards - they [outsource](_URL_0_) even their Founder's Edition cards to other manufacturers - but they do produce^* GPUs (graphics processing units). The GPU is the chip at the heart of the graphics card, and by far the most expensive part on the board. A graphics card is essentially a separate motherboard (daughterboard) which contains a lot of other stuff in addition to the GPU. Graphics card manufacturers such as Asus and Gigabyte buy the GPU from the manufacturer (NVidia or AMD) under a licensing agreement along with other components such as memory from different manufacturers, and assemble them together into a graphics card. The licensing agreement requires them to manufacture the different types of graphics card SKUs (like RTX 2080 TI) NVidia or AMD has specified.\n\n^* NVidia is a so-called fabless manufacturer, so they don't make the actual chips themselves. NVidia provides the chips designs and get them made by someone else, such as TSMC."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/9559gi/who_is_the_manufacturer_for_the_gtx_1070_founders/"
]
] |
||
1namnm | if silicon based life forms existed, what would be the differences and similarities compared to carbon based life forms? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1namnm/eli5_if_silicon_based_life_forms_existed_what/ | {
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"_URL_0_\r\rBasically, silicon doesn't react nearly the same way carbon does. It can't form long chains of repeating polymers without spontaneously breaking down, it can't form double bonds easily, it doesn't react with very many other elements, it reacts more readily with water... All of these drawbacks are too difficult to overcome, and as such silicon-based life is nothing more than a cool idea, not a plausible alternative to carbon.",
"Carbon is cool because it can gain (or, more rarely, lose) up to 4 electrons when it forms bonds with other atoms. This means it can [form a wide variety of compounds](_URL_0_). It forms the backbone of most (all?) major molecules in our bodies.\n\nSilicon is right below carbon on the periodic table, so it can also lose or gain up to 4 electrons. This means it can form lots of bonds too.\n\nHowever, you cannot just replace carbon with silicon even though they are chemically similar. Carbon dioxide is a gas. Silicon dioxide is beach sand. Methane does not react with water but silane does. Maybe we're biased in favor of carbon but silicon compounds just seem weird and hard to work with.\n\nLife put together using silicon would be very, very different from Earth life so it is hard to say what it would really be like. Many (but not all) silicon compounds have higher melting points than their carbon-based versions, so they might like higher temperatures. They might be able to eat rocks because silicate minerals are common on Earth.",
"Silicon life is completely unnecessary. If there was some, it would probably be different than carbon-based life. Trying to imagine it is like trying to imagine a concept like heaven. Since there is no sample at all, and there aren't much mathematics nor chemistry concepts to really make accurate predictions. No matter how much you try to imagine it, you are probably wrong. That makes me sad, too, as I often asked myself these questions when I was in middle and high school.",
"I had a professor that was always talking about this. I'm not a chem major, but he seemed convinced it was possible. He spoke of the complications with it, but was convinced it was possible. ",
"Breast implants would be easier",
"In carbon creatures, they breath in oxygen to exhale CO2. For silicon creatures they breath in oxygen and have silicosis."
]
} | [] | [] | [
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon-based_life#Silicon_biochemistry"
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[],
[],
[]
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||
6jcab5 | why are indians, bangledashis, pakistanis etc... and oriental asians so different physically despite the close proximity of their nations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jcab5/eli5_why_are_indians_bangledashis_pakistanis_etc/ | {
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"text": [
"because there's a big geographical divide, called the Himalaya mountain range. \n\nand distance between core of India and China ancient kingdoms is about the distance between Spain and Moscow. not exactly close. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
eaq8jx | how do spaceships and shuttles turn? | After asking how planes turn I’ve been wondering the same about space vessels. How do spaceships like the Apollo’s and Shuttles like Atlantis turn? Do they use rudders? Do they both use rudders? Do they both use the same turning mechanisms, or different ones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eaq8jx/eli5_how_do_spaceships_and_shuttles_turn/ | {
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"At each end they have tiny rockets or thrusters, which push out gas at very high speed. This causes that end of the vehicle to go the other way.",
"While in atmosphere, rockets can use fins to steer like planes. Once out of the atmosphere, they have to get creative.\n\nThe simplest answer is having tiny steering rockets on the front and back of your ship. By firing these rockets you can rotate your ship. Thrust vectoring, which allows the entire rocket engine to rotate slightly, is often used when the rocket is currently using its engine. However, many more creative solutions exist. There's reaction wheels, where the rocket spins little wheels inside itself to rotate itself. There's even the yo-yo despin, which allows certain rockets to stop spinning once they've launched (worth note that this only works once and only to *stop* spinning*).",
"The way they turn is by turning the exhaust (aka the thruster). Let’s say they need to turn a little right. So they turn the thruster a little LEFT. If you hold your arm up and try to tip the hand right your elbow goes left. So by turning the bottom to a side it forces the top to rotate the other way."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
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