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20qgl4 | what is a vx system | I stumbled across r/vxjunkies, now my head hurts and Google doesn't seem up to the task of explaining can someone please help | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20qgl4/eli5_what_is_a_vx_system/ | {
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"It's a joke subreddit, filled with [technobabble](_URL_0_)."
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2yjr26 | what exactly is a "safe" amount of bacteria to be exposed to in order to develop proper immunity? | I hear this being thrown about a lot but am not exactly sure how to act upon it. Should I not wash my hands as often? Should I be rubbing my face on some dirty street corner every now and again? But more seriously, does it depend on age? Surely it would be riskier to apply this to infants but then again isn't it important to start building immunity at a young age? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yjr26/eli5what_exactly_is_a_safe_amount_of_bacteria_to/ | {
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"The best thing you can do is to avoid misuse/ overuse of antibiotics. It is in foods/ meats as well. Most of the time antibacterial soaps are not necessary either. But for more details on the immune system,\ncheckout these 2 Yale videos covering the immune system:\n\n1: _URL_2_\n\n2: _URL_1_\n\nAlso a Yale video on antibiotic resistance: _URL_0_",
"You're exposed to a ton of bacteria all day every day. Your body has more bacteria cells in it then it does human cells.",
"The number of bacteria required to cause an infection varies between species and can vary from person to person. Also you don't develop immunities to bacterium. This is why you might get the. Exact same strain of strep throat multiple times. You can develop immunities to viruses, and the most common way of doing this is vaccinations. \n\nYou shouldn't seek out bacteria. You're exposed to enough on a daily basis it is unlikely you'll have immune problems. If you aren't getting sick now you're likely fine to continue what you are doing.\n\n-edit- yes immune system functionality is dependent on age. The very young and the old generally have worse immune systems. There is still no reason to actively expose them to disease. "
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2s2ntm | if you're trying to burn fat, why do you need to eat? can't you just not eat and your body would metabolize fat and not food you recently ate? | Been wondering this a while. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s2ntm/eli5_if_youre_trying_to_burn_fat_why_do_you_need/ | {
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"Fat isn't a 100% replacement for food intake. It is a supplement not a solution, intended to bridge gaps of little food rather than no food. You can and should eat much less, but not nothing.",
"If you've not eaten anything for a long while, you'll know that the body doesn't usually like it. Hunger pangs and generally making you fell like crap is the way things tend to go. The only way to lose weight is to ensure energy intake is lower than energy output, but not zero",
"Food stimulates your metabolism. If you starve your body, it will attempt to keep mass.",
"You technically could as long as you drank water but it is extremely unhealthy... ",
"It's mainly because you also need other vitamins and stuff like that not just fat. Also, your body also starts living off not only fat but also your muscles.",
"There are many negative effects of starving yourself. For example, your body needs proteins to function and without food it will break down your muscle to get them. Your body needs calcium to function and without calcium in your diet it will break down your bones to get it. Your immune system won't have the nutritional support to function at 100%, so your ability to fight infection/disease decreases. Yes, long-term fasting will make you lose weight, but you will end up weaker than you were before you started. Fat is not the only thing your body uses to maintain itself. "
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3kviua | how was credit card fraud prevented back then when they swiped it onto some pieces of paper rather than using terminals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kviua/eli5_how_was_credit_card_fraud_prevented_back/ | {
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"As the customer you asked for the carbon slip. As a business you threw the carbon slip away and shredded it. \n\n",
"I don't think there was much to be done, however I believe the bank was much more liable. One of the reasons chip and pin was disliked at first was because the banks basically said that any transaction not using chip and pin was not their problem. If the card was fraudulent the bank wouldn't pay. \n\nWhile there isn't much you can do to prevent it, you still have the print of someone's card. You can persue them or deny them repeat custom. Asking for ID with the card was much more common. You also have to remember that paying by card was a special thing, not the way we do it now to pay for a sandwich. ",
"It wasn't really. There was the non sensicle notion that the clerks would compare the signature on the back of the card with the one the person wrote on the receipt. \n\nI used to write on my card in the signature block \"CHECK ID\", clerks would look at it, look at me and just wait for me to sign it.\n\nCredit card fraud, bank fraud, fake checks are nothing new, electronic transactions and eCommerce have increased just removed the brick and mortar controls that people thought did something. \n\nI wonder if anyone has done a per capita study to see how much it has grown or not grown. ",
"I worked in retail at the time. Here's the answer for how WE handled it.\n\n1) First, you visually inspected the card, making sure it actually looked real and such. \n\n2) The owner had to sign the paper copy to accept the deal. If you worked in a place where fraud was a concern (e.g. purchasing prescriptions), you checked their signature against the signature on the back of the card to see if they looked alike. If they didn't you were instructed to ask for picture ID or get the manager if they balked. \n\n3) You called for an authorization if the value was high enough. Mastercard and Visa had 1-800 numbers that you could call to read the card # off to and ask if they were approved for a purchase of a certain value. \n\nThe system wasn't perfect for detecting stolen cards unless the person was buying a big-ticket item and/or couldn't forge the signature. But it did catch a few people trying to pass off bad cards in the store where I worked.",
"There was a liability limit that the merchant was safe with... so, if it was $50, they knew that they could process any transaction less than $50 and the credit card company would pay it.\n\nOver $50, and they had to call it in. I remember those days; I mean, often it was literally one person calling another on the phone, the merchant reading the number off the card, the person on the other end typing the numbers into a computer, and saying \"yes, that transaction is approved\" and giving a confirmation code that they would write on the paper.",
"Cards in those days had the following:\n\n * Customer signature on the back\n * Customer name on the front\n * Credit card number and expiration date\n * A special, controlled-access imprint called a \"flying V\" for Visa cards or a \"flying M\" for Mastercards . . . don't know if they existed for other brands.\n\nCustomers were to sign the card immediately on receipt. That makes the signature on the back the signature of the customer. Failure to do this is your own damn fault.\n\nClerks would take the time to examine the signature and compare it to the one on the slip. They could also request ID, which they can't really do as readily any more.\n\nThe flying letter imprint would appear on the slip along with the customer's name, credit card number and expiry date.\n\nThe clerk could check the number in a published booklet that contained numbers of cards that were cancelled, lost, stolen, or otherwise would not be honoured by the processor. I remember these books being roughly 100 pages of newsprint in 8.5\"x11\".\n\nThe clerk could make a phone call and confirm that the card is good.\n"
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4kt9wd | why does rubbing/sanitary alcohol come in different solutions? | It's always confused me because there is the type with the lower concentration and the higher concentration. Wouldn't the alcohol with higher concentrations dominate those with lower concentrations? Why are they both still around? And by dominate I mean be more successful in the market. Wouldn't the lower concentration type become obsolete and eventually not produced anymore? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kt9wd/eli5_why_does_rubbingsanitary_alcohol_come_in/ | {
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"For antiseptic use, isopropanol works better if it has some water to get into the bacteria and kill them. The water denatures the proteins in the cell wall to open pores. It also slows evaporation. "
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7ipwej | sperm genetics | When a man enseminates a woman and the sperm fight their way to the egg does each individual sperm have different DNA? Like would one be a firefighter the other a meth addict how is that determined if by what the man eats or had done before his ejaculation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ipwej/eli5_sperm_genetics/ | {
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"It has nothing to do with what the man did recently. But yes, each individual sperm is different. \n\nEach person has 23 *pairs* of chromosomes. Each sperm gets a random *one* from each pair, so it takes 23 random decisions to make each sperm. So they're quite different.",
"Yes. Each sperm is packed with 23 chromosomes (23 packages of DNA). Each chromosome contains a unique mix of DNA from each of the man's parents. The way that your parents DNA is mixed during the creation of the chromosomes means that there is a vast range of different combinations of DNA - so each sperm is very unique.\n\nSimilar is true for the Egg. Each egg also contains 23 chromosomes, which have a unique mix of DNA from the woman's parents. \n\nSo when the sperm and egg meet, they represent the combination of two very unique sets of DNA. Each different sperm and egg set would be more or less likely to produce tendencies that might lead to the person being inclined to be a meth addict, or a star athlete, or something else.\n\n\n**Edit for the other part of your question:** Also yes, to a limited extent. In addition to your DNA code, there is a thing called 'epigenetic regulation' which modifies how your genes actually work. And what the father does prior to making his sperm is reflected in changes to this epigenetic regulation. This can have an impact on the outcome for the child. For example, (and it's a huge simplification) an overweight dad can create sperm that gives rise to an individual with a higher than normal tendancy to put on weight. There have been some interesting studies done on the children of holocaust survivors who have big differences in their stress responses as a result of what their parents went through before they were born.\n\n\nBut DNA is only part of the story - the circumstances of someones life and upbringing have a much greater impact for normal, healthy individuals. ",
"There is no proof that DNA impacts if you are a firefighter or meth addict. Of course individuals can be prone to addiction but there is argument that it could either be DNA or “nurture”(the life someone leads and how they are raised). But even that is tricky because there is still so much to discover about the human mind. Like two kids can grow up in abusive households. One becomes a serial killer and the other becomes a doctor. ",
"There are 23 chromosomes, and each sperm has the left or the right half of each of them. Sperm are different, it's not all left in one and all right in the other, but there are only 2^23 (=8,388,608) possible combinations. Each ejaculation has 200M-500M individual sperm, but there are only 8M different \"versions\". What the man eats has nothing to do with this.\n\nThe second question has nothing to do with the first. Many twin studies have shown that while genetics explains hair color and ear lobe shape, things like career and drug addiction are much more complex than that."
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bbvqhg | do postage stamps have any way of protecting against fraudulent duplication? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bbvqhg/eli5_do_postage_stamps_have_any_way_of_protecting/ | {
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"Postage stamps aren't particularly difficult to counterfeit as you suspect, but they have stiff federal penalties for forgery. Given the potential penalty for faking a stamp it hasn't traditionally been a significant issue."
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achubn | why are people at greater risk of dehydration when ill? | Does being sick cause your body to use more water? Or do people just drink less when they don’t feel good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/achubn/eli5_why_are_people_at_greater_risk_of/ | {
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"When a person is ill their body will raise its temperature to try and kill the bacteria that is causing the illness. That leads to sweating and that leads to dehydration.",
" > \tDoes being sick cause your body to use more water?\n\nOf course. You know all that snot and phlegm which sick people make? It is mostly water pulled straight out of the blood. People who get sick often are either more moist in their respiratory tract or from their rear end, both meaning more water consumption overall.",
"illnesses cause dehydration indirectly in lots of ways.\n\n* You are tired or weak, so you don't want to get up to have a glass of water.\n* You have diarrhea which causes you to lose more water then normal.\n* Your stomach is upset so you don't want to eat or drink anything.\n* You have an intermittent fever, whenever the fever breaks your body sweats to cool you back down to 98.6.\n* you drink water, then you vomit before your body can absorb that water. This is one of the most serious problems.\n"
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dcw9oc | why do some scars bump out and some scars dip in? | All my scars are surgical and on my abdomen. About half pop out and half dip in. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dcw9oc/eli5_why_do_some_scars_bump_out_and_some_scars/ | {
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"So, I asked myself this many times and now you made me seriously curious. I tried searching on the internet, but found nothing yet, so this is my personal knowledge.\n\nThe first aspect is the nature of the wound: it will behave differently depending on how deep and how big it is. Surgical scars, which are the most deep ones as they cut all the way through your skin to get to what's under, will usually dip in while they heal, while wound that are less deep but have a greater area will probably bump out, as there is more skin to generate and new skin tend to overlap a bit.\n\nThis works usually really well unless in contrast with the second point: the location. The nature of the scar depends a lot, obviously, by the nature of the original tissue: scars in fat areas will puff out, while scars that are close to bones or joints will almost surely dip in. \n\nThere are a few exceptions to this: in places where the skin bends (like inside your elbows) the scar will probably dip in, while where the skin is very hard and thick (like your palms) the scar can either puff out or dip in, or even do both things.\n\nThe third factor is the age. Not of the person, of the scar. Expecially if it's bumped out: usually it is like that because there is extra scar tissue under the skin, which tends to reduce considerably or even disappear over time, so it is possible that a bumped out scar will lay flat in a matter of some years.\n\nI would also like to specify that for surgical scars, it's important to analyze the nature of the surgery itself: we said they're likely to dip in unless they're on soft tissue (like the belly), there are though, surgeries that will leave more or less bumpy/dipped scars. For example there is a pretty nasty surgery technique which consist, for a reason or the other, to screw long pieces of metal in your (usually legs) bones, leaving them accessible from the outside, and you usually stay like that for weeks, with little metal bars stabbed in your leg, so the wounds already start to heal before they take them out, the same way skin heals around a piercing. They cannot reverse this process when the bars are taken out, meaning that that particular procedure will probably leave you with pretty deep holes in your flesh, I know a guy who can literally stick his pinky up one of them.\n\nWe also said that large superficial wounds tend to bump out, this is absolutely not true with skin grafts. Skin grafts are really nasty, will probably always be nasty and will dip in like crazy.\n\nI think this is all, but if I remember anything else I'll let you know, hope this helped, and happy cake day!\n\nSource: I have a lot of scars."
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30ldr5 | why doesn't aids spread trough kissing but from sex "bodly fluids"? whats the diference? | I mean, they are both bodly fluids right? Also, could wou get AIDS trough a blowjob? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30ldr5/eli5why_doesnt_aids_spread_trough_kissing_but/ | {
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"AIDs is spread by the virus (HIV) being absorbed into the bloodstream. As I understand it, the virus wouldn't make it into a persons saliva, so you wouldn't be able to transmit it through kissing, unless the person with AIDs had their infected blood in their mouth (in which case, why would you kiss them?).\n\nFor other questions about AIDs transmission, including the answer to the risk of oral sex, check out [this FAQ](_URL_0_) from AID Atlanta.",
"The virus is not in the saliva. Not being in the saliva it cannot be spread.\n\nThe GI system is used to ingesting foreign things, making them safe for assimilation, assimilating what is needed, rejecting the rest. \n\nIt is always better to give than to receive.\n\nHaving said this I do not want to kiss someone with the virus or to do close things with them involving fluids."
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4ddcde | why is the ball a universal toy for all species? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ddcde/eli5_why_is_the_ball_a_universal_toy_for_all/ | {
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"What do you mean by \"all species?\" There are millions of species, and most don't play with balls.",
"Not sure the question really, but I think the basic response is because they are easily available?\n\nOP can you elaborate on what you are asking.",
"I would guess because it easily rolls, is easy to throw, and easy to hold in your hand or in an animals mouth. \n\nI wouldn't say it's universal to all species though. You don't see many fish or insects playing with balls."
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44dsrv | how come horses and ponies and such have evolved with hooves, but now they need human to tend to them or they'll grow out too much ? | Just saw an ad about abandoned ponies with super long hooves, and asking for money to help them. Sure it's another scam, just got me thinking why wild horses or ponies wouldn't be able to kinda grind off their own hooves, right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44dsrv/eli5_how_come_horses_and_ponies_and_such_have/ | {
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"Wild horses travelled extremely long distances over rough terrain, so their hooves would get worn down naturally. \n\nDomestic horses are kept in stables so they don't grind them down enough and need human care.\n\nSame thing applies to human fingernails/toenails, animal claws, etc.",
"We put them in stables and on soft roads and tracks and stuff. Their lives are pretty cushy with us.\n\nSo those hooves don't get worn as much as a wild horse's do, and we have to artificially trim them to make up the difference.\n\nAdd to this that the horses prolly live a lot longer than they would have in the wild. A recent Reddit thread compared the expected life span of a domestic versus a feral cat. Likely the same with horses, so they don't get as long to grow out.",
"In addition to what /u/slash178 said domestic horses are kept with horseshoes on to help support the weight of riders or loads and because they don't tend to run over rough terrain as much their hooves do not harden as much. Wearing horseshoes their hooves don't get worn down so they are trimmed when they are reshod.",
"Ever seen tribal or nomadic people who live and dress their native lifestyle, can walk around the sands of a desert, or through the dense brush of some forest completely barefoot? You or I get blisters just by walking a lot in the mall. Worse if we go hiking on a rocky trail, ankles and knees complain a lot.\n\nDifference is, we're not used to walking very much, a few feet from the parking lot to the store, and a bit around the office. \n\nSame thing with modern horses that pretty much stand around in a pen or a small pasture somewhere, where they lazily walk around. Wild horses, or horses that were used people a century ago were on their feet all day long, carrying a rider or gear. Or running with the herd to avoid wolves, walking long distances to get to food or water, and so on. Horses back then that developed foot problems became wolf or vulture food.\n\nSo modern horses don't really get a chance to grind down their hooves by walking around, hence the need for a human with clippers and files."
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1yioyk | what does a radiologist do? | I'm just curious. Can you tell me what you think a radiologist does? Is their work valuable in some particular way and, if so, to whom? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yioyk/what_does_a_radiologist_do/ | {
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"Radiologist are doctors that are experts in interpreting medical imaging, such as X-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds and MRIs. They will look at these images and try to find anything unusual. They are the doctors that usually have the final say on what is wrong on an image. Other doctors will usually ask radiologist to help interpret these images after having a suspicion of what's wrong based on their interaction with the patient. For example, a general surgeon may ask a radiologist to interpret an abdominal CT to identify a suspected appendicitis. Radiologists can work in hospitals or in community offices.\n\nThey are not involved in developing radiation-based treatment plans...those are radiation oncologist, a very different speciality. They also do not usually actually perform the imaging. Radiology technician will do this (not doctors)."
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2g52b9 | how does my gi bill work? | I'm currently enlisted in the Air Force Reserve, and going to Basic in January. Can you explain in laymen's terms how the GI Bill works? At what point can I start using it? Etc... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g52b9/eli5_how_does_my_gi_bill_work/ | {
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"In the most basic terms, the GI Bill benefits will pay for education (college, trade school, whatever) to help you reintegrate into the national economy after your service. \n\nHowever, I would overwhelming strongly recommend that you talk to the military about this. Benefits of any sort tend to be very complicated, and it will be best if you talk to someone who can either explain or direct you to someone who can explain your exact benefits. A reddit answer, which may well include people on different paths or who left the military long ago, is probably not going to be the best source for exact information on the subject.",
"Get the pamphlet from your Educational Services Officer (titles vary). It has the true info, and is actually written at the ELI5 level.",
"This is a very complicated question to answer. Trust me, you will have many opportunities to have it explained to you, many times. You will not really be able to tap into it until you fulfill a certain amount of time active duty. There are three different options for you as a reservist to pick. This link lays it out pretty well, and your recruiter should be able to find you more resources on it. _URL_0_ . I hate throwing my two cents in like this, but I really hope you are joining for more than just the G.I. bill, it definitely sweetens the deal, but there is a lot more to gain from military service."
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2dvyr1 | if alzheimer's / dementia is a disease of the memory, why do patients commonly die from organ failure? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dvyr1/eli5_if_alzheimers_dementia_is_a_disease_of_the/ | {
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"Alzheimer's is a disease of the brain. It's most obvious symptom is problems with memory, but it causes damage widely throughout the brain. This means not just forgetting the year, or your spouse's name, but also how to breathe and swallow properly, and other things we take for granted. This---combined with difficulty reporting symptoms and otherwise taking care of yourself---can lead to a host of potentially fatal problems like infections, clots, and chronic wasting of important organs. \n\nor so I am told.",
"Alzheimer's is not only a disease of the memory. It's a neurodegenerative disease, which basically just means your brain fails more and more over time. We're talking about losing the ability to control your limbs, walk, etc., which means they're as injury-prone as a toddler in an old and otherwise-worn body. The death isn't from the Alzheimer's directly, but from the piles of secondary crap it causes.",
"It's not a \"disease of the memory\", it's a \"disease of the brain\". That's important because it affects more than just memory.\n\nWhat happens is the brain progressively stops working, and the person progressively loses the ability to function at all. They lose the ability to feed and clothe themselves, and then to walk, and so the person gets no exercise at all. This causes lots of secondary stuff to go wrong like getting ulcers from being bedridden or contracting pneumonia that the unhealthy body can't fight off any more, and it's those secondary conditions that lead to organ failure. ",
"Most Alzheimer's and Dementia patients usually pass away from some other secondary illnesses. The body of an Alzheimer's/Dementia patient slowly deteriorates as the patient becomes less able to care for themselves. Most patients end up in care facilities where outside germs cause secondary infections and conditions. For example, pneumonia is sometimes seen in late stage patients due to the patients inability to swallow correctly. The liquid will go into the lungs and begin an infection. Also, being in a long-term care facility, the patient is exposed to a multitude of bacteria. The one of the most rampant is MRSA. This will compound any other issues the patient is having. As MRSA is, for the most part, antibiotic resistant, the patient will have this for the remainder of their life complicating any other would be conditions. Moreover, the patient, at some point in the late stages of Alzheimers/dementia will lose the ability to eat, drink, and so on. This put the patient at risk for further infections the body cannot fight. In the end stages of Alzheimer/dementia body will begin to shut down and organs fail due to infection, malnourishment, or for lack of better terms, the body just finally gives up. -Source: I was the caregiver for my Grandmother who had dementia for over 10 years. She passed last week from complications due to MRSA and a secondary infection. "
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b21okk | how are reality show confessionals filmed? | I never understood how/when the episode confessionals are filmed. They are always wearing the same clothes, how do they do it?! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b21okk/eli5_how_are_reality_show_confessionals_filmed/ | {
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"At a later time - could be a few hours, the next day, a few days after, weeks later, or even months later. The producers will sit them down, revisit scenes from the past, and then get a bunch of questions asked about what they remember, what they felt, and other leading questions to try to get a reaction out of them that will be good to show on TV... not them just recalling events from memory. They don't just stop what's going on to tape a confessional. If for some reason, the producers don't get the reaction they are looking for from that contestant, they have been known to keep throwing questions different ways to get the reaction that they want, even if it's a confessional long after it's happened, especially if they know they are going to put some emphasis on a certain event that happened during taping.",
"They are usually filmed after the show has filmed, basically having them view the footage and narrate, answer questions based on scene being shown to them."
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4sqxje | why does it feel so weird once you become aware of your breathing? and why is it kind of hard to be come un-aware? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sqxje/eli5_why_does_it_feel_so_weird_once_you_become/ | {
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"Your brain stem is the part of your brain that does automatic functions like keeping your heart beating, and breathing. Except breathing is something you can switch over to the conscious side of your brain if you want to. It's just a matter of switching it back...which is strange because while your brain only has to think about it to take control, giving back control to a part of your body you're not consciously aware of is weird, kind of like wiggling your ears. If you don't know how to command the muscles in your ears it's impossible to make them do anything, you have to first figure out the connection which in this case isn't happening. So basically you just have to forget and it'll take over on its own.\n\nNow why can breathing be switched like this and not just always automatic? ¯\\\\\\_(ツ)_/¯ dunno\n\nfair warning I'm talking without any proof to back up what I say, educated guess and all that, but most of the responses on this sub are like that so whatever"
]
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||
5pufhf | why did it take tv's so long to become widescreen, so they could display movies like in the theater? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pufhf/eli5_why_did_it_take_tvs_so_long_to_become/ | {
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"For most of TV's history it used a Cathode ray tube to display the picture. They were made of glass. Glass \"likes\" to be round when made into a shape. The first TV screens were round. Making a screen square made a screen that distorted in the corners. Later new screen technology using LED flat screens removed that limitation. "
]
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||
bbe6zq | why does the wind seem to drop in the evening after a windy day? its never as windy when it gets dark | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bbe6zq/eli5_why_does_the_wind_seem_to_drop_in_the/ | {
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"Wind is caused by the difference in air pressure in different places. Warm air is less dense than cold air, so it wants to rise up and cold air wants to fall down. Cold air will push warm air out of the way, typically upwards where the warm air will be pushed away, cool down, and fall down elsewhere to continue the cycle.\n\nThose different air temperatures pushing each other around is wind.\n\nDuring the day, the Sun is warming the ground, which is warming the air. Air doesn't absorb visible light very well - obviously, that's why you can see through it. At night, the Sun...isn't. So there isn't as much energy warming the air. There is less of a difference between the warm air and the cold air, which is why there is less wind at night *generally speaking*.\n\nAlso, if it's been windy all day that means the air has been mixing and moving and shoving other air out of the way *all day*. That particular weather front may have simply pushed the other front out of the way already and there's not much left until the next one moves in.",
"It depends where you live. Near the ocean or a large body of water, you will get a diurnal sea breeze. Imagine being at the beach on a hot sunny day. The sand gets blistering hot but the ocean stays cold. The air directly above the sand is heated and rises while the air over the ocean cools and sinks. This creates a giant engine (a convective cell) where the air goes up from the beach, out over the ocean, down to the surface of the ocean then back to the beach. It is the last part that you feel as the sea breeze.",
"The Santa Ana winds here in SoCal are picking up tonight just after dark... so I’m gonna have to agree with the others here that you may be noticing regional trends, since the very real weather here seems to disagree with your observation.",
"To add to what's already been said - here in Vancouver, the wind actually usually picks up in the evening. We really notice it here on the North Shore at the base of the mountain; as the sun stops baking the hill, cold air rushes down the hillside from the icefields north of the city, and we end up with pretty blustery conditions during and shortly after dusk.",
"Currently enjoying 50+ mph winds in Los Angeles at 11:00pm. You were saying?",
"Meteorologist here: most of these answers are missing the point for one reason or another. For most of the planet, most days, you get what's called an inversion (a shallow layer of air warmer than the air above and below it) at or just after sunset. This is when the air a couple hundred feet above the surface is warmer than the air right at the surface, because the ground (no longer heated by the sun) cools quicker than the air above it, and when it cools the heat emitted is absorbed by that air and rises slightly. This forms what we sometimes call a 'cap' that keeps higher winds aloft from mixing down to the surface.\n\nFor lots of reasons that don't really fit into an ELI5, this doesn't happen every day everywhere, but it's common enough that we just call it the 'nocturnal inversion' and that's all the forecast reasoning necessary for why the winds drop overnight."
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5anqua | if direct deposit takes 1-2 business days, and that's 9am-5pm, what's happening to my money during those "off hours?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5anqua/eli5_if_direct_deposit_takes_12_business_days_and/ | {
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"It's earning interest in aggregate with millions of other similar deposits for the banking institution. That lag called \"float\" provides for a small interest earning for the banking institution. In essence they are borrowing your money for that time period and retaining the interest earned during that small window of time. It's one of many ways that banks make money. "
]
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[]
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||
75dljk | why do some restaurants have paper on their tablecloths; it can’t just be for coloring on..? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75dljk/eli5_why_do_some_restaurants_have_paper_on_their/ | {
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"text": [
"Paper is cheap to replace, and it makes clean-up easier when you can simply replace the entire tablecloth. It's the same reason the table in your doctor's office has paper -- it takes *way* less work to remove the paper than to thoroughly scrub the table after every patient."
]
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||
60gapk | how did the ancient greeks live til they were 80 but in the 19th century the life expectancy was in the 30-40 range? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60gapk/eli5_how_did_the_ancient_greeks_live_til_they/ | {
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"IN ancient Greece there was no air pollution, and, through no choice of their own, the diet was very very healthy.\n\nAlso they didn't have TV or Internet or computers and most couldn't even read so just hanging around the house was boring so they were always out and about (physically) doing stuff. Most of the work was also manual - so yet again, much more healthy than sitting by a desk for 8 hours.\n\nSo yea, you end up with a very healthy population.",
"The difference between maximum age and the average age comes down to high infant mortality. Infants died frequently which drove down the average, but if you survived until adulthood you probably could live a reasonably long life."
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tpuvd | government bonds | people have tried to explain what these are as "Investing in the government" or something like that, and that it is the safest investment option. but I was wondering in what they actually are.
thanks for your time | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tpuvd/eli5_government_bonds/ | {
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"It's pretty straight forward. You are not so much \"investing in the government\" - you are loaning the government money for a profit.\n\nThe government sometimes needs to raise cash. To do this, they issue bonds. A bond is essentially a loan agreement between the buyer and the government. If I buy a bond for $100 today, I am buying a promise from the government that they will give me $105 in 30 days. I earned $5! \n\nThey are viewed as very safe investments because governments will always pay them back as promised if they can. If they don't pay as promised, people will become afraid to loan them money. The governments don't want that, so they make sure to always pay them on time. But, every once in a while, a government gets in trouble and can't pay back the loans. This causes big problems for the government and the economy. It happened to Russia in the 80's, and it could happen any day in Greece right now. They are probably one of the safest investments you can make, but they are by no means 100% safe - no investment really is. \n\n",
"It's a way for governments to borrow money. When you buy a gov bond you're lending money to a government for a fixed amount of time and predetermined interest rate. Eg. you lend the gov 100$ at 5% interest rate for 5 years. They pay you 5$ the five subsequent years and then the last year they pay you back your original 100$. So you would have 125$ at the end of the time period.\n\n It's supposed to be safe because it's the government youre lending to and they can just print money to pay you back(of course printing too much money would give rise in inflation which would diminish your 'real' profit). \n\nThis is part of the problem for greece and other EU countries since they can borrow money but it's the european central bank which decides over printing money so if they don't then this gives speculation that they won't be able to pay back all their loans which makes people demand more interest for loaning their money= > more expensive to borrow= > now they really can't pay back everything and no one wants to borrow to them anymore= > they can't pay there government expenses and have to take austerity measures= > Investor confidence in country evaporates and fucks the economy\n\n\n\n"
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6mka95 | why do air mattress's have shaped tops? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mka95/eli5_why_do_air_mattresss_have_shaped_tops/ | {
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"What you are seeing is the internal structure that separates the air into chambers. If it was empty in there the thing would blow up into a (rough) sphere right?\n\n",
"The mattress' shape is held by support columns in the mattress. Those columns keep the flat part from ballooning out into a sphere. They're basically the same things you have with [pool rafts](_URL_0_).\n\nIn order to have a flat top, you would need an evenly distributed support structure that covered the entire area of the mattress. It's simply more economical to have a few dozen columns that maintain the shape of the mattress. "
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"https://www.toysplash.com/media/catalog/product/cache/3/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/T/Y/TYSRAFT_131314_-00_Intex-18-Pocket-Pool-Raft.jpg"
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6stsjp | how do our brains decide which eyes' vision to use | Hi, Im sorry if its already been answered. I tried to search but couldn't find it. Anyway here it goes:
My right eye is shortsided a lot (4 degree myopic) and my left is almost perfect ( ony a little myopic but so very little). Now normally when I look at something far away, my brain chooses the image coming from my left eye thus making me see it cleary.
(I have glasses which correct my right eyes problem but not the left, so when I use them right's vision is better than left's.)
But when I use my glasses suddenly my brain starts to use the right eye's input.
How does brain determine which is better? I mean it must be relatively simple when the thing are easy but what would happen if my both eyes were having different problems (lets say that one of them is seeing foggy but the other is having difficulty to distinct the colours) in the same area , what would happen then? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6stsjp/eli5how_do_our_brains_decide_which_eyes_vision_to/ | {
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"Our brains are constantly developing and fine tuning our “control system”, thanks in part to our sense of proprioception. \n\nFor sight, the brain tries subtle variations like whether to look out of the centre of the eye or to look “sideways” by pointing the eye a little off to the side, or whether to favour one eye over the other, and so on, and it notices which arrangement of the “equipment” [muscles, tensions, positions, etc] seems to give the best results. Past experience and current feedback all inform how it “operates” your eyes in the future — your conscious mind wants to look at something, and your unconscious brain figures out the best head turn/eye angle to give the best view. Tweaking and updating these “control algorithms” is one of the maintenance tasks that your body performs daily while you are asleep. Your motor cortexes work on hundreds of those things: maintaining your typing skills, the movements for tying shoelaces, memorizing the walk from your bed to the bathroom in the dark, walking with a limp to accommodate an injury, tweaking your sense of balance, etc, etc. Lots of the factors involved in those activities change more than you realize on a daily basis but your unconscious brain handles as much of it as it can, and it’s very good at it. \n\n > What would happen if both eyes were having different problems\n\nIn the early history of corrective eye surgery, only one eye at a time would be operated on; correcting the other eye was postponed until the first had completely healed. It was a safety measure since there was a non-negligible chance of complications back then and at least that way the patient would still have one good eye if the worst happened. \n\nThis gave way to an interesting condition: patients who were slightly far/nearsighted in the “corrected” eye, and extremely near/farsighted in the other eye. What’s strange is that within a week, most patients like this stopped wearing their glasses. Their brain learned to favor the farsighted eye for looking at things far away and automatically switched to the nearsighted eye when conscious attention was on something close. If the optics were just right, it even learned how to triangulate the two different degrees of blur coming from each eye in the middle-distance and corrected it so that the person experienced sharp vision overall. They didn’t need the other eye to be corrected! \n\nHere’s another example. We don’t have good materials yet for artificial ocular lenses that are flexible enough for a large dynamic focus range and durable enough to last for a lifetime without wear and tear. Instead, some modern artificial lenses have a design that exploits our brain's adaptability. These lenses have different areas with different focal lengths, with smooth transitions in between. When implanted, the patient’s brain quickly learns that it can “focus” by altering the angle of the eye rather than using the ciliary muscles to squeeze the lens into a more/less convex curve. After a few conscious exercises and some time, it gets controlled completely unconsciously and the person doesn't have to think about it any more than a regular person would. As a bonus, those patients don’t end up needing reading glasses when their ciliary muscles get weaker in old age. \n\nNow I'm rambling but hopefully this gave some insight into how our sense of vision adapts to changing circumstances. "
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cb2ycb | why does impact onto water become increasingly deadly when hit from similarly extreme heights? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cb2ycb/eli5_why_does_impact_onto_water_become/ | {
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"I'm not clear what you mean by \"increasingly deadly when hit from similarly extreme heights\" - Similarly extreme as compared to what?\n\nImpacting water at enough speed will be quite similar to impacting something like concrete - it won't be MORE deadly than hitting concrete though. The higher you fall from, the more time you have to accelerate and the faster you're going until you've reached terminal velocity.",
"When you stand still and wave your hand around you barely feel the air resistance, right? But if you stick your hand out the window when driving down the highway the air pushes on your hand fairly hard.\n\nSo, rather than thinking of it as air pushing your hand, think of your hand having to push all that air out of the way as it travels. The faster your hand moves, the more air it has to push in a given time. The \"push-back\" is stronger the faster you are moving.\n\nWhen you are falling, gravity wants you to go faster and the \"push-back\" is trying to slow you down. Water is heavier and \"pushes-back\" much harder than air. At a low speed - like when you fall from a small height - the water does not push back so hard, and you slow down over time. When you fall from a high place, you are moving much faster when you hit the water. Since the speed is high, the \"push-back\" is very strong and you slow down very rapidly and the sudden stop basically splatters you.",
"It’s not the drop that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end. Your body has a lot of momentum. You need time to decelerate safely. This is why an airbag can reduce injury in a car crash. You want to strike an object that can offer some resistance to decelerate you, but not too much. If you fall and land on concrete, there is no extra time to decelerate. Your body goes from 60 to 0, as it were. The mechanism of injury is caused by that equal and opposite reaction Newton talked about. So striking the ground at 60 mph means the ground is also striking YOU at 60 mph.\n\nSo what does this have to do with water? The counterintuitive answer is that water is damn near incompressible. When you get into your bathtub, you are pushing the water out of the way and it escapes sideways and vertically. But when you are moving very fast (as in falling from a great height) the water doesn’t have enough time to “get out of the way.” It doesn’t compress, so your body is being asked to decelerate in a very short time. Your momentum causes crushing injuries, much as if you had struck a solid object.",
"**Everyone saying “surface tension” is completely wrong.**\n\nThe issue is that water is *heavy*. Due to its mass it is difficult to make it move which means when you hit it at great speed it takes a lot of force to move out of your way. Your body is slowed very quickly and that energy is dumped into your body pushing against water. \n\nAt some point your body will break. Just like you can't run through a brick wall, your body can only bear so much force."
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35uj0a | what is stopping anyone from tampering with train tracks? | I thought of this with the recent derailed train in Philadelphia. Is there any safeguard against people messing with the rails? What is to stop someone from cutting the rails or altering the tracks in such a way the train would derail? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35uj0a/eli5_what_is_stopping_anyone_from_tampering_with/ | {
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"It's incredibly illegal, physically quite difficult and any sections in built up areas will be surrounded by CCTV and or witnesses. \n\nAlso, trains and danger....",
"Mostly just logistics. Tracks are pretty hardy, but if someone really wants to sabotage them, they could do so. The thing is, you could say the same about just about any roads or bridges. If it was someone trying to make a statement, like a terrorist, it's a lot or risk and work for relatively little payoff.",
"Nothing more that what's stopping someone from dropping barrels of oil on a freeway. Only it takes quite a bit of dedicated effort to damage a train track. \n\nThere are also measures in place that detect when a track portion has been removed or the rail line is severely damaged. ",
"[Signaling systems run electric currents through the tracks](_URL_1_). If the track is broken the current will break too, which will warn dispatch. \n\nBut if one knows how to manipulate the system and has the tools to sabotage the rails, [they may very well get away with it](_URL_0_). "
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Palo_Verde,_Arizona_derailment",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_circuit"
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|
bwope3 | how can two people in the same environment feel completely different temperatures? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bwope3/eli5_how_can_two_people_in_the_same_environment/ | {
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"Everything is a variable when it comes about heat perception.\n\nThe most basic stuff is the area affected and how it receives/loses heat. Let's say that you're smaller than him and he has more body mass. You'll lose more heat to the environment as you don't have enough area and mass to keep the heat in your body, yet as you're smaller it's easier for you to increase your temperature.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nA lot of other factors also mater, like metabolism speed, gender (males have faster metabolisms) and even nutrition.",
"Because you produce different amounts of heat. Your body doesn't actually feel temperature, it feels the rate at which it is losing heat. If you aren't losing heat fast enough then you feel hot, if you are losing it too fast then you feel cold. \n\n\nTons of different factors into heat loss like insulation and metabolism, but thats the gist of it."
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2tdxw1 | if a judge makes a decision that is later found unconstitutional, what repercussions are there for the judge? | Edit: Sorry, talking about the U.S. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tdxw1/eli5_if_a_judge_makes_a_decision_that_is_later/ | {
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"What country are we talking about here? \n\nBut overall legally, all that would really occur is an appeal from the party that had experienced that unconstitutional decision.\nUnless very severe, judges don't get in trouble legally, but may be suspended pending enquiries from within the court system.\n",
"It depends on what kind of judge, and what kind of unconstitutional decision we're talking about. \n\nGenerally, there is no penalty or punishment. Federal Judges and some state judges are given life tenure so that they have the freedom to exercise their judgement on the law without having to add fear of punishment into the calculation. Otherwise, they would be ruling based on fear.\n\nAt the state court level, many are elected officials that have to worry about re-election.\n\nBut no, the higher court does not throw the lower court judges in jail or anything like that just because they got it wrong. The appeals courts are there to correct mistakes, not punish judges.\n\nThe other big thing is that if you are a judge, and you want to get promoted to a higher court, one of the things they look at is whether a lot of your decisions get overturned or not. When you're deciding to promote a judge, you look for ones who have the best reputations (and part of that is not making many mistakes.)"
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61rthd | why are eating disorders only classified as psychological? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61rthd/eli5_why_are_eating_disorders_only_classified_as/ | {
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"An eating disorder--one of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder--is a psychiatric diagnosis. Food in an eating disorder is only the tip of the iceberg. It really centres on thoughts and feelings about control, self-worth, comfort, etc. The eating part is the *result* of the psychological part."
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k718k | why i can't see the moon landers with my telescope. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k718k/eli5_why_i_cant_see_the_moon_landers_with_my/ | {
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"They're too small.\n\nThat's really about it. From space, only large structures are visible on Earth, and the moon is the same way.",
"The same reason you can't read a piece of paper that is a mile away. Your eyes do not have the resolution to pick that detail up. The cells in your eye which receive the light are limited by their size. You basically don't have enough pixels to see it all at that distance. So you might get a few spots of white in your vision which just let you know something is there. Which means only a few cells picked up on it.\n\nSame thing with your telescope, the resolution it provides is not enough. The size of the pixels in the telescope might be equal to say 25 feet at the distance of the moon, but the object is 20 feet wide. If the object you're looking at is smaller than the relative size, you'll only be able to pick up a single photon which corresponds to that specific area. The closer you get, the more narrow your range of vision becomes relative to the lander, so more pixels will be within the range of the objects size.\n\nLet me know if that doesn't quite work, I feel I could explain it better but if this suffices for you I'll leave it at that.",
"A telescope's ability to make out detail is related to the diameter of its objective (the main mirror or lens). Or ELI5: Big telescopes see better.\n\nThe lunar lander base is very small and quite far away.\n\nIn order to resolve the lunar lander base from earth, you'd need a telescope with an objective [25 meters in diameter](_URL_0_).\n\nThat is larger than anything that exists on earth.\n",
"They're too small.\n\nThat's really about it. From space, only large structures are visible on Earth, and the moon is the same way.",
"The same reason you can't read a piece of paper that is a mile away. Your eyes do not have the resolution to pick that detail up. The cells in your eye which receive the light are limited by their size. You basically don't have enough pixels to see it all at that distance. So you might get a few spots of white in your vision which just let you know something is there. Which means only a few cells picked up on it.\n\nSame thing with your telescope, the resolution it provides is not enough. The size of the pixels in the telescope might be equal to say 25 feet at the distance of the moon, but the object is 20 feet wide. If the object you're looking at is smaller than the relative size, you'll only be able to pick up a single photon which corresponds to that specific area. The closer you get, the more narrow your range of vision becomes relative to the lander, so more pixels will be within the range of the objects size.\n\nLet me know if that doesn't quite work, I feel I could explain it better but if this suffices for you I'll leave it at that.",
"A telescope's ability to make out detail is related to the diameter of its objective (the main mirror or lens). Or ELI5: Big telescopes see better.\n\nThe lunar lander base is very small and quite far away.\n\nIn order to resolve the lunar lander base from earth, you'd need a telescope with an objective [25 meters in diameter](_URL_0_).\n\nThat is larger than anything that exists on earth.\n"
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4uz8vn | why are some subreddits called x "porn"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uz8vn/eli5why_are_some_subreddits_called_x_porn/ | {
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"It's a gratuitous shot of something.\n\nIn this case it's a slang term for an indulgently nice picture of something.\n\nSo food porn is high quality, indulgent pictures of food, etc."
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ap7fi7 | how come it is so hard to grow plants in space? | I’ve heard many times about scientist struggling to grow plants in space, on the ISS for example. However, aren’t the conditions basically the same as on Earth? You have sunlight, CO2, Oxygen, water and presumably nutrients for the plant on the ISS, so why does it become harder to grow say a flower? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ap7fi7/eli5_how_come_it_is_so_hard_to_grow_plants_in/ | {
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"There’s that whole thing called gravity that plants expect to be there and isn’t. ",
"One of the processes that goes on in a plant requires gravity, early in a plant's development it sends a root down and a shoot up, i assume it has to do with that.",
"So if Part of the space craft was a centrifugal force (aka spinning zone) to cause gravity couldn’t you grow the plants in the areas that were 1G of force where it is spinning?"
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bhdipr | why do some phone chargers work better than others? is it the cord? the adapter? both? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhdipr/eli5_why_do_some_phone_chargers_work_better_than/ | {
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"Well, it can be both. But for the most part it all depends on the adapter.\n\nWhile certain cables can deliver higher levels of power(Such as USB-C), the bottleneck is almost always going to be the adapter that plugs into the wall. \n\nSome output more power than others. Usually measured in amperage because your standard USB is 5v. USB-C can support up to 20volts at 5 Amps which is far more than standard USB. \n\nBut your device has to be able to support that much power.",
"Short answer, both. The adapters are usually rated 1A or 2.1A (USB is 5v). Most tablets and new phones use the higher 2.1A but some older phones will come with a 1A. Apple sell this as a fast charger when it's now mostly standard for phones.\n\nThere are also custom adapters that have QI or dash charge capabilities. These use a variety of methods to get more juice in.\n\nFinally cables have ratings. Mostly a decent make will be fine and beyond that not much difference but a crappy one might only manage 1A."
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1dizz4 | points on the stock exchange | People make comments that the DOW dropped or raised 3 points. What does a point represent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dizz4/eli5_points_on_the_stock_exchange/ | {
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"In the case of the DOW \"a point\" is a special measure. See the DOW is basically meaningless. It takes the current trading price of the various stocks that make up the DOW and adds them together. Then divides this number by a divisor intended to keep things constant (in terms of stock splits, or stock dividends). I'm going to ignore the divisor for this example, as it is not relevant. \n\nSo lets imagine the DOWN has only 3 companies in it. A, B and C. So if A, B and C are trading at $24, $26 and $25 then the DOW would be $75. If company A lost $2 and company B lost $1 and company C gained $2 then the dow would now be $74 and we would say \"the DOW lost one point today\"\n\nNow why do I say it's meaningless. Because it takes no account for market capitalization. Lets take our 3 companies. Company A had 1,000,000 shares trading at $25/share, so it is worth $25,000,000. Company B has 1,000 shares and is trading at $25/sahre so is worth $2,500. Company C has 10,000,000 shares and is trading at $25/share so it's worth $250,000,000. So the DOW is now made up of 1 BIG company, one large and one small. So the DOW is (25+25+25=75) If the small company gains $2/share the BIG ones loses $1 per share the DOW would go up (25+24+26=76) but the actual total value of the companies would go down, because the $1 loss on BIG is so much more meaningful than the gain on little.\n\nSo the DOW, even though it is just the stock prices added together is reported with no units (the units are american dollars, but that is not shown) so we say it gained or lost \"points\". But no one who knows anything pays any attention to what the DOW is doing, it's really only reported because people think it means something. \n\nAdded to this, the DOW is not indexed for inflation. That's why it's always hitting records. If inflation is 3% per year you can't look at the DOW today and the DOW in 1999 and compare them, it's meaningless unless you index for inflation.\n\nA third problem are the companies selected for the DOW. FFS Apple and Google are 2 of the largest in the country and they aren't in the DOW, while the tech sector is represented by Cisco, HP, Intel, IBM and Microsoft. There are no internet companies and no mobile companies (other than carriers). There are only 30 companies in the DOW.\n\nPer wikipedia the companies stayed constant from 1959 - 1976 but were changed twice in 2008, again in 2009 and stayed constant until 2012. \n\nAs a secondary definition of \"point\" it may refer to percentage points (tho not in the case of the DOW). Most often it's a whole percentage point. So a 3% gain would be a 3 point gain. Sometimes if things are in the habit of moving slower, you might call a point 1/10th of a percent or 1/100th. ",
"The [Dow Jones Industrial Average](_URL_3_), as the name suggests, is the **average** of the price of 35 hand-selected stocks of large public American companies (the list is on that page, on the [Components section](_URL_3_#Components)). Or, well, with a little catch; it's a *weighed* average, meaning that for technical reasons you don't need to understand, some of the companies' stock prices count more than the others.\n\nThat's all there is to it; if it drops 3 points, it means that the prices of the stocks changed, and after they computed the new average, it came out 3 points lower than before.\n\nHowever, there is something important to criticize about the news reports about the stock markets: they are always reporting the changes of the Dow in terms of \"points,\" when it would be more meaningful to report it in terms of *percentages*. The Dow today closed at 14,700.95, down 138.85 points from yesterday, which is a 0.94% drop. In early 1995 the Dow was about 4,000; the same 138 point drop would have been about 3.5% of the index.\n\nSince the stocks in the index have overall gotten more valuable over time, this means that the same number of points has become a smaller percentage as time goes on. The largest percent drop happened in [October 19, 1987](_URL_0_), when the Dow dropped 22.61%, which back then was 508 points; today that drop would be only 3.46%!\n\nThe other thing to criticize is that the Dow isn't a good measure of the US stock market, and yet somehow people refuse to let it die. As I said above, the Dow has 35 companies, but the US stock market has thousands. A much better index for keeping track of how US stocks are doing is the [S & P 500](_URL_2_), which has 500 companies. There are some even larger indexes too; the difference is whether to keep track of large-to-medium companies only (whose stock is easier to buy and sell in large quantities) vs. also keeping track of small ones.\n\nThere are also other problems with the Dow having to do with how it's computed—it treats all of its companies' prices as equally important, when it's not the right thing to do. [Miliean's comment](_URL_1_) goes into more detail about that. (If you're confused that I said earlier that the Dow doesn't count all companies the same, well, it's tricky; what's happening is that in order to treat them all \"the same\" you have to treat them different. It's technical, and not that important; just don't pay too much attention to the Dow, is my main message.)"
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4zi90s | how do analog displays work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zi90s/eli5_how_do_analog_displays_work/ | {
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"the answer depends on what do you mean with \"analog display\". crt computer monitors, nixie tubes, or some other type of display?",
"Analog and digital have taken on some strange meanings. A lot of people think analog just means old or pre-computer. Analog really means continuous. Analog things are not broken up into separate parts such as symbols. Digital things are broken up into symbols.\n\nAnalog clocks, for instance, are digital displays because the display has numbers on it. We always read time digitally. An analog clock is mechanically analog because although the gears have teeth, the gears stay locked together and all move in a smooth motion. The second hand may tick, but the gears inside move smoothly and may knock into a pin periodically to cause the tick.\n\nCRT monitors are an interesting example of the limitations of the analog/digital designations. CRTs often have pixels and thus might be called digital in some way. But it is intended that the pixels blend together to form a smooth picture. So in that way it's analog. But so are supposedly digital LCD screens. Then if the pixels blend together to form text on the screen, we're back at digital again.\n\nHowever, like with the analog clock, there's less ambiguity about the internal workings. Old CRT TVs are decidedly analog. They directly convert radio waves into sweeping motions across the screen. A CRT is a giant vacuum tube. There's a high voltage across it, and whenever there's a high voltage, electrons want to fly across and neutralize that voltage just as water flows downstream. Then at one end of the tube, there's an electron source. So electrons flow from the source and in a beam down the tube.\n\nIt turns out that certain chemicals light up when you hit them with electrons. So if you coat the end of the tube with such a chemical, the beam of electrons will hit it and a glowing dot will appear. A bit like a glow-in-the-dark toy, the chemical on the screen will stay lit up for a while after the electron beam leaves. So this allows you to draw figures on the screen which are persistent for some amount of time by moving the electron beam around on the screen really quickly. Luckily, electrons are attracted to magnets. So the CRT has coils on it which are powered up to generate a magnetic field in order to steer the electron beam around. This can happen really fast. In a TV (CRTs are used for other things besides TVs), the little dot will scan the whole screen once per frame, many times a second.\n\nIf you want color, then instead of one chemical coating the end of the tube, there are three--one for red, blue, and green. These are arranged in pixels and aligned in rows. Then three separate electron beams are steered around to hit the appropriate pixels in order to create the color image."
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3p8gf9 | why do cinder blocks have holes in them? | ( _URL_0_ ) Someone told me it's because it dries faster when being made as opposed to making one whole block. What I want to know though, is the effect (if any) it has on infrastructure. Would using whole cinder blocks with no holes be any different than using the ones with holes?
Wow! That was fast, thank you all for your responses! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p8gf9/eli5_why_do_cinder_blocks_have_holes_in_them/ | {
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"For the same reason your bones do. A block of material with voids in it is much lighter than a solid block, while retaining most of the strength. A solid cinder block would weigh a lot more than one that's hollow, too, which would increase material costs unnecessarily and perhaps even make the structure too heavy.\n",
"Cost. Making them solid doesn't make them very much stronger but adds significant cost. Also n some construction, rebar is embedded into concrete poured into the stacked blocks to add strength, which would not be possible if they were solid. Being able to add strength only where necessary minimizes cost. ",
"The effect would be negligible, if you're using them correctly. The force is vertical in, say, a brick wall. If the brick is laid with the holes facing up, the walls are stiff to withstand the compressive force, and the hole saved on weight, and cost of material. If you lay the brick with the hole sideways, it's easier to crush compressively. \nThink of a paper towel tube. You can stack a lot of weight on it vertically, but not when its laying on it's side. ",
"Rebar is typically run through those holes and then concrete poured in to fill them. Concrete and cinder blocks are hard and insulate well, but they don't maintain structural integrity under any small amount of deformation. Take a sledgehammer to a cinder block wall, it'll come crashing down. Take the same sledgehammer to a cibderblock wall reinforced with rebar? You might crack or shatter a handful of cibderblock, but you're not shattering the rebar, and it will hold up the other blocks on top of it. \n\nIn short, its so you can use other stuff with the cinder block. Functionally allowing you to make composite building material.",
"The correct answer is that when you create a CMU wall rebar is run through the wall and grouted in certain inteval \"lifts\" that create one solid wall. If the blocks were solid, even if you grouted in between block you would have a wall of individual parts. The rebar and grouting create one solid wall while being able to construct it in pieces that are much easier to transport and handle.",
"CMU blocks (what you're calling cinder block) are a piece intended for a more specific built use, and it isn't used alone. Masonry types of construction are very stable under compression loads, but when used in tension or shear they are significantly less effective.\n\nIf you built a 10x10 foot CMU block wall with just blocks (not even mortar yet) it would not be very stable. Most dynamic loads on that building system would provide can''t be handled that simply. If that wall we're in a house, it would fall down. A single block shifting out of place too much will cause a structural fault in the building. This can be prevented on a small scale by using mortar. The mortar binds the individual blocks so they become more of a single cohesive structural unit.\n\nHowever this mortared wall still isn't capable of resisting bigger and stronger dynamic forces. This wall would be particularly susceptible to lateral forces. By adding grout and rebar reinforcing into the central core of the CMU blocks, you can further enhance the structural capabilities of the wall.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSecondarily it also allows for simple grouted connections to concrete foundations. By leaving pieces of rebar sticking out of wet concrete, you can easily anchor CMU block walls to the foundation.\n\nTL;DR CMU blocks are only pieces in more complicated buildings, the voids allow for them to be integrated in different ways with other building materials so that the building is safe to be inside of.",
"Pretty much everyone has already mentioned the strength, but there's also the fact that having holes makes them lighter, meaning that transporting them costs less and installation/construction is easier.",
"A lot of people are saying concrete is poured into them. It's actually not concrete but it is rebar and then a mix called cement grout is poured into the holes. This process is repeated every 4 cells usually and serves to reinforce the wall. Those holes are called cells btw. Also any point where there is an opening such as a window is grouted also. Also the top of the wall is rebarred and grouted. It is purely for strengthening the wall.\n\nsource: I was a union laborer and due to my size I was almost exclusively used as a mason tender aka Hod carrier. massive respect for the guys who do that job for many years. I lasted 2 years and now my elbows are shot.",
"Ha! Finally a question I can answer! \nIn Europe, its not (entirely) about the cost. In fact, the cost wouldnt be that much higher if you would make the blocks whitout holes. There are 2 points why they leaf whole in cinderblocks and bricks: \n1. just cinderblocks: We build cheap buildings with it in this manner: we take cinderblocks, fill them with concrete and a little iron and bam: very cheap concrete building which you can do by hand whit very little personal. \n2. cinderblock and bricks: the air inside the holes is a great isolator. if you make it full, the heat inside gets out much more easily and vice-versa. \nsource: worked 5 years in construction company of my grandpa. ",
"Lots of Reasons that have allready been mentioned summed up:\n\n* Costs - Casting a solid block costs more (material etc) manufactoring time (till the brick is dry to work with)\n* Weight - holes in the Block makes it lighter, hence you can build higher, wider before weight of the building becomes an issue, transportation as well, trains/trucks/planes can carry more b/f weightlimits are hit, that in returns cuts costs again\n* Utility - Some blocks have matching holes when stacked so the create lines to be used for cables, pipes, added insulation or even pooring down cement/Filler to add structural integrity into the wall/house/ whathaveyou,\n* Insulation itself - one of the most important points imho, Air is a VERY VERY good insulator, airpockets in the block means cold from the outside cant touch the inside very well, and vice versa. Thats why doubleglas windows are soo much better then singles."
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3iyvax | how is it legal for companies like dish network to make you sign a contract that doesn't allow for class action lawsuits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iyvax/eli5_how_is_it_legal_for_companies_like_dish/ | {
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"It's really just agreeing to arbitration, which is often cheaper for everyone. But I think what you are worried about is a major lack of rights. But you should know that some rights aren't waiveable under the law, which means that even if you sign a contract saying you can't sue for those things, you still can.",
"The other answers here are wrong. The real reason corporations can do this is because the Supreme Court ruled that states could not pass laws to stop it in 2013. After the case many companies changed their contracts overnight! \n\n_URL_0_",
"I have a two-year contract with Dish. If I don't agree to these new revisions, does that also mean I can opt-out of my two-year contract, free of charge and hassle-free? I doubt it.\n\nThey are forcing existing customers to now agree to never, ever, ever sue them, regardless of how thoroughly they screw us over. Regardless of the original contract we already signed. They're demanding we hand over the best tool we might have against them in any future legal situation. \n\nMost of the time, small claims/arbitration is probably enough for most issues. I get that. But insisting now that I voluntarily cede my only real leverage in any future dispute? That's a punk-ass move, man.\n\nLegal or not, that's a punk-ass move.",
"Just because it's in a contract doesn't mean that it's enforceable. In California, a number of years ago, arbitration clauses were deemed unconscionable. You can literally put anything you want into a contract. If it requires you to violate the law or removes a certain right, it's not likely to be enforceable.\n\nMost people, though, don't know that. The arbitration clause causes people to think that they've given up the right. So, when a dispute arises, they don't even attempt to file a lawsuit in the first place.\n\nI should be clear: anybody can file a lawsuit for any reason, so long as they have a properly formated legal complaint (pleading), a cover page, a supplementary cover page, a summons, and ~$350 for the filing fee.^* The judge may throw it out as they are wont to do, but not because of the arbitration clause.\n\n---\n\n^* ^(This applies to California Superior Court, limited-jurisdiction filing, the kind of filing you're doing if the amount is under $25k, but more than $10k, or under $10k, but not small-claims.)",
"There are a couple of good answers here. I think /u/rlbond86 has it right. One thing I want to add though is that the contract is similar to a waiver that you might sign for going on a particularly dangerous carnival ride or before you eat the world's hottest pepper at a restaurant: Under no duress, you're doing something that isn't necessary and nobody is forcing you to enter the contract with these people. You have an opportunity to see the terms before you agree to them, and if you don't like them because you think you might want to sue them later, you should not sign.",
"That shit, for certain, would not be legal here in Germany. I find your lack of rights disturbing. :(",
"I would also like to add that you can put literally anything you want in a contract but that doesn't always make it legal, many contracts will have you sign something where there may be a statute or other law that is against what is in the contract. They may say you signed the contract too bad too sad in the hopes that you won't try to pursue it further because you didn't know about that law. Always look into laws on the book or consult a lawyer whenever you feel like part of a contract is fishy if someone is holding it over your head.",
"The few class action lawsuits that have affected me or was part of either did damage to me or was just plain useless (winning a $1). ",
"The only pro to this is that when they change the agreement you can decline to go ahead with it which gives you a free out from your contract. ",
"The answer to every \"ELI5: why is it legal for X\" is \"because there is no statute prohibiting it.\" If you want to prohibit Dish from banning class action lawsuits, get a few hundred thousand of your friends and call your congressman/state representative and have the law amended. ",
"Evil consumer class action defense lawyer here! Arbitration clauses (an agreement to use a private court, not a government one) , jury trial waivers (have the case heard by a judge and not a jury), and class action waivers (sue individually, not as a group) are extremely common in residential mortgages, automobile finance contracts, cell phone contracts, and cable/dish contracts. Basically all the big contracts a consumer signs in day to day life. Frankly, very few rights cannot be contractually waived. \n\nA lot of people are frustrated by this because while such waivers are supposed to be \"voluntary\" it's not exactly voluntary when every business puts it in their contract. The legal fiction says you don't \"need\" to sign up for a dish or cable TV but we all know that's kind of a joke, especially for lots of contracts like mortgages and cell phones that also have these provisions. \n\nMay states tried to pass laws against this but the Supreme Court has typically found such provisions enforceable because of preemption by federal laws such as the Federal Arbitration Act and Class Action Fairness Act. \n\nCommon law contract principles can also apply. A provision in a contract can be so one sided it is unenforceable. This is called \"unconscionablity\". Of course, if a contract was unenforceable just because it favored one side, very few contracts would be enforceable. So the bar for unconscionability is extremely high and few such challenges succeed though some have (for example a provision that required arbitration before an Indian tribe that said they didn't handle arbitrations...lol). \n\nThe truth about class actions though is that for every class action that is really about protecting people from misconduct by large companies, probably a hundred are cash grabs with little in mind other than making sure the lawyer who brought it gets paid. But, when done right there is no doubt they can confer on individuals immense legal power in the American justice system to redress legal wrongs. \n",
"What about trial by combat?",
"Not sure if anyone has pointed it out yet or not, but you don't HAVE to sign it. You can opt out by printing the Opt Out Page and mailing it in. You do not affect your service with Dish in any way by opting out. This is what I did. The link is in the email they sent you."
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5nyjec | why arent ssds and sd cards the same size even though a lot of them can hold the same amount? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nyjec/eli5_why_arent_ssds_and_sd_cards_the_same_size/ | {
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"An SSD is very much different from an SD card. SSD's, SD cards and phone internal memory for that matter uses the same NAND flash chips. However a fundamental difference here is the controllers.\n\nImagine a room in which you want to fill in stuff and it has an automatic door.\n\n In layman terms a controller is like an automatic door. The bigger the door the more you can fill into a room at a time. But the bigger the door the more power you need to open and close it. This is exactly what happens. An SD card is used in small devices like phones, tablets and cameras. There's only so much power that a phone can supply with its tiny battery. There is simply not enough power to feed an SSD. If you ever open an SSD you will notice that the main memory is tiny. Its about the size of an SD card. But what uses up all the space is the motherboard. That has the controller and other components.\n\nAlso, who told you they have the same speeds? An SD card barely has any speed. An SSD can do gigabytes per second while an SD card struggles with 100mbps.\n\nSource : Took part in the Mumbai Hackathon 2016. SSD speedup and SD card data security was my main topic. ( so I know some shit here and there)",
"SD cards and SSDs dont provide comparable speed.\nGood SD cars are around of 10MB/s while SSDs are around 500MB/S sequential bandwidth. SSDs also last longer their mean time between failurs is around 1000 times of a Sd card which can already fail at around 1000 write cycles. And third access time/ latency. SD cars need around 1ms for random accesses (or 1000 IOPS) while comodity SSDs already provide 100.000 IOPs\n\nSo SD cards are smaller, cheaper in capacity but are not as fast as SSDs in bandwidth, latency and durability.\n",
"They aren't the same speed, SD cards typically read at 30MB/s based on typically using USB connection paths. SSDs can read from 500 to 2000 MB/s because they connect via SATA or PCI which is way faster.\n\nBeyond that, SSDs are the size they are to support replacing a magnetic hard drive as a swap in part, and to allow for the controller hardware to do things like spread writes around for longevity.\n\nSo mostly, it's bigger because that is what we are used to in computer and notebook cases, and because SSDs have controller hardware, not just storage.",
"Other than what people have already stated about the technological differences, one thing is that SSD's are designed to fit specific industry form factors so they can be easily mounted across manufacturers. The most compatible mount is the 2.5 inch drive standard carried over from hard drives, which is how you can take and older laptop with 2.5\" SATA bay slap in a modern SSD and improve the performance a lot.\n\nNewer smaller forms are mSATA and M.2 which mount on a motherboard and use PCIe lanes for fast access speeds."
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2jt1c6 | how can the usa control the price of oil and why can't the russians hedge that to protect themselves? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jt1c6/eli5_how_can_the_usa_control_the_price_of_oil_and/ | {
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"Any nation who sells enough oil is capable at 'making the market' or setting the price for oil. I would say that besides the US and Russia, I would add Saudi Arabia on this list - they are the three 'big dogs' in this pack.\n\nIn order to control the price, you have to do two things. One is offer the lowest price. So if the US is offering a lower price for oil, then they are going to be selling the most, unless some other country matches the price.\n\nBut in order to control the market, you probably also have to be a big producer. If a smaller country (Norway, Venezuela, or Qatar for examples) were to try to cut the price, they may just sell their oil (and not get the money that they could have), and then the price will rise again. OPEC (the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries) is actually a collection of countries that generally agree to keep oil prices stable, and discouraging smaller nations from undercutting the price, and hurting the income of other nations.\n\nWhy can't the Russians hedge? They certainly can, at least to a degree. But they certainly can't buy/sell enough futures to hedge the price of all the oil they produce. That amount would be large enough to really mess with the futures markets, and they would pay more for hedging than it would be worth.",
"Over the past decade, the US has dramatically increased domestic oil production. Between this, and greater reliance on natural gas and renewables, the US is on the verge of energy independence, especially when you consider the top oil exporter to the US is now Canada. What's more, a 1973 law makes it difficult to export oil, which could make oil in the US even cheaper as production increases.\n\nThis is making oil producers like Russia and the OPEC countries, increasingly irrelevant to the US energy economy. The US oil market is based on US and Canadian production and pricing, and Russian and OPEC production decision no longer have much of an impact."
]
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31p9vc | julian assange, edward snowden. who did what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31p9vc/eli5_julian_assange_edward_snowden_who_did_what/ | {
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"Julian Assange (born 3 July 1971) is the spokesman and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, which is a website that posts news leaks. He started the website in 2006.[1] He was born in Australia, but has lived in several different countries. He also made a program called Rubberhose to hide secret information in a specific way that protects against torture.\n\nAssange was the Readers' Choice for Time Person of the Year in 2010[2] after getting the most Internet votes. However, Mark Zuckerberg, who started Facebook, won the actual award.\n\nIn 2012, facing extradition to Sweden, he was granted political asylum by Ecuador and took refuge at the Embassy of Ecuador in London.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nWikiLeaks is a non-profit organization which uses its website to publish governmental, corporate or religious documents that had previously been secret. The website was started in 2006, and had over 1.2 million documents in its database by the time one year had passed. Usually, it does not give out the names and addresses of people who post documents. The site is based in Sweden. Though its name is similar to Wikipedia, it is not related to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.[1] The name was chosen because WikiLeaks used a wiki model at first, where people could edit the site, but it has since changed and is no longer open for editing.\n\nIn July 2010, WikiLeaks was in the news for publishing over 76,900 documents related to the War in Afghanistan. In October that same year, WikiLeaks posted almost 400,000 documents that were about the War in Iraq.\n\nThis was the largest ever leak of documents about the US Army. It reported mainly on deaths of civilians, soldiers, and sightings of homemade bombs or armed civilians.[2]\n\nOn 28 November WikiLeaks and five major newspapers - from Spain (El País), France (Le Monde), Germany (Der Spiegel), the United Kingdom (The Guardian), and the United States (The New York Times) - all began to publish the first 291 of 251,287 confidential diplomatic cables from 274 embassies dated from 1966–2010.[3] WikiLeaks plans to release all of the cables in phases over several months.[3]\n\nThis leak was widely covered by the international media, as many of the leaks contained information that affected countries other than the United States.[4][5][6][7][8] Some leaks were published by other news organizations like Fairfax Media.[9] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that an \"open and transparent government is something that the President believes is truly important. But the stealing of classified information and its dissemination is a crime\".[10]\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEdward Joseph Snowden (born 21 June 1983) is a contractor who worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. He released top secret NSA documents. His job at the NSA allowed him access to them. He has said, \"I do not want to live in a world where anything I do or say is recorded.\"\n\nSnowden traveled to Moscow after giving the documents to American journalists in Hong Kong. He had asylum in Russia for one year. Then he was granted permission to stay in the country for three more years.[2] This has increased tensions between Russia and the United States.\n\nIn 2013 Snowden was voted Person of the Year by The Guardian.[3]\n\n_URL_2_"
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2mbduu | why can my body handle pain (oral surgery) just fine under local anesthetic, but if i were to have the same "damage" done to my body without anesthetic, i might pass out – or worse – from the pain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mbduu/eli5_why_can_my_body_handle_pain_oral_surgery/ | {
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"pain is a response in your brain when it receives alerts from your nerve endings. The only way your brain knows you're in pain is those messages.\n\nThe anesthetic prevents your nervous system from registering those messages and sending them to your brain. you don't feel the pain because your brain doesn't really \"get\" that it's happening. And thus all the subsequent responses: vomiting, passing out, etc don't happen.\n\nAnd yes, sort of. Overwhelming your nervous system can have many effects, one of which is \"shock.\" People have died from this.\n\nedit: missed extra text.",
"Because this is asking about a condition affecting you it qualifies as a personal problem according to the sidebar rules.\n\nI'm not sure what, if any, subreddit would be better for you, but if you find one that works for you, let me know and I'll edit it into this template so anyone in the future will know, too!\n\nAlternatively, *if* this really is a complex conceptual question about the human body and not a question about *you* specifically, you can rephrase and resubmit without reference to yourself and try again. (Body questions are pretty common though, so try a quick search!)\n\nGood luck! "
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1of1mh | how very large movie theater speakers are able to produce high pitched sounds? | Why do you usually use small tweeters for these at home but at movie theaters they can use big loud speakers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1of1mh/eli5_how_very_large_movie_theater_speakers_are/ | {
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"To produce a high pitch you need to make very fast vibrations. Doing so with something small is easier than something large, which is why your home system uses tweeters. Being small does limit the volume of air and thus the volume of sound. For theaters that want to be high pitched and loud their speakers need to be big and fast, which also means they are expensive."
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4fkjh6 | what is happening in an athlete's body when they get "hot"? | (ie. A basketball making almost every shot) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fkjh6/eli5_what_is_happening_in_an_athletes_body_when/ | {
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"They relax and revert to a more primal state of mind, going through the motions automatically without conscious thought or worry. They just 'feel' what's right. Another example is soldiers or cops reverting to their training under stressful situations"
]
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99deyc | macro and microeconomics | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99deyc/eli5_macro_and_microeconomics/ | {
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"Micro economics is the study of how people and businesses make decisions on what to buy, when to buy, and how much to spend.\n\nMacro is the study of large scale economics, like whole markets or economies, and how forces in them can affect the whole thing. ",
"In a nutshell, Macroeconomics is the study of the economy on a big picture/global scale. For example, how does one country’s production and trade effect another’s. \n\nMicroeconomics is the study of the economy on a more personal scale. For example, how does your decision to buy one item versus another effect the economy, and are you more or less likely to buy one item over another if the price changes by X amount. "
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5f168x | what's the marketing strategy behind facebook live? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f168x/eli5_whats_the_marketing_strategy_behind_facebook/ | {
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"They may not necessarily **have** one yet, but are seeing people starting to use other live services (such as Twitch.) Since their site already shows you standard ads, they'd rather spend the money on streaming and keep you on their page, than have you leave their site and go watch twitch.\n\n"
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5efauv | how do we hear someones voice through phones/devices? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5efauv/eli5how_do_we_hear_someones_voice_through/ | {
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"When you speak, your vocal chords move back and forth and cause a vibration in the air. When the vibration in the air hits your eardrums, they vibrate in time, and your brain interprets that as sound.\n\nA microphone has something like an eardrum in it. When the vibrations from your voice hit this, it vibrates in time. Except in this case, it is attached to a tiny electromagnet and a wire. As the magnet vibrates, it causes an electric current in the wire that vibrates exactly in time.\n\nThis signal travels down the wire to the speaker, where the opposite process happens. The speaker also has an electromagnet. As the vibrating current from the wire hits it, the magnet also vibrates in time. This pushes and pulls the speaker membrane exactly in time, causing a vibration in the air again just like the vocal chords that first made the sound on the other end, that then hits your eardrums.\n\n"
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aaxyah | what is the difference between a donkey and a mule? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aaxyah/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_donkey_and/ | {
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"A mule is a mix of a donkey and horse. They are also sterile—you cannot breed a mule to a mule and get another mule. ",
"A mule is a hybrid species. It is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. They are infertile. \n\nThey hybrid of a female donkey and a male horse is called a hinny.\n\nA donkey is a distinct species of equine and they have fertile offspring when they breed with other donkeys. "
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2gtyj1 | why is it that if humans were all present at the same time ( relatively speaking), why are some civilizations more advanced then others? | For example, why is it that Africans were so technologically behind when the first White People discovered them, even though humans all started the same? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gtyj1/eli5why_is_it_that_if_humans_were_all_present_at/ | {
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"Because it's hard to grow lots of surplus crops to feed specialists in regions that don't have fast growing high yield grains, and it's hard to move people and goods through regions without pack animals, and a variety of other factors including weather, cultural differences, and general economic factors.",
"Trade routes are what advance cultures. Learning from each other. Otherwise you are on you own.",
"Try reading the book *Guns, Germs, and Steel* by Diamond. He talks about this extensively. (Though I don't Africans were any more advanced when white people first met them... maybe you're thinking of Americans).",
"There's many reasons. One is that you often need very basic technologies to get civilization started and sometimes, the idea literally never occurred to anyone, which can make civilization harder. The Mexica (Aztecs) didn't have the wheel. And yet even without wheels they still managed to build a pretty impressive civilization and the most accurate calendar of its time, (and also, uh... daily human sacrifices). Others weren't so lucky. Or they just didn't want to \"advance.\" Plenty of peoples around the world were and are happy living \"primitive\" lives. Much research shows that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle actually has the most leisure time of any society on Earth. Sociologists have asked rural tribes why they don't join civilization and they say \"why would we want to work all day? There's plenty of food just laying around out here in nature.\" I still prefer my vaccines and my laptop, but hey, to each their own, y'know? There's trade-offs to everything. "
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4gkra2 | are people naturally born smart, intelligent and quick thinkers or do they work for it? | I saw this post the other day on social media, and someone said "some people are born with great intelligence or physical abilities. It's almost impossible to compete against them, even if you work harder than them."
This put me down a bit and I'm not the sharpest knife in the rack, but then it got me wondering if someone could be as smart as someone like Bill Gates, or Albert Einstein. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gkra2/eli5_are_people_naturally_born_smart_intelligent/ | {
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"Nature vs. nurture is a debate that rages to this day. Both have an effect, but there isn't a consensus on exactly how much.",
"Mix of both. \nTalent is how quickly you pick something up, but is not the end-all be-all, and is a pretty subjective measure anyway. \nKeep in mind that a lot of great thinkers (Einstein, Edison) were initially thought to be pretty awful students. And famously Michael Jordan did not make his high school basketball team. And Abe Lincoln lost several elections. And so on... \nAdd to this that mostly you see the results other people put forward without seeing the grueling practice they put in, but you see every minute of your own practice and mistakes, and you can get a pretty skewed sense of your own abilities compared to others. You might not be as good as you want to be, but you are also not as bad/untalentes as you think. "
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eh01tz | widescreen tvs and hd/4k | Thanks in advance!
I recently bought a 65” 4K UHD tv and signed up for some streaming services like Disney+.
Question: why do some shows/movies fully fill the screen, and others have horizontal black bars on them? If it’s all widescreen content, and/or in HD, why isn’t the full wide screen always filled edge to edge? I’m streaming The Mandalorian and it has bars the whole time, while streaming Toy Story for my son fully fills the screen. Then I have Blu-ray’s like The Dark Knight where the screen fills fully or goes back to having horizontal bars depending on the scene. What determines this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eh01tz/eli5_widescreen_tvs_and_hd4k/ | {
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"When you make a movie, you get to decide what shape the movie will be in. Different shapes are selected for different reasons: big, \"epic\" movies with tons of wide open battles, action sequences, etc that want to give a sense of scale and awe will go for super-wide shapes like 2.35:1 (eg Star Wars, Lord of the Rings) that fit many people and things onscreen at once, while movies that want to create a sense of intimacy, smallness, claustrophobia, etc will go for very narrow shapes that let a single face in close-up fill the screen. \n\nWhen it comes time to fit a movie onto your TV, unless it was filmed in exactly your TV's shape (rare), you have to decide whether you want to see the entire image but leave some space unused (the black bars), or fill the entire TV by cropping off parts of the image. It's like you've got an 8x6\" photo, but a 8x4\" frame.\n\n[Here's a demonstration image I just whipped up for you](_URL_0_) showing two movies from the last decade that use the extreme narrow and extreme wide ends of the spectrum. The Hateful Eight is 2.76 inches wide for every inch it is tall, and The Lighthouse is 1.2 inches wide for every inch it is tall, a huge difference, and those are the natural shapes of those movies. Can't fit a wide peg into a narrow hole without either shrinking it or chopping parts away.\n\nCommon shapes are 1.33:1 (old TV), 1.37:1 (old movies), 1.66:1 (European movies from the 60s through ~90s), 1.78:1 (your TV and most modern TV shows), 1.85:1 (most American movies), 2:1 (some 'cinematic' TV and stuff shut on RED cameras, like House of Cards), 2.35:1 (CinemaScope, like Star Wars), 2.65:1 (Cinerama/extra-wide scope, like 2001: A Space Odyssey), and 2.76:1 (PanaVision Ultra 70, often used for IMAX-style big format stuff, eg The Hateful Eight).\n\nThe Dark Knight is a bit of an oddity in that different parts of it were shot on different types of film. It was mostly shot on normal 35mm film to be shown in 'scope' (2.35:1) but parts were shot on 70mm big-format film to be impressive on IMAX mega-screen showings. Usually when that happpens they'll pick one shape for the whole movie and crop/adjust everything else to match it, but the director of The Dark Knight didn't go for that, and wanted the shape to change sequence-by-sequence instead."
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4xk9lk | how can athletes beat a world record again and again over decades? are they just better than athletes from older times or is it different factors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xk9lk/eli5_how_can_athletes_beat_a_world_record_again/ | {
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"A combination of improvements in training methods, nutrition, equipment, and techniques used in the actual event (such as the invention of the Fosbury Flop in Pole Vaulting). So, yes, it kind of is that they are just better than previous athletes.\nAlso, the modern world may logically just be better at finding at fostering the very greatest potential, whether that be through state-sponsored systems (China), or more local and random efforts (U.S.A).",
"Many sports have are continuing to advance technologically. For example, olympic swimming pools are now constructed to reduce the amount of wake a swimmer produces by absorbing the energy along the perimeter of the pool. This means all swimmers will benefit by not having to swim against a disruptive current. Additionally, their swimsuits are made to wick water away from them reducing drag. As a result, lots of records have been broken in the past couple of olympics\n\nConversely, track and field events have very little technological improvements left. When a runner breaks a sprinting record its a big deal. Usain Bolt just happens to be a freak of nature. \n\nEdit: I pulled the \"wicking water away from them\" idea out of my ass but I do know a lot of R & D goes into those swimsuits so someone feel free to provide more accurate info on that particular example. ",
"When the Olympics started, the athletes truly were amateurs.\n\nThey would compete in the games and then return home to be factory workers and salesmen and teachers.\n\nOver the years as more athletes began being paid just to compete and therefore didn't have to work a job to survive.\n\nThis opened up their schedules to begin training full time, so they got better, so they perform better, so they make more money, so they could get better equipment, so they could get better and so on and so forth.",
"And let's not forget doping and blood transfusions and what-have-you. Some of the most famous record breakers of the past were later uncovered as using \"performance enhancing\" technology (Ben Johnson, Lance Armstrong, etc.), and who's to say the athletes breaking records today are not using some drugs/treatments that simply can't be picked up on yet, or managed to bribe the right people to keep it on the down low? ",
"Older athletes had real jobs. They still contributed to society, still went in and worked a 9-5, so training was minimal. Modern athletes are basically paid full time to train and be ready for the next event. Some by sponsors, most by their governments. It's not that people are magically better, it's that someone like Michael phelps can afford to train in amazing facilities any time he wants whereas the guy from 40 years ago would work a full time job and do training mostly on his own time and dollar.\n\nTldnr/ having money given so they don't need to work normal jobs so they can train more makes the difference.",
"There is TED Talk about this \n[Are athletes really getting faster better, stronger?](_URL_0_)",
"See this Ted talk:\n\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically the athletes bodies are becoming more and more specialized at performing a certain task. People with these specialized bodies are better at a certain sport than your average human. In the past, sports where played by just average humans, but now, people with these specialized bodies are dominating simply because they are more suited to play a certain sport.\n\n",
"An interesting aside:\n\nThere will someday be an unbreakable world record in every racing sport.\n\nFor example, we'll never see a 1-second 100m dash in track and field. Ever. Currently, the world record is ~9 seconds. So athletes may come along and chip away at the WR time, there will someone who will one day set a time that can only be tied.\n\n",
"I have another idea to add to the very reasonable answers above, and that is the psychological factor of it. Of course there are physical limits to how high one can jump or how fast they can go but with the world records the challenge just keeps getting harder and the drive is the same ; so the results are people running faster, jumping higher, farther.",
"How quick can the 100m sprint get? Surely it will never be in the 7s or will it??",
"Not seen a mention yet of increasing size of the pool of athletes. In the past it would have been mostly western european/USA, then gradually.expanding until every nation is involved.\n\nWould be the same as say baseball before and after the colour barrier was broken",
"Athletes are continuing to get better. People are now breaking down every aspect of every event, to make sure they are being 100% efficient. Swimming used to have suits that could float a 10 pound weight but those were banned after 2009, so the fact that swimming records continue to be broken is due to incredible training. If you look back at races in the 70's races were not nearly at the competition levels they are now. Sports just continue to evolve into more competitive competitions.",
"Technology is becoming better every day.\n\nConsider sprinting. What is there to improve in sprinting? The shoes? There's many things. The shoes, the clothes, the ground. Yes, the track is made of special material to let you run faster. Then there are sport scientists whose job is to fine ways to improve speed scientifically.\n\nAnd then there's curling, where a company invented a broom with microfibers all pointing in one direction. Now amateurs can play at/beyond the level of professionals using a conventional sweeper.\n\nName any sport/competition and there is equipment behind it. And the limit of that equipment's capabilities is limited only by your mind. They'll find new ways to improve the environment, new materials to make equipment out of, and new science will emerge to improve the human body.",
"I don't know about olympics but in the NBA players now days have specialized diets with personal chefs which wasn't common even just a few generations ago. Also better shoes/training/post-game and post-injury rehab.",
"All of this, but also, it is statistically more likely that 1 in 9bn breaks the world record than 1 in 3bn.",
"I seem to recall a recent article that said average humans are a inch taller and 30 pounds heavier than they were 30-50 years ago. That must account for quite a bit in making athletes better.",
"The world record will always fall, as long as there are people who measure themselves against it.\n\nWhere there is a will, there is a way.",
"Competition breeds excellence. \nAlso if you want it and put enough effort, you will get it eventually.",
"I am just going to say what everyone here is afraid to mention, the designer drugs are getting better too. If you think the records are being broken fast now, wait till gene therapy improves and designer babies become a thing.",
"Multiple reasons. First, through the early 20th century, world sports had a stereotype of what the ideal athlete's body type was. By today's standards, it was a relatively short, broad, muscular white man. They idealized well-rounded athletes who could compete in different sports.\n\nOver the last century, sports have gradually shifted towards highly specialized athletes. That's why we see these fun pictures of 4'6\" gymnasts standing next to 7' basketball players. This has resulted in steady improvements over past performances.\n\nTo some degree, globalization has affected it. Nations like Kenya can now compete and dominate.\n\nRule changes in sports, making them easier at the Olympic level, have affected it too. So has equipment research. Swimwear for example."
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6h8irv | why is under-cooked steak "rare"? | edit: Oops! I didn't mean that I was of the opinion that "rare" steak is undercooked (although, relative to a well-done steak, it certainly is). It was definitely a question about the word itself- not what constitutes a "cooked" steak.
Mis-steaks happen.
Also, thanks to /u/CarelessChemicals for a pretty in-depth look at the meaning of the word in this context. Cheers, mate! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6h8irv/eli5_why_is_undercooked_steak_rare/ | {
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"Here's what etymonline has to say about it. It comes from the Old English word \"hrere\" which meant lightly cooked.\n\n > \"undercooked,\" 1650s, variant of Middle English rere, from Old English hrere \"lightly cooked,\" probably related to hreran \"to stir, move, shake, agitate,\" from Proto-Germanic *hrorjan (source also of Old Frisian hrera \"to stir, move,\" Old Saxon hrorian, Dutch roeren, German rühren, Old Norse hroera), from PIE root *kere- \"to mix, confuse; cook\" (source also of Greek kera- \"to mix,\" krasis \"mixture\"). Originally of eggs, not recorded in reference to meat until 1784, and according to OED, in this sense \"formerly often regarded as an Americanism, although it was current in many English dialects ....\"\n\nEDIT: since this reply gained some traction, I'll pimp etymonline a bit. It is a great site for understanding why a particular word has its specific meaning. Here's the link to rare: _URL_0_",
"The pathogens we aim to kill with heat are almost exclusively on the surface of the meat. Which is seared to a proper temp even when the middle is \"rare\". The type of food born illness that resides in bad meat is not gotten rid of via heat (or any other means). This is why ground beef is inherently more dangerous because once you grind larger pieces of meat you mix in any surface pathogens with the entirety of the product. This is also why my answer is specific to steaks and not burgers. \n\nWe have to understand as consumers that food born illness such as e. coli are by in large the result of the contamination of a product from an outside source. This usually means that the surface of a product is ground zero for our attention. Hell, cantaloupes are one of the biggest culprits of salmonella. The pathogen can contaminate the rind of the melon and we we slice into it with a knife we drag salmonella into and across the surface of the pieces of fruit we're going to eat. This is why we wash our produce before consumption (even if it is organic and/or labeled pre-washed). \n\nSource: Am Chef\n\nTL;DR When it comes to getting sick, the surface of a steak is the part that need to be brought up to temperature unless you are dealing with rotted meat, in which case no amount of heat will save you. Wash your vegetables. \n\nAlso, please don't wash your chickens in the sink with soap and water. Just thoroughly wash the things that come in contact with the raw product. \n\n",
"I see that you've been shown the excellent *etymonline dot com,* so i'll just recommend /r/etymology; they're nice and usualy helpful with things that are not as easy to find.",
"Relevant question: Can you cook a steak so that it is no longer reddish on the inside but still juicy?",
"I, too, would like to express how butthurt I am that you don't agree with my preferred cooking of steak, and wish to shame you for allowing me to feel offended.\n\nAs to, the question . . .\nSee, words have all kinds of meanings, and from what I can tell, whilst rare can mean \"uncommon\", a word that had a similar sound was ALSO used in a different country to mean \"rear\", \"raise\", even \"lightly stirred\" and \"lightly boiled\". It is that version of rare that is used to refer to steak.",
"I know from working in a kitchen for so long aswell, that from fully uncooked to well done the steak loses a third of its mass. Blue to medium retains most of its size and mass. I think everyone else is correct about rere from Germanic roots. ",
"As explained [here](_URL_0_), \"rare\" meat is derived from an Old English word, hrēr or hrēre. [By contrast](_URL_1_), \"rare\" as in uncommon is instead derived from the Old French rare or rere."
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m8lev | the silmarillion | I've started reading it so many times but I've never managed to get into it, all the synopsis I've found are either too long or too short, thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m8lev/eli5_the_silmarillion/ | {
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"The Silmarillion isn't just one story - it's a whole bunch of stories that all make up the history and background of Middle Earth (where The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings take place). Part of what makes the Silmarillion hard to read is the fact that it was never actually finished by Tolkien. Editors had to piece together unfinished stories, notes, and background information to create the book based on writings Tolkien left behind when he died.",
"Just an FYI. They have actually created a whole series of books now referred to as \"The History of Middle Earth\" this is much more in depth with a lot of explaining and such done my Christopher (Tolkien's son).\n\nThere are even more side stories included in these works.",
"The Silmarillion isn't just one story - it's a whole bunch of stories that all make up the history and background of Middle Earth (where The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings take place). Part of what makes the Silmarillion hard to read is the fact that it was never actually finished by Tolkien. Editors had to piece together unfinished stories, notes, and background information to create the book based on writings Tolkien left behind when he died.",
"Just an FYI. They have actually created a whole series of books now referred to as \"The History of Middle Earth\" this is much more in depth with a lot of explaining and such done my Christopher (Tolkien's son).\n\nThere are even more side stories included in these works."
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1sqzfl | if someone can have a heart transplant tthen why can't someone survive if their heart is torn out during an accident or attack or something? | To the best of my knowledge a heart transplant would require you to be without a heart for a little bit. You might even be clinically dead for a short amoubt of time, so I mean how does it work. Sorry if this isn't coming across clearly enough. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sqzfl/eli5_if_someone_can_have_a_heart_transplant_tthen/ | {
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"Heart transplants involve the use of a cardiopulminary bypass - a machine that keeps the blood pumping and oxygenated during the procedure.",
"A heart is like a pump thrusting blood trough your body, I think if it stop working for more than 3 minutes you die, or have a very small chance of surviving. During a heart transplant they hook you up to a machine taking over the heart's function while they switch out your weak heart for another. During an accident, attack or a coronary artery rupture there's no surgeon or equipment around to save you. Even if you had a coronary artery rupture inside a hospital, there would be nothing they can do for you."
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apke6g | why do fighters get "cauliflower" ear? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/apke6g/eli5_why_do_fighters_get_cauliflower_ear/ | {
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"When your ear is hit you can get pockets of blood that build up and also cartilage can die and blood flow can be cut off. Tissue can grow over itself as well. So basically it's blunt force trauma that damages the ear tissue.",
"cartilage in the ear gets separated from the skin from blunt force trauma and the resulting pocket fills with blood. if it is not drained soon enough the blood will harden and become permanent\n\n & #x200B;\n\ngot my right ear drained once, its a lot better than it was pre-drain but wont ever be like my left ear"
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2eky6b | why do people feel disoriented for a second or two when they wake up (e.g., they forget what their job is)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eky6b/eli5_why_do_people_feel_disoriented_for_a_second/ | {
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"When you're asleep, your brain is firing in very different patterns and is not 'set up' the same way it is when you're awake. If you're woken suddenly, it takes a few seconds for it to realize \"oh, shit!\" and switch modes to your more normal waking state.",
"Because your booting up"
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2t7bzi | why is it significant to the possibility of life that a planet is "earth-sized" | I've noticed that whenever there is a new announcement of a possible planet with life/liquid water, it always specifies that the planet is "near Earth-Sized". Why can't the planet be significantly bigger (like the size of Jupiter) or significantly smaller (like Pluto) and still be considered a valid possibility to sustain life? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t7bzi/eli5_why_is_it_significant_to_the_possibility_of/ | {
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"We have no friggin idea what life will be like on other planets. So....we look for planets that are as similar to Earth as possible in hopes that maybe they will have a chance of like...just like Earth has.\n\nWe only have one example to make assumptions from...we try to match that example.",
"A big part is gravity. Too little and you go spinning into space or don't have enough to retain an atmosphere, too much and you get crushed. Extraterrestrial life could easily adapt to many conditions, but there's only so much you can do when soft tissues are literally crushed by gravity."
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dpi07j | why does it feel so much hotter with the heater at 70°f than the ac a 70°f? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dpi07j/eli5_why_does_it_feel_so_much_hotter_with_the/ | {
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"To get air to 70 degrees quickly, you pump in much hotter or cooler air to mix with the existing air. AC air is like 40 degrees and heater air is like 100 degrees. You’re feeling that hotter or colder air."
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||
3lnf87 | how does classical conditioning relate to human behavior? | How realistic is the idea of modifying someones behavior by using indirect stimuli. We have seen in it pop culture in shows like The Office and Big Bang Theory, but how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lnf87/eli5_how_does_classical_conditioning_relate_to/ | {
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"Advertising is a common practical applications of ['Classical Conditioning'](_URL_0_). By associating a 'cool' celeb (positive stimulus, coz people like them) with whatever product ('neutral, or unconditioned stimulus', for this purpose) fans of that celeb will be encouraged to feel positive about, and buy, that product (coz of that 'cool' feeling the celeb induces). So buying the celeb endorsed product is kind of a 'Conditioned response'\n\n[*'Operant Conditioning'*](_URL_1_) is another model for changing people's (and animals') behaviour.\nMarking in school (A+, F, etc)[pos reinforcement], spanking kids [pos punishm't], confiuscating toys [neg punishm't], fines for speeding [neg punishment], \"Clean your room, and you won't be grounded anymore\" [neg reinforcm't] are all practical examples of '*operant conditioning*.'\n\nGambling and video game design also conditioning to design games that encourage playing, purchasing DLC, and make us feel good about playing. 'Pokie machines' ('One armed bandits') are a very direct eg. of using 'intermittent reinforcement' (believed to be the most effective reinforcement schedule, more effective than more predictable schedules) to encourage playing. This 'intermittent reinforcement' is also an example of *'Operant conditioning'*\n[EDIT]fixed errors, added links"
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"http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html"
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ajo799 | how can a spring supply water for millions of people every day? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajo799/eli5_how_can_a_spring_supply_water_for_millions/ | {
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"It has to be, you know, a pretty large spring.\n\nAnd when you extract water from it on an industrial level, it's not really a spring any more. Its a series of deep-drilled wells with pumps that tap from a ground water reservoir.\n\nBut if that water in the spring comes from that same reservoir, it's not really a lie. It's just another way to extract it.",
".\n\nsprings can put out quite a significant amount of water per day, because they are hooked into groundwater systems. but most bottled water is basically the same as tap water. there may be some contribution from springs, but almost all bottled water is basically tap from whatever area it is made in."
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5c1j4y | how does abolishing currency work? | Basically, this is a follow up on the news that India is abolishing the Rs. 500 and Rs. 2000 notes. How do they prevent the public from just shrugging and continuing to use the money?
Yes, they can't use official services but surely if everyone kept using it for groceries, cigarettes, land deals, etc. then wouldn't the law simply fall away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5c1j4y/eli5_how_does_abolishing_currency_work/ | {
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"Bank notes will eventually fade and fall to pieces. The bank is constantly taking old bank notes out of circulation and replacing them with fresh notes. The other problem is why would people accept the old notes as currency? They are not legally required to. It is just a pain since you can not trade the notes with the banks so if you end up with too few or too many of the notes you need to find others who are willing to trade. Accepting the old notes would then be extra work. And if you had old notes you might risk that the shop do not accept those notes and you have to make sure you have new notes on you at all times. So why would people accept old notes when everyone have new notes anyway?",
"The banks are not allowed to accept those bills after a certain date. So yes, a grocery store could accept a 500 rupee note, but then that same grocery store could not deposit it in the bank. Meaning the grocery store just lost 500 rupees by accepting non-legal tender."
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4544av | why can company's like u.s. cellular claim to have 4g coverage everywhere but in reality, only have it in very few places? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4544av/eli5_why_can_companys_like_us_cellular_claim_to/ | {
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"They absolutely never claimed that. That would be a complete lie. They always publish maps showing where they have 4G coverage.",
"Can you provide a little more evidence of that claim? Verizon/AT & T have been at war over this issue and use slightly different terminology to make their claims, but I've never seen U.S. Cellular claim LTE as coverage \"everywhere\". Their website pretty clearly states it is available in select cities while they continue the rollout. "
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2mn7ac | how does apple cider vinegar neutralize acid reflux? it seems counter intuitive, yet whenever i try it, it seems to work. | What exactly is going on here? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mn7ac/eli5_how_does_apple_cider_vinegar_neutralize_acid/ | {
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"Assuming you didn't google this since it's easily explained with a search: \"One underlying theory here is that the acetic acid in vinegar lowers stomach acidity (increases its pH) since acetic acid is a weaker acid than hydrochloric acid. It is also believed that vinegar (acetic acid along with its acetate salt) may help buffer and maintain stomach acid at a pH level of about 3.0. In this milder acidic environment, the stomach can still efficiently digest food but it causes less problems with the esophagus and thus less heartburn.\" _URL_0_"
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17uel8 | a post on the state of r/explainlikeimfive | Whenever I browse this subreddit, I am usually engrossed in the fantastic questions that I have always wondered myself, but never actually asked. But as of late, more than half of the questions asked seen to be aimed more for r/answers than here. As much as these questions intrigue me, this is a subreddit for explaining hard to understand things like quantum physics, not for simple questions that don't need an overly simple explanation. Anyway, what do you guys think? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17uel8/a_post_on_the_state_of_rexplainlikeimfive/ | {
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"I think part of the issue is that a lot of the 'simple' answers have been covered, not all, but a lot. So whenever someone posts like \"ELI5: how does the internal combustion engine work?\" or whatever, the response is just a link to the search or the previous time its been asked.\n\nI think that people like the friendly (mostly) atmosphere of the answers here, and thus come here. And I for one when I give a mid-level or high-level answer to a question am always willing to clarify if that was too complicated. Most people here are.\n\nSo sure quantum physics might be impossible to eli5, but if you eli \"am a first year university student\" and then further clarify the remaining issues as the person asks about them then that is good to.",
"I agree. It has digressed into \"I am to lazy to look up this very simple topic please spoon feed me answers\". ",
"75% of the bullshit could be cut if people would learn to use google or learn to search.",
"Personally, I think the following are the biggest problems in ELI5. When I say the following list, keep in mind that I don't necessarily want to delete them. I just think the subreddit would be better off if *people stopped posting them*.\n\n1. **Very easy questions**. Questions that are very easily google-able. For example: \"ELI5 where gay marriage is legal?\"\n\n2. Questions that **belong in /r/answers**. These are *not* necessarily easily google-able but also aren't complex questions that require an explanation. For example: \"ELI5 what this animal is (picture inside)\"\n\n3. Questions that basically only ask \"Why do people like things **I don't like**?\" This one particularly irks me, because it's very common, and there's really not much to discuss. There's no complexity there, only difference of opinion. Example: \"ELI5 why people like Let's Plays\" Some of these *are* valid, however, such as \"ELI5 why the German people liked Hitler so much.\"\n\n4. Very related to 3, but deserving of its own bullet, are questions designed *entirely* **to start a debate**. These people come in with an agenda to change minds or just to argue for the sake of arguing. This isn't really a bad thing, since arguing on the Internet is personally one of my favorite hobbies. This, however, isn't really the place. Example: \"ELI5 why we should teach art in public schools?\"\n\n5. Questions posted without **searching**. It's established by now that there's nothing wrong with getting a refresher on a topic, but it gets a bit irritating seeing the same questions over and over again. You'd be surprised how often someone asks why prices so often end in .99. \n\nThere are a ton of other questions not covered by the above bullet list that has me asking \"Why are people asking for a simple explanation for this?\" I really didn't want to point out specific things, but as an example \n > ELI5 why the movie industry now uses husky, unclear masculine voices instead of clear and deep voices for main actors? \n\nEven if I don't have a ready answer to that, I really don't understand how it's something complex that needs a simplified explanation.\n\nBut that's the thing. Maybe it *is* for them. Indeed, many of the examples I posted *could* belong. Maybe the art-in-public-school question wasn't meant to start a debate but to sincerely understand the scientific and educational benefits of art education, which they can't find a good explanation of themselves. Maybe some of the \"simple answer\" questions *aren't* so simple for many of the people, and saying to them \"Hey, is this *really* that complex a question for you?\" is being overly judgmental for someone who simply doesn't understands it. My point is that there's a *ton* of subjectivity.\n\nI can't really think of a good solution for this, except to perhaps make it known to *everyone* the *spirit* of this subreddit. \n\n > What /r/explainlikeimfive is: Ever try to read up on a subject but get confused about what you're reading about? Do you feel like you're missing something important, and would appreciate someone explaining to you in simple terms, without assuming you know more than you actually do? ELI5 is for simple explanations for a complicated world. \n\nBefore you submit, ask yourself \"Does this submission fit in with the goal of this subreddit? Did I sincerely try to figure something complicated out, and do I need a *simplified* explanation of it? Or am I posting for some other goal?\"\n\nThis subreddit is very difficult to moderate without being over-reaching, because we want it to be a judgement-free, positive place. The mods don't want to be nazis. But we also want the content to be *interesting* content. Interesting stuff that we all wish we could understand. \n\n* ELI5 the Higgs Boson. \n* ELI5 how the Roman Republic fell. \n* ELI5 how space elevators work and their viability. \n* ELI5 the Federal Reserve. \n* ELI5 Kant's categorical imperative. \n* ELI5 how a bill becomes a law. \n* ELI5 keys in music.\n\nThese are all *complex topics* with many interlocking and confusing and seemingly contradicting or counter-intuitive facets, and the answers to these prove *fascinating* for a lot of people. This is what we want. Simple explanations for a complex world.",
"I think the rule of thumb should be:\n\nIf you can find it on the first three results of google already in simple language then you are in the wrong place.",
"I think somebody posts this comment once every couple of months and nothing ever changes. ",
"This is said so many damn times. Just shut up unless you want to offer a solution."
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6e6x9y | how did australia happen? like surely it wasn't just as simple as a bunch of convicts saying to each other "hey guys, lets work together and bceome one of the most prosperous countries on earth!" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6e6x9y/eli5how_did_australia_happen_like_surely_it_wasnt/ | {
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"In short, the British didn't just dump everyone and run. There were people who worked in everything from botany to mapping and government who made the journey out - a new colony was being established - not just a prison. \n\n Once convicts had served their time, they were often given land or facilities to become a functioning part of society. Some of the country's most prolific farmers, settlers, brewers and public figures were reformed convicts.",
"Firstly, most of the convicts that were sent there weren't hardened criminals. They were either small time crooks, or simply poor people who needed to steal, etc to survive. Britain wasn't so much setting up a hardcore prison than deporting a bunch of 'undesirables'. Transportation to Australia was a punishment, but it was also an opportunity for these people to make a fresh start in a new country.\n\nSecondly, once the convicts' sentences were up, they either had to stay in the area for a specific number of years and/or make their own way home (which was basically unaffordable). So transportation to Australia was effectively a life sentence. So there was a strong mentality of \"well we're all stuck here in this place, might as well make the best of it\". \n\nThirdly, eastern Australia had plenty of natural resources like timber, and in a new colony there is always plenty to be done. A convict who finished his sentence had the opportunity to set himself up by working as a logger, carpenter, explorer, etc and even get a nice piece of land for himself. Again, this idea of starting over and being able to make the best of the situation.\n\nFourthly, word started getting back to Britain about this vast, beautiful, warm, sun-drenched country. Leave that cold, rainswept, crowded island and come out here, where you can have acres of land for yourself and set yourself up as a local gentleman! This led to an increase in free settlers, which further improved the skill and knowledge base of the colony. Once that happened, Australia was pretty much on the road to success.",
"Other posts have touched on the early years but it's also important to consider immigration because of other factors. For example, during the 1800s, the discovery of gold lead to a large influx of immigrants from non-European nations (especially China) coming to Australia to try and get a piece of the action, and then integrating into society. Australia's Chinese population was actually greater in 1910 than it was in 1940, because of the 'White Australia' policy that was implemented to restrict non-European immigration. \n\nSince the end of both the Cold War and the White Australia policy, Australia was also seen as a popular destination by Europeans who had previously been under Soviet control. Like USA before it, Australia was seen as a 'dream country' full of space and full of opportunity. \n\nSucked for the natives, of course!"
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ck8rld | if cold air condenses, how can it be true that the lower the pressure gets the colder it is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ck8rld/eli5_if_cold_air_condenses_how_can_it_be_true/ | {
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"Imagine your body has the same properties as air and I placed you into a box that you fit into perfectly. I cool you down, you condense (take up less space) and as such, your body stops touching the wall of the box and you have more room to wiggle.\n\nNow say I heat you up and you expand, you're going to start pressing up against the sides of the box as you take up more space. That pressing up against the wall as the temperature increases is where the increase in pressure comes from."
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2nshfv | why do some stores such as sam's club and costco charge a membership fee just to shop there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nshfv/eli5_why_do_some_stores_such_as_sams_club_and/ | {
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"Because often the stores make money on the fees, not the products. There was a bestof not too long ago with more detail, it was comparing costco pay to walmart pay with a side discussion in why there is a fee at coscto.",
"Costco products are essentially sold at cost-price. The profit comes almost entirely from membership fees.\n\nSam's Club operates on a slightly different model, but the outcome is the same. The main difference is that Sam's Club is a \"warehouse store\" for Wal-Mart, so Sam's Club stores are the hubs with Wal-Mart stores as spokes. They can sell things at Sam's Club, and if they don't sell there, they can be broken from bulk and sold individually at Wal-Mart.",
"I've heard that Costco sells all of their product at a markup that just covers the cost of running the company (operating expenses, employees, utilities, etc.) and all of the membership fees are their profit. Every employee also receives a percentage of the yearly profits which helps with loyal employees and lower turnover."
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5p39f6 | how does putin stay in power and how come he keeps being re-elected? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5p39f6/eli5_how_does_putin_stay_in_power_and_how_come_he/ | {
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"Sham elections, rigged elections, threats of violence, and self-preservation. \n\nSure, you might *go into a polling place to vote*, but there's nothing to say your vote will get counted. That, or it gets counted **and** someone slips in a few hundred pro-Putin votes. Or hell, you vote *against* Putin, somebody notices your ballot specifically, and then suddenly your family ends up dead.\n\nIt's much like how North Korea keeps re-electing Kim Jong-un - it pretty much is 'vote for us, or die'.",
"Well, actually, everything is clear legaly (on the surfase).\nHe was elected as the president for 4 years, then got reelected (you can be reelected once), then another person (Medvedev from same EDRO party - substitute) came in, increased the length of the presedency to 6 years each. Then Putin got elected again, and still serving his first 6 years. He still can go with the second reelection legaly.\n\nThe corruption and \"random\" deaths and threats is the other side of the coin.",
"Russian ex-opposition, now work for putin's political party is here to answer. \n\nHere are pillars on which he stands: \n\n1 Voters on the payroll. \n\nA lot of people in Russia work for government in one way or another: mail service, police, schools etc. All these men and women are obligated to vote for him. Their job depends on their vote.\n\n2 Media controll.\n\n Opposition news sites are forced from the country and from russian internet(that means they must operate from other countries like Latvia etc.). Every major tv channel is in gov. control and broadcasting propaganda pretty much 24/7\n\n3 Old people, raised in USSR vote for him. \n\nThey find powerfull-looking person as a great leader by default. They were raised during cold war and do not know any better. Democratic revolution of 90s made them think that democracy equals hunger. They live in phantasy, thinking that this capitalistic period will end and USSR 2 will be erected. \n\n4 Heavy phisical opression of opposition\n\nA lot of people today are in jail because of whst they wrote in facebook about crimea. Stating thst crimea is not russian is a crime and punished by jail\n\n\n\nCould list more if you are interested, but these are most important. \n\nAlso, as it is obvious, english is not my first language, so sorry for mistakes and criticism is welcome.",
"Whilst it is true that the Russian political system is very corrupt, it is also worth making the point that even with all that put aside Putin is very popular in Russia. In the last year or two he's been able to preserve the elite (oligarch) support whilst at least preserving, if not growing, his popular support. There is very little in the way of credible opposition in Russia, the vast majority either support Putin or acquiesce without so much as a murmur. The votes might be rigged, but it appears likely that he would win a 'free and fair' election if it were held now.",
"1. Not everything you hear on the news is true\n\n2. Many Russians love Putin\n\n3. Putin is a very talented state-craftsman\n\n4. Politics are complicated, the world is complicated, and simple distinctions like good & bad are not useful for trying to understand why things turn out the way they do",
"Putin's been doing for years what trump did this election: appeal to the uneducated masses by saying what they want to hear, scare them with gays/ liberals/ muslims/ immigrants and ...PROFIT. Controlling media, buying votes and oppressing opposition also helps. And nobody keeps track of his words, like ever. ",
"@koninez English may not be your second language but it didn't really show! You did an excellent job explaining this!",
"Why are people in here so unwilling to accept that he wins elections because people like him? People are saying a lot of the votes he gets are not legitimate or are due to manipulating the populace. What if the people just like him and his values? Very often people will vote in an authoritative leader.",
"I am from Russia and me, and practically everybody I know voted for Putin. Let me tell you why, please :) sorry for my english\n\n1. There is no really good candidates for president at all in Russia. There are 4-5 people in opposition, that tries to become a president from 1991, I think :) but their political view is blurry or outdated. There is no another really strong leader, only Putin. I think USA have the same problem - no good candidates at all. Or I am wrong?\n2. Putin have a higher legal education and 40 years of working experience in government. I think it matters. Very seriously. I don't want oligarch, doctor or football player to rule my country.\n3. He never said anything I am not supporting (as I can remember), I share his vision on solving country problems.\n4. Maybe it's strange, but for me and for many other people he is a part of every family. Why? Because we know him for many years :)\n5. My life is good, really good. Though, I am invalid (Haemophilia A). I receive all needed medicines for free every month (in pharmacy they costs 8000 dollars every month). I have my own apartments, small business and lovely family. In February I will become a father :) Why I should want to change my president? Government supports me, not preventing.\n\nYes, we have problems, but every country has them and I don't know anybody better, who can solve it. Only Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich :)\n\nMaybe it is hard to understand, until you become living here in Russia, but it is so. No authoritarianism, real support of president.\n\nTY for you attention"
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5qutfl | why are voices on the phone much more difficult to understand than in person? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qutfl/eli5why_are_voices_on_the_phone_much_more/ | {
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"The movement of the mouth provides context and aids the brain in deciphering the sounds.\n\nYou can google the McGurk effect to get videos like the one below and a more wordy description of whats happening.\n\n\n_URL_0_\n\n\n"
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8ye1ua | practical differences between induction and dc brushless motors. | (This is coming from a car nerd) I don't want to know how they work, just what the end user recieves, such as sound, torque / power curves, energy consumption, the big practical stuff. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ye1ua/eli5_practical_differences_between_induction_and/ | {
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"There is clearly a difference between induction and brushed motors. If you had asked this question, I could have given you the kind of answer you wanted.\n\nHowever, while on one hand, the difference between induction and DC brushless (BLDC) motors is super clear, but on the other hand, it's really not.\n\nTypically, when someone says an \"induction motor\" they mean something that is big, that runs on AC (one or three phase), with little to no circuitry in between, and has no permanent magnets. Typically, when one says \"DC brushless motor\" they mean something small, with permanent magnets, and they are assuming you have the electronic components to turn DC into AC to run the motor. In reality, these days, induction motors in complex applications are used in conjunction with variable frequency drives, so both motors rely on complex circuitry to get them moving. \n\nIt is often said that induction motors are less efficient than BLDC, and this is true, because induction motors waste more electricity as heat, it also kinds of depends on how the motor is being used. In the correct application, induction motors can be very efficient, and get very close to a BLDC motor.\n\nThe real difference is that large induction motors are pretty cheap to make, and if we're talking 3 phase induction motors, they are very robust, with little that can go wrong. However, large BLDC motors are expensive, because large rare earth magnets are difficult to deal with. Hence why large BLDC (1 kW+) motors are very rare, and why high end electric cars do not use them.\n\nThe real difference between BLDC systems and induction systems come from the things you don't want to know about: BLDC motors have permanent magnets, and induction motors do not.\n\nSo to me, your question is a bit like asking: what's the difference between a Truck and a Pickup truck. I mean, there are obvious differences, but there are huge overlaps, and it's really hard to say anything meaningful (except in the case of the existence of permanent magnets in a BLDC motor), because they can be the same, and also super different, and there is a huge range within each group.\n\nYou might find the top answer [here](_URL_0_) interesting."
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aazkpn | how is inflation calculated for times far enough away that everything was different? | like, I was looking up the conversion rate for the 1850s for something and it occurred to me I had no idea how that number could feasibly be calculated. Like, if the cost of a shirt back then was 50 cents, does that get compared to the cost of a modern department store button up? Or does it get compared to a modern custom tailored, hand sewn (and potentially hand woven) dress shirt since that's what you would probably HAVE to buy? But the cost of a custom tailored shirt today is inflated by the fact that store bought button ups made in factories exist? And like, I'm pretty sure land was insanely cheap but that's because there was so much of it, so does that get taken into account when you do the calculation of the spending power of a dollar?
Like, lets say the numbers we're working with are:
1950 -
* 1 piano: $195
* 1 bottle of port: $0.11
* 1 lb coffee: $0.80
* 1 doctor visit: $2.00
* 1 new house in Brooklyn: $2500
[source](_URL_0_)
2018 - (sources are all first google result I find)
* 1 piano: $3000+ (15.3+ x bigger)
* 1 lb coffee: 2.80 (3.5 x bigger)
* 1 bottle of port: $15.50 (140 x bigger)
* 1 new house in Brooklyn: $769,000 (307 x bigger)
* 1 doctor visit: average payment of $69 (ayy lmao) average CHARGE of $104 (35 or 52 x bigger depending how you calculate it)
What do you DO with those numbers to figure out inflation?
And that's not even factoring in things like how modern cost of living involves phone and internet plans and cars being a thing that exists and the middle class so like... when someone says "a dollar in 1850 was worth $32 today" what does that actually MEAN? and how are they figuring it out?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aazkpn/eli5_how_is_inflation_calculated_for_times_far/ | {
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"It's a very imperfect calculation. But we can add up the inflation in smaller intervals — say, from 1850 to 1860, and then from 1860 to 1870 — which is somewhat helpful.\n\nUltimately it's not an accurate or precise long-term number, though, as you observed.",
"In addition to what /u/concise_pirate says about adding up differences over smaller periods of time to approximate a total, those calculations typically reference the Consumer Price Index, which reflects average prices of a broad collection of consumer staples. \n \n The items in your 1950 to today example *are* kind of all over the place, but they only represent a couple of cherrypicked items. The CPI will account for those items alongside hundreds of others while also accounting for the relative proportion of a typical person's income that each item represents. \n \nIt's still an imperfect measurement when trying to compare, say, the Civil War era to today, but it's fairly accurate when looking at things over the past 70 years or so.",
"Look up the compounding future cash flow calculations. Then use an average inflation figure over the time period you’re calculating.\n\nFor example:\n\n25 year inflation could be 2%\n\n(1+ 0.02)^25= 1.64 is the cumulative growth in goods and services over that time period which can be applied - as a rule of thumb - for how much an item costs now, which was purchased back in 1993.",
"Inflation is calculated using benchmarks like the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — or sometimes Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — rather than looking at the prices of individual goods. Basically, the CPI takes a representative sample of goods, and uses their prices to approximate the true cost of living. Different categories of goods are weighted differently year to year to account for changes in consumption behavior (e.g. people buying more food and less electricity this year compared to last year).",
"It depends what the point of the comparison is. If it is talking about household income it should just look at family expenses, if it is looking at just the farming industry then just look at production and selling costs. \n\nInflation is obviously real and denying it exists would be crazy, but it is also crazy to try to use a single metric to say what an entire financial system was like from one time to the next. \n\nIf you ever see “adjusted for inflation” used when someone is pushing some agenda, be very wary of it as it is super easy to distort the argument. Both sides use this to argue minimum wage laws. Just picking a date in the past a few years apart can make today’s wages seem great or seem terrible depending if you are comparing to a boom or bust in the past.\n\nOne might show stats that a median worker income hasn’t actually increased when corrected for inflation, but that might have been when just one spouse usually worked, when chores around the home took way longer because dishwashers and clothes washers and dryers and microwaves and vacuum cleaners didn’t exist. \n\nOr things like saying what a peasant in medieval England would earn compared to US dollars today so absurd. You are not only spanning a huge time but also a currency. Based on the path of inflation and conversion rate between currencies, you could make this nearly whatever you wanted it to be. And what would it really mean if the number was $20,000 per year or $80,000 per year? It still gives no actual context to what their life would be like. Depending where you live in the US, some would say you could easily live on 20k while others in other parts of the US would insist you are barely scraping by on 80k. ",
"general inflation is based on consumer \"basket goods\" like explained in other comments but there is also more specific inflation based on the exact thing you are talking about like a heat exchanger or reactor that is tracted throughout the years and is only good for that specific thing or that category of thing (im am engineer so i used engineering examples). so the general CPI probably isnt useful if you are looking at a specific item over time",
"The very loose approach that I use is to compare the equivalent value in gold. Until recently, 1 US dollar was defined as 1/20th an ounce of gold. So it's possible to get a decent comparison of prices that way. Specialized economists can probably do better, but it's the rule of thumb I use.",
"You start with a basket of common goods in 1950. You find it's worth $100. You calculate the same basket of goods in 1951, and find out it's worth $103. \n\nOne of the major items in your basket is discontinued in 1951, so you can't buy the same basket for 1952. But, you could put another item in your 1951 basket with the same value as that discontinued item, and your new basket has the same, $103 value in 1951 as the first basket. In 1952, you determine that second basket is worth $106. Your 1950 basket would be worth $106 if you could buy it in 1952, but you can't because the one item was discontinued. \n\n\nRepeat with new baskets for 1952-53, 53-54, 54-55, 55-56, 56-57, 57-58, 58-59, and 59-60, and you can then calculate the inflation rate from 1950-1960.\n\nIn practice, it's considerably more complicated, but this is the basic principal. \n"
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39ay8b | [nsfw] why us men feel the need to have our hand on our balls or dick while we watching tv in a non-sexual way? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39ay8b/eli5_nsfw_why_us_men_feel_the_need_to_have_our/ | {
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"Because we want to switch off and zone out, and if our hands are already protecting our balls, we don't need to process the sensory blizzard that is the world for threats to said balls.\n\nTldr: something something comfort something balls",
"Perhaps it would be more appropriate to phrase that \"Why some men...\". I've been a man my whole life and have never felt the need to do this. Most men I know don't do this either (although I obviously can't know if they just aren't doing it because there are other people around, some may do so when alone for all I know).",
"I mostly just do the old 'cup-pinch-stretch' I guess i just feels good to stretch the wrinkles out of the ballsack once in a while..",
"For me I thinks it's a replacement for when I use to suck my thumb as a kid, now my hand has found something else to do while watching tv. I do this all the time in front of the wife, she's learned to accept it. It's a comfort thing. ",
"my hand was in my pants when i came across this thread. It just feels good. Maybe i'm subconsciously keeping them safe",
"This is my educated guess, it may not be true. I have searched for a good 30 mins for a concise answer but none could be found.\n\nIn this age we all wear very fitting clothing, rather then the rough sewn garnets of days past. Men have since then acquired the difficulty of having to adjust and readjust their members so that sitting in these fitting clothing is more comfortable.\n\nAlong with the idea of comfort, it might be a more subconscious thing as well. From what I have read it could be more of a grooming mechanism for men and a safety one too. \n"
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11m8ly | the chinese government | I know it's usually thought of as Communist, but how does it actually work? How does it censor all of the communication of its citizens? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11m8ly/eli5_the_chinese_government/ | {
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"Oh boy, oh boy. This IS a sticky one. \n\nTo fully understand the state of modern China, you'll have to understand 5000 years of Chinese history. [The Search for Modern China](_URL_0_) is a good place to start, but it only covers China from the late Ming to the early 2000s. Anyhow, for brevity's sake, I'll skip the history lesson and simply say this: there exists in China a strong and deeply rooted sense of how the relationship between a ruler and the people should play out. In fact, it is one of the five \"sacred\" relationships in the Confucian worldview. The people owe the government filial loyalty so long as the government provides stability, protection, and relative prosperity in a way deemed \"upright\" by Confucianism. If those obligations are met, then all other ideologies take backseat (we're ignoring The Cultural Revolution for now, since that has roots in European dominance and Imperialism). \n\nBack to the point, the Chinese government in nominally Communist and holds Communist ideology at the highest levels. However, since 1979, they have allow for capitalistic reform out of necessity to meet the obligations of government and maintain the status quo. Since the Chinese economy has grown at a staggering and unprecedented rate since 改革开放 (the aforementioned reforms), the Chinese people, as a general rule, don't particularly mind what many Westerners view as an oppressive regime... provided that the growth and stability continues. In practice, they are able to maintain censorship by following the traditional Communist model regarding government control of the press. ",
"First, let me explain the structure of state organs. Keep in mind, **this is not the party structure**. I'll explain that after.\n\nThere are 4 primary entities above most others:\n\n* National People's Congress (NPC)\n* State Council\n* People's Supreme Court\n* People's Procurotorate \n\nThe NPC is the primary legislative entity in the Chinese government. It is a congress of roughly 2,000 people elected and/or appointed by the military, trade groups, provinces, etc.\n\nThe NPC has several distinct roles.\n\n1. Create and/or amend the constitution\n2. Decide what legislation is constitutional\n3. Create and/or amend legislation\n4. Appoint a president\n\nThe president of China is a nominal position and only signs orders as directed by the NPC.\n\nThe NPC has terms of 5 years, and each congress meets 5 times a year (i think). Because of the limitations in meeting only a handful of times, there is a group of 9 NPC congresspeople who are chosen to be the NPC Standing Committee. The Standing Committee has the ability to perform most tasks the NPC does.\n\nThe State Council is the administrative arm of the government of China. The State Council is headed by the Premier. The State Council does not pass laws, but it can order down regulations. Under the State Council are all of the ministries, for example the Ministry of Science, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, etc. Other non-ministry organizations also answer to the State Council, like Xinhua publishing, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and outreach offices.\n\nThe Supreme Court is not like the US supreme court. Constitutional cases are not heard; cases are civil, criminal, adminstrative, or economic in nature.\n\nThe procurotorate investigates and prosecutes crimes. But not all crimes. Some of the investigations are under the jurisdiction of the Public Security Bureau or Ministry of Justice, etc.\n\nThere are also things like the Central Military Commission that usually consists of the President and VP and a few People's Liberation Army generals. The CMC maintains ties to the PLA because the PLA is not the government's armed forces; the PLA is the Party's army.\n\nnow for the the party organization:\n\nIt's very similar to the state organization\n\nThere is a ~2,000 person National Party Congress. Of these 2,000 there is a Standing Committee of 9. The People's Congress and Party Congress Standing Committees are always the same 9 people. There is also a party CMC, almost always the same people. There's so much overlap it's easy to confuse the party and the state, but on paper the organizations are distinct. In practice it's all the same people.\n\n\n",
"OK, since everyone else is talking about the government, I'll address your question about censorship. This is gonna be long, but I'll try to keep it ELI5 simple.\n\nChina's system censors different mediums of communication in different ways. Let's look at them one by one.\n\n**(1) INTERNET CENSORSHIP**\n\nThere are two main ways China censors the internet. Domestic websites are generally censored according to Chinese **law**; overseas websites are often blocked using the **Great Firewall**.\n\n**(1a) Internet Law**: You can understand China's domestic censorship as similar to the way the United States (for example) censors child pornography on the internet. The government doesn't actually do much; most of the censorship is done by internet companies because they need to comply with the law. So, for example, if you were to upload child pornography to reddit, that content would be deleted because it's illegal under US law. China's system is very similar; the difference is that far more content (including a lot of political content) is considered illegal and the guidelines are vague and shifting.\n\nBecause Chinese law forbids spreading certain content, including harmful political content, internet companies are required to maintain large censorship departments to delete user-generated content that violates Chinese law; if they don't do this they risk losing their license to operate in China. \n\nHowever, exactly what is illegal and what isn't often isn't clear. The laws are vague, and what's considered unacceptable can change depending on the current political mood. For this reason, most sites adopt a better-safe-than-sorry attitude and delete anything they find that might be objectionable. \n\nIf something does slip through, a government representative might call the company in question and order them to delete the message or content in question. But generally speaking, the government doesn't need to get involved at all. If you were to post a message on Sina Weibo about Tiananmen Square 1989, for example, that message would likely be delete by Sina's own censorship team, not anyone who works directly for the Chinese government.\n\nThere is also a fair amount of self-censorship on the part of users, because if you go to far, you can be arrested, tried, and convicted of serious crimes, generally under a law that forbids Chinese citizens from \"inciting to subvert State authority\" (in other words, spreading information that might encourage people to overthrow the State). Exactly what constitutes information that incites people to subvert the government isn't defined clearly, though, so there's no way to know where the line is. Most users, like Chinese companies, prefer to play it safe and not bother posting anything risky in the first place, especially since it will probably get deleted anyway.\n\nAdditionally, it's worth mentioning that operating any kind of web business in China requires a license, or multiple licenses, depending on what kind of thing you're doing. So another way for the government to censor is to simply deny licenses to companies that haven't done a good enough job of censoring objectionable content.\n\n**(1b) The Great Firewall** Of couse, China's domestic laws aren't going to intimidate many overseas users or web services into silence, so China also blocks websites with what is commonly called the \"Great Firewall.\" The Great Firewall is a technical solution (software, basically) that prevents Chinese users from accessing websites in one of three main ways:\n\n(1b1) IP block: The government blocks anyone on a domestic internet connection from accessing a specific IP, often because a website associated with that IP has been found to be hosting objectionable content. Websites that have had their IP blocked will be accessible in China again if they switch servers so their site is hosted under a new IP.\n\n(1b2) Domain block: If a website has caught the attention of someone, it may receive a domain block, which means that anyone on a domestic connection can't access any webpage on a specific domain (for example, _URL_0_). There's really no way around this except to change the website's domain.\n\n(1b3) Keyword block: The great firewall also blocks some websites automatically based on specific keywords. Often, the site will become unblocked if the keyword in question is removed. For example, I once accidentally wrote \"Falun Gong\" on one of my sites, and it was subsequently blocked; but a few days after I replaced \"Falun Gong\" with \"FLG\" the site came unblocked again.\n\n**(2) MEDIA CENSORSHIP**\n\nChina has no truly independent media; any organization that wants to publish news in China must be affiliated with a supervising Communist Party committee that has the ultimate say over what they publish. Different committees at different levels have different standards; this is why some Chinese newspapers are more \"liberal\" and more \"daring\" than others -- their supervisory committee gets away with it. But again, if you go to far, you risk losing your job or even prison time, so most journalists and editors are very careful about what they publish.\n\nI believe TV news works similarly, but I'm not as sure as I never worked in TV news in China.\n\nRegular print media like books and magazines work similarly; publishers must all register with the government and are legally accountable for anything they publish, so they're generally careful not to publish anything that goes too far. If you wrote a book critical of the response to Tiananmen 89, for example, it probably would never get censored by the *government* because you would never find a Chinese publisher who was willing to try to publish it.\n\n**(3) CENSORSHIP OF SPEECH**\n\nObviously, what people say to each other is impossible to censor, and behind closed doors in China there are many conversations that could never occur in print or on the internet. \n\nWith that said, any large gathering, or any gathering that includes people the government considers politically dangerous, can be shut down by the police under any number of laws, and people participating in public gatherings like this are sometimes detained and beaten. Needless to say, this discourages people from speaking out in public, especially in large groups, unless they are really upset about something.\n\nOften, if you're with a large group and saying something politically objectionable, what the law says doesn't actually matter. Police or state security officers can falsify charges, detain you for up to 30 days in a secret location under suspicion of committing certain crimes, or simply deny you access to a lawyer. Chen Guangcheng, whose name you may recall from the news last year, was arrested and imprisoned for years on a BS public disturbance charge like this, and when he got out, he was detained in his home for another nearly two years illegally before he finally escaped to the US embassy and, ultimately, the United States. Despite the fact that his detention was totally illegal, as far as I'm aware, none of the officials or police involved with holding him and his family prisoner for nearly two years have been seriously punished as a result of this incident coming to light.\n\nSo, another form of censorship is basically just to lock you in your house for years on end and cut off your phone and internet to be sure you don't talk to anyone. This is currently happening to Liu Xia, the wife of nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who is currently in prison because of an article he wrote. Liu Xia has not been charged with any crime, but she has been being kept in her home and not allowed to go out or contact anyone for around two years now, with no end in sight. \n\n*edit: I actually wrote an article recently about how internet censorship works and what China might be like without it if you're interested in more detail on that aspect of things: _URL_1_"
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1aehrc | how is it that most people can count backwards (counting down) successfully, but cannot say the alphabet backwards (even though we see letters all the time)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1aehrc/eli5_how_is_it_that_most_people_can_count/ | {
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"There are 26 individual letters to memorize in a specific order, whereas numbers are just combinations of 9 different individual digits. Whether you're counting down from 60 or 10, the sequence is the same: 9, 8, 7, 6, etc, which is simpler than remembering the exact order of the alphabet in reverse. ",
"How many times in your life have you had to count something? Compare that to the number of times you've been forced to recite the entire alphabet in order. ",
"I can. It took me, what--half an hour, probably less?--to learn how to say the alphabet backwards as fast as I can say it forwards. \n\nYou just don't have to do it a lot, or, ever. People count down all the time. I think i remember being confused by counting backwards as a kid. ",
"In addition to /u/lesbiEnt's explnation, there is also the fact that counting down is easier because you're just \"taking away\" something. (Heh, I remember in like first grade when we said \"takeaway\" instead of \"minus.\") So each number has a relation to the number before or after it. However, our alphabet isn't arranged in an order that makes any sort of sense to most people: vowels scattered throughout, t and d not next to each other even though your mouth is about the same with both of them, m and n look alike, but have no relation to o, and o certainly doesn't have anything to do with p. It would be like growing up in a neighborhood with 26 families on one street and trying to name them--and probably harder than that, because naming houses on a street you can just use a mental map of the street to go back and forth.",
"Alphabet is queue in mind, numbers are LinkedList.",
"I used to speed read the alphabet backwards in high school to win bets.",
"_URL_0_\nThey Might be Giants: \"ZYX\"",
"I practice saying it backwards when I'm bored. Its a pretty neat trick and can help you during a sobriety test",
"It took me twenty minutes to be able to say the alphabet backwards in 6th grade on my walk back from the bus stop. Simply a matter repetition in my opinion.",
"I had no idea most people couldn't recite the alphabet backward. ",
"My dad can do it. He always says it was the only useful thing he learned by having to go to church as a kid. ",
"I'm a musician. You can bet I know the alphabet backwards just as fluidly... Well, from G anyway. ",
"a base 10 system versus a base 26 system",
"While 1 + 2 = 3, a + b does not necessarily = c.",
"I don't agree with \"practice/importance\" being the reason. I think it's simply because numbers use a vastly easier system to master than letters.\n\nAll counting backwards, if you think about it, is a variation of \"10, 9, 8...\" etc. If you are counting backwards from 100, you're saying \"100, 99, 98...\" For a million, it's the same thing. \"1,000,000, 999,999, 999,998...\" In each case, while counting down there's what you might call a placeholder value, and then the changing value. The changing value is \"9, 8, 7...\" and the placeholder is everything else. So to successfully count backwards from any number, all you need to do is repeat the placeholder value, and then drop the changing value by one digit at a time. When you get to 0, you drop the tens column by one, which uses the same 10, 9, 8... system, and voila. You have a new placeholder. Repeat it, and count down another ten.\n\nAdd to this popular culture reinforcement. The world is full of countdowns, from NASA to the puck drop at the hockey game. These serve to reinforce over time our memory of what a countdown is supposed to sound like.\n\nLetters, on the other hand, are twenty-six (different for different languages, I know) unique symbols that appear in the alphabet in a pretty arbitrary order. And there's very little real-world reinforcement for reciting them backwards, since letters aren't usually used to count lists. Therefore, by sheer difficulty and lack of reinforcement, it's harder to recite letters backward than count numbers.",
"You learn the song as a child, not the alphabet. ",
"Besides the fact that number order is logical, a continuous repetition of 1-0, and you use it more, there is another reason why reversing the alphabet is more difficult: You're using completely different parts of the brain. \n\nNumber recognition and letter/word recognition do not use the same \"systems\" in your head. Even words for numbers (\"one\", \"eight\") will be processed through your \"maths center\" and not your normal language systems.\n\nThe alphabet will be processed in your normal language part of the brain. This part of the brain is specialized in constructing memorable orders of sounds - words and sentences. Asking you to reverse the order of the alphabet is like asking you to say the name of your street backwards. It's very difficult because language information isn't stored as logical data that can just be reversed.\n\nIn a way, language memory can be compared to muscle memory. Reciting the alphabet backwards is like trying to write with your off hand.",
"Nobody thinks about letters in relation to where they are placed among the alphabet. It's simply an array of letters we must memorize.\n\nNumbers are important in a different way because they represent a varying amount and you often need to know about numbers being higher or lower.. as it is their sole purpose of being.",
"I have been praying a cop ask me to say the alphabet backwards, I've been practicing since I was 11.",
"Letters have no value with respect to one another the way numbers do.",
"I learned to say it backwards by looking at a small sticker sheet thing and learned it in about 2 minutes I think.\n\nZ. Y. X. W. VUT. S. R. Q. P. ONMLK. JIH. GFE. DCBA.\n\nThose breaks are how I say it in my head. Never had an issue. ",
"numbers is a pattern with only 10 options, as to where the alphabet has no pattern and theres 26 options",
"Our base ten number system requires us to memorize 10 unique characters while the english alphabet has 26."
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29yk2e | why - when i am hungover - does the tone of my voice get lower? | Sounding like Barry White right now. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29yk2e/eli5_why_when_i_am_hungover_does_the_tone_of_my/ | {
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"When you're feeling hungover it's because you're dehydrated. Your vocal cords are also dehydrated and produce a slightly different sound.",
"This was on Brainiac once. Apparently your vocal cords loosen when you're dehydrated.",
"Because your vocal chords are relaxed. Singers often have greater range when they first wake up... if anything a night of drinking reduces this effect, but I am not sure about that. My voice is always lower in the morning. \n\nEdit: Turns out alcohol relaxes vocal folds even further... who knew!",
"Part is dehydration, part is vocal exhaustion, and part is general exhaustion. Most people have a deeper voice when they're very tired. The vocal chords are open by default. You need to flex a muscle to close them, and the more closed [higher the note] the more strength is required. So it's a mix of things. "
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1j662b | how come i can watch netflix and videos on various other streaming sites just fine but when it's youtube the video constantly sputters? | Whatupwiththat? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j662b/eli5_how_come_i_can_watch_netflix_and_videos_on/ | {
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"Youtube is one of the most popular websites on the ENTIRE INTERNET. Because of that, it's important that traffic to the sites servers be handled carefully. Most ISP's will cache large chunks of youtube into something calld \"CDN\"s, content delivery networks. These are basically their own servers which cache the video files, then when you call on a page, the video file is served from the CDN instead of youtube itself (if it's been cached). This helps lower the load on youtube to keep it running, and helps the ISP's by giving them more control on how to balance the overall network load.\n\nA lot of CDN's, however, are much slower than youtubes super fast fiber tubes. There was a guide floating around not too long ago on how you can block the CDN's IP addresses, so your computer will always fetch data from youtubes servers directly. You'll need to google it for your particular ISP/region, but hopefully the numbers are out there."
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1xga2f | what is the difference between wisdom and intelligence? | And I'm not talking about Dungeons and Dragons.
I've had people call me "wise" before and I just assumed they were using it as a sub-in for "smart" or something. But recently someone said I was "wise" again and I asked them to elaborate because it had been used enough times that it became a trend. I asked the person if they meant they thought I was "intelligent" and they said "that too, but you're more wise." I asked what the difference was but all they could do was cite that scene in Good Will Hunting.
Except I'm not a 50 year old man, I'm 22 years old. I don't see how anyone could find someone so young to be "wise." I think Wisdom is synonymous with old men like Gandalf or something.
Can someone explain the difference? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xga2f/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_wisdom_and/ | {
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"The way I'd use the terms - and this varies from person to person - is that intelligence is the ability to achieve a particular goal, and wisdom is the ability to choose good goals. A serial killer might be highly intelligent, but isn't very wise.",
"Intelligence is normally associated with factual information, such as scientific fact or mathematical knowledge. Wisdom is normally associated with understanding through experience. The use of the word \"experience\" is typically what creates the perception that wisdom comes with age. This [article] (_URL_0_) explains this difference clearly.",
"Intelligence/Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.",
"Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.\n\nWisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. \n\nIn other words, wisdom is what you do with the intelligence you have. ",
"Intelligence is a matter of human computation, of coming up with a large number of ideas and sifting out the good ones. However, intelligence can't solve all problems. Wisdom is a matter of joining the rational with the arational and with the irrational. To be wise is to be good at being human. You, by the account of your friends, have a certain notable insight into human nature. That's what they mean by wise. "
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12v6ex | the difference in impact between an atom bomb, nuclear bomb, and hydrogen bomb on a major city like new york or san francisco | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12v6ex/eli5_the_difference_in_impact_between_an_atom/ | {
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"well, first, your terminology is lacking. Atom bomb really isn't used anymore. Nuclear weapons are weapons that derive energy from either fission or fusion. Hydrogen Bombs are weapons that derive energy from fusion of hydrogen atoms. \n\nThe effects are determined by the size of the bomb in terms of megatons of TNT or kilotons of TNT, and the height at which the bomb detonates. These factors change the results drastically. If you're really interested, you should just read [this wiki page](_URL_0_). It's pretty detailed. ",
"atom bomb = nuclear bomb (fission bomb), they are huge because they have a small amount of a radioactive element get split releasing a lot of energy.\n\nHydrogen bomb (fusion bomb). They normally have something like a fission bomb surround an area of elements that can be fused. The outer \"shell\" forces the inner fuel into a a tiny area with massive heat where fusion is started unleashing even more enormous amounts of energy.\n\nThe damage they'll do depends on the amount of material they each have. In general though a fision bomb would fuck them up, and a fusion bomb would fuck them up and the near suburbs. Both would leave radioactive fallout for a while.",
"An atom bomb and a nuclear bomb are two terms used for the same type of weapon. They both use the concept of fission, which means they split atoms to create energy. \n\nA hydrogen, also know as a thermonuclear bomb, uses the concept of fusion. Instead of splitting atoms, they combine them to create even more energy.\n\nGenerally speaking, a hydrogen bomb is much more powerful than a nuclear bomb. In fact, it takes a couple nuclear bombs to detonate a hydrogen bomb. Check out [this site](_URL_0_), you can choose a type of bomb and drop it wherever you want. It will give you a good idea of the damage that it will cause.",
"Is true that potential of a hydrogen bomb is infinite?",
"It depends on the amount of material in each. You could have a look at [this](_URL_0_) though.\n\nEdit: Had a look at other replies deep sea 2 has a link to a better version of this",
"Here's a handy visual calculator. \n\n_URL_0_",
"A nice tool for calculating the effects of various nuclear bombs is _URL_0_. The nicest thing about this tool is that it allows you to enter arbitrarily large custom blasts, although the predictions will become much more inaccurate once you get past about 0.05 to 0.1 gigatons, because an increasingly large percentage of the energy for a real bomb of that size goes to just shoving a bunch of air straight up, rather than causing more destruction on the ground. This is one of the reasons that the USA no longer has operational weapons larger than 1.2 megatons.",
"Nice try, iran.",
"Atom bomb, and nuclear bomb are simple terms for what is really a fission bomb -- a kind of bomb that makes energy by breaking atoms apart. Breaking atoms apart makes HUGE amounts of energy and breaking just a few pounds of atoms apart would make enough energy to destroy a whole city.\n\nA hydrogen bomb is a fusion bomb. Fusion bombs get their energy from smashing atoms together. Fusion bombs need so much energy to get going that they are actually set off by a fission bomb. \n\nWhen we talk about how powerful a fusion bomb or a fission bomb is we talk about \"kilotons\" or \"megatons.\" A kiloton is the same as a thousand tons -- or 2,000,000 pounds -- of TNT. A megaton is the same as a million tons, or 2,000,000,000 pounds of TNT. \n\nThe bombs that the United States used at the end of World War II were about 15 kilotons each; they were fission bombs. The biggest bomb set off during the Cold War (it was a test) was about 50 Metagons.\n\nWhat kind of damage these bombs do depends on where they are set off. To do the most damage the bomb should be set off somewhere in the air over a city. To do less, it could be set off near the ground or WAY up in space. A explosion on the ground would destroy fewer buildings but would leave more fallout -- a special kind of poison that these kinds of bombs create -- behind. An explosion way up in space would destroy almost no buildings but would break sensitive computer equipment over an entire country.\n\nWhat you're probably asking about is a detonation for maximum damage though. You can actually model some of that stuff on the web. [Check this out](_URL_0_)"
]
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amoqj2 | why are baby chickens more independent than other baby birds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amoqj2/eli5_why_are_baby_chickens_more_independent_than/ | {
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"As usual, the answer is genetics: The chicks and ducklings which didn't have the genes for fast growing up didn't survive.\n\nSome birds make their nests in trees, some birds make their nests on the ground. Nests on the ground allow for easy access of predators. The chicks and ducklings which didn't grow up fast enough were more likely to get caught by the predators. Nests in a tree makes it more difficult for predators to catch them, giving the baby birds which don't grow up fast more chance to survive."
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5wlc3w | made up names in the black community | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wlc3w/eli5_made_up_names_in_the_black_community/ | {
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"Most members of the black community in the US can trace their ancestry back to slavery . . . and no further. All they know is that their ancestors came over from Africa as slaves, but not which country they came from. Because of this, they've lost their heritage. They don't know what their original culture was, including what their traditional names might have been. It could be anything at all from any part of Africa.\n\nBecause of this, black communities in the US have trended toward sort of \"inventing\" a new culture from whole cloth. New names and naming patterns end up being created as a substitute for the traditional names that have been lost.",
"All names are made up. Some were invented recently, and some were invented thousands of years ago, but they are *all* made up."
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28goam | why is their lush forests along the equator (where it is hotter), but either side it is desert (where it is cooler)? | Why is there lush forests along the equator (where it is hotter), but either side it is desert (where it is cooler)?
Surely it should be the other way around? You can see the area around the equator, which is hottest, shows lush rainforests.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28goam/eli5_why_is_their_lush_forests_along_the_equator/ | {
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"Because of rain. In the equator season doesn't vary. Sun shines all day long and water evaporates and condenses at night and fall back.",
"Deserts have nothing to do with heat. They have to do with rainfall."
]
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69zbj1 | how can i understand histamines | I'm this middle school kid that wants to create a medicine so allergy can go away. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69zbj1/eli5_how_can_i_understand_histamines/ | {
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"Histamine is a chemical/molecule.\n\nIt is made by our white blood cells primarily (mast cells, basophils, and eosinophils).\n\nIt's most commonly known function is related to allergies.\n\nAllergies are an improper and unnecessarily aggressive response to common and benign molecules in the environment. Our immune system's main function is to discern \"foreign\" things from \"host\" things, and decides whether to treat the foreign things as potentially hostile invaders or leave it alone. For very complex reasons that are not fully understood, the immune system can become reactive to relatively benign foreign things, like pollens. The immune system reacts in many different ways, and one of the most commonly known is the release of histamine.\n\nHistamine released locally (near where the cell that released it is located) causes blood vessels to dilate and become leaky. The leakiness forms swelling and edema. It also stimulates the nerves in that area, creating the sensation of pain and/or itchiness. It also attracts other white blood cells to the area, and sets off a chain of complex inflammatory responses. \n\nIn the lung, histamine causes the muscle around our airways to constrict, which can result in breathing difficulties and respiratory distress. This is why some people with allergies need an inhaler or an Epi-pen.\n\nHow do we combat allergies?\nBy using anti-histamine drugs like Allegra, Zyrtec, and Benadryl. But unfortunately they don't stop the immune response, only block the histamine from performing its functions once released.\nSteroids can also be used to dampen the broad effects of the immune system and inflammation.\n\nAre there other therapies?\nYes. Immunotherapy is a fancy word for frequent injections of the allergen you're allergic to. It has been shown that small and frequent doses consistently given can cause the immune system to normalize and stop treating the allergen so seriously. \n\nIs there prevention from developing allergies?\nHard to say. There are hypotheses that early exposure to common allergens reduces the risk of developing allergies. For instance, a pregnant woman eating peanut butter to prevent the baby from later becoming allergic to it. Or spending more time outside, where you're exposed to numerous pollens.\n\nHope this helps!"
]
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935kjp | why does water form a sphere when in zero gravity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/935kjp/eli5_why_does_water_form_a_sphere_when_in_zero/ | {
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"Because the sphere geometry minimizes the surface tension energy.\n\nIf you split it in two, you'll get two spheres.",
"Water molecules are attracted to each other by Hydrogen bonds because of their polarity. This causes the molecules to want to stick to each other and creates surface tension. A sphere is the result of all those attractive forces pulling the molecules together. ",
"Same reason bubbles form spheres when floating around.\n\nWater molecules are tiny magnets, and they all want to get close to each other.\n\nThe closest they can get is a big round hug, with nobody way out all by their lonesome.\n\nIf you do a bubble a favor and pop it to let the air out, the thin wall of water that used to stretching out over the surface will reform into many much tinier droplet balls, each hugging their neighbors.\n\n_URL_0_"
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174odz | how do mp3's get corrupted and how does the corruption affect the sound of them? | Also, is there any way to fix them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/174odz/eli5_how_do_mp3s_get_corrupted_and_how_does_the/ | {
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"There are various ways that any computer file can get corrupted. It could be badly written initially onto the HDD, SSD or flash memory. It could degrade while resident on any of those storage media. There could be problems with the read circuitry that prevents the file from being read correctly. There could be problems that prevent the file from being transmitted correctly. It could get damaged while it is resident in the computer's RAM. (It's difficult to be more specific without considering the particulars of the situation and how it shows up.) \n \nIn general, if the file shows as being \"corrupted\" it means that the built-in error detection/correction methods that are already there have failed to be able to get a read of the data that is known to be correct, either by matching a \"checksum\" or as an output from an Error Correcting Code. Most OSs then won't deliver the file to an app to do anything with it. It may be possible to find a way to override this and get a copy of its best attempt to read the file, but I'm afraid I can't help with that. \n \nUnless there is something particularly unique and valuable about such a file, the best thing to do would be to get a new copy, from backup or a fresh one. And make sure you make backups of the other files stored in the same place. "
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4gev1q | beta particle decay | How exactly is it that a neutron is "converted" into a proton and an electron is "created"...? And what role do neutrinos play in this whole operation?
I have a basic understanding of other types of radioactive decay and a pretty good handle on general nuclear physics, as well as some introductory knowledge of things like quarks and leptons, if that makes explaining things easier. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gev1q/eli5_beta_particle_decay/ | {
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"So a neutron is composed of two down quarks and an up quark. For one reason or another (dealing with the instability of the nucleus and having more neutrons than necessary), one of the down quarks spontaneously emit a W^- boson. This converts the down quark to an up quark, and therefore converts the neutron to a proton. The W^- boson is unstable, and decays into an electron and an anti-electron neutrino. The antineutrino arises to conserve lepton number, as the electron has a lepton number of 1, and the proton and neutron both have a lepton number of 0, so to balance this you must produce a particle of lepton number -1.\n\nFeynman diagram of the reaction\n_URL_0_"
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4tjvlx | why are there so many issues in which humans can grow extra teeth? | Was reading this [thread](_URL_0_) and there seemed to be a lot of dentists on there saying they had multiple instances where people would complain of teeth pain, thinking they have a cavity and end up having extra teeth coming in! Why is this a thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tjvlx/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_issues_in_which_humans/ | {
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"Before refined diets, and modern dental care, teeth wore out quickly. Teeth were more important than they are now to process uncooked foods. Evolution isn't smart, it just uses the first thing that works. Biochemistry is complex, and \"errors\" happen all the time. Hence false positives are favored for this. Accidental extra teeth is favorable over accidental fewer teeth.",
"Basically one of two things is going on. \n\nOrthodontics- which is the practice of straightening teeth has set a beauty standard and depending on your jaw size you will have teeth extracted, to make room for braces and straightening. Retainers and expanders are the other primary tools to straighten.\n\nEvolution and genetics- our ancient ancestors used to eat a lot hard fibrous plants which made a third set of molars called \"Wisdom Teeth\" in the back of the mouth useful. Well we don't need them anymore so we take them out as they also will ruin $10K worth of orthodontics. Finally birth defects and genealogy play big roles in teeth formation . Genetics will determine the number of adult teeth, shape of teeth, root structure and code for any oddballs which happen. Common mouth birth defect is a cleft palate where the mouth/lip/jaw don't form correctly resulting in a defect."
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ebrs57 | why do unopened plastic water bottles do that “squishy” thing? | I really hope someone knows what I’m talking about, as it’s extremely hard to explain without visual aid.
I often handle unopened plastic water bottles at my place of work, and some of them, when you hold them, the plastic is almost malleable? it feels like of like you’re holding water, but not water? The only way I can describe it is “squishy”.
Again, I’m incredibly sorry for the poor description, but I hope someone knows the answer to this, as I’m clearly clueless.
EDIT: Once you open the bottle, the plastic returns to its original strength, almost like carbonation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ebrs57/eli5_why_do_unopened_plastic_water_bottles_do/ | {
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"I’ve always assumed it was just a thinner type of plastic. But interested to hear from someone who actually knows lol",
"Like when you try to open it it just squishes?",
"I got one of those last week. I think it is because it got squished somehow just as the lid was put on. When I opened it, it had less water than the other bottles. Same thing though, plastic returned to original strength.",
"I would assume that it has to do with internal pressure... but I have to admit that I don't actually know.",
"Bottles that have the squish tend to have little to no air inside the bottle. The squish is because of the water moving with out the resistance of air... Once you open it, and allow air into the bottle the bottle losses it's squish bc of the air pressure. Does that make sense? It's hard to explain lol!"
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44mglg | how can male ejaculation have such a difference in force? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44mglg/eli5how_can_male_ejaculation_have_such_a/ | {
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"Lots of factors are involved in semen ejaculation. I'll list a few of them:\n\n-Muscle strength, muscle build\n-Stimulation, extent of stimulation\n-Testosterone and other hormone levels that would regulate semen production\n-Semen quantity and quality which would determine how the muscles and other juices interact with it\n-The man's state of mind at that time which also partly depends on hormones\n\nAlso, it's not like all or any of these factors are independent. They are all dependent and the end result depends on how the interaction happened.\n\nWhich is why, you only need to focus on a couple of factors to actually ejaculate well (or make your partner ejaculate well). Be a normal human and enjoy sex, foreplay and after-sex.\n"
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5jz6dy | my chemistry doubt since ages ? | Nobody actually ever gave me a satisfactory answer. It may sound stupid but here it is.
When we say electron revolves around neutron do we mean it literally? And if we take an element say for eg carbon and super magnify it then can we actually see it revolving????
Edit: Thank you everyone for your time and effort! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jz6dy/elif_my_chemistry_doubt_since_ages/ | {
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"No, and no. The model of atoms as being small solar systems with small things rapidly spinning around a larger things is a simplification that is wrong. \n\nIt's called the Bohr model, and is considered outdated as far as I know, though I'd say it does have it's merits, as it is illustrative. \n\n\"How does it work, then?\" \n\nWell, I don't really know. I'm bad at physics, so hopefully someone may come along and flesh out the answer. ",
"No. In actuality, when you begin to deal with quantum particles, macroscopic intuition falls apart. Electrons, neutrons and protons aren't little balls. They don't have definite volume. Due to their wave-like nature, their momentum and position cannot both be known; the more accurately you know one of them, the more uncertain the other (Uncertainty Principle, note that it has nothing to do with the observer effect).\n\nSo electrons exist in an electron cloud around the atom, which defines the probability that the electron could be in position. The electron cloud in fact technically extends infinitely.",
"Unfortunately, no. Atoms aren't that simple. \n\nTo begin with, we can't really *see* electrons and neutrons because they're too small (size of the same order of magnitude as light wavelengths, for the physics savvy) and their properties are such that they don't interact with light the way larger objects do. \n\nBecause we can't actually see them, all our models and theories on atomic structure are based on how matter behaves when exposed to certain stimuli, such as x-rays for example. From their behaviour, we can sort of guess what the subatomic space looks like or what's in there. \n\nAlso, electrons move at very, very high velocities. So when we say that electrons revolve around neutrons and protons, it's actually a cloud of electrons whizzing around the nucleus. We're sure that they're there, but it's impossible to pinpoint their location or anything like that. \n\nEdit: a word",
" > When we say electron revolves around neutron do we mean it literally?\n\nI think you mean nucleus instead of neutron and, no, electrons do not literally orbit the nucleus. Instead they exist in a sort of probability cloud. That is to say, they move and there some places they're more likely to be in others, but it's not in an orbital pattern in the same way that the earth moves around the sun.\n\n > And if we take an element say for eg carbon and super magnify it then can we actually see it revolving????\n\nNo, because they don't orbit like that. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle also prevents this. The more you know about a position of a particle, the less you know about it's momentum. So you can have a good idea of where an electron is at some point without knowing much about it's momentum or you can have a good idea of what an electron's momentum is, but you can't know where it is."
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qly3x | the arguments now being made against kony 2012/invisible children | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qly3x/eli5_the_arguments_now_being_made_against_kony/ | {
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"Toppling a leader does not resolve the underlying issue (and has the potential to lead to greater turmoil - known evil of Kony vs. unknown evil of the next person to step up).\n\nEDIT: For [this link](_URL_0_) to Visible Children.",
"The Ugandan army, the one they are arming and assisting, is doing things just as bad as Kony, and Kony2012 is using most of the money they bring in for film making and propaganda.",
"They advocate fighting Kony to stop what he's doing or rather, was doing since he hasn't been recruiting child soldiers en masse since 2006. He still does, but not to the degree the film suggests.\n\nInvisible Children, in their mission to save children, advocate using military force against Kony and his army *of children*.\n\nLiterally: kill children to stop someone from killing children.",
"I think the guy who made the film about Kony should do an AMA so reddit can ask him about these questions!",
"Honestly I feel major countries have bigger things to worry about than one guy that may be affecting only a few thousand people. \n\nI am not saying he is right or this is ok. And I am not saying he is the only one doing this. I am saying the US or European countries should not go into the jungles of Africa hunting down the Hundreds of Knoy's out there. \n\nWe have more important tasks at hand. Last thing we need is another war, especially not a guerrilla type war. ",
"Uganda has claimed that Kony has not been a significant problem in recent years and restarting a war probably isn't the best way to solve the problems in Africa. That money could be spent on better food, water shelter and education that might prevent this kind of behavior in the future.\n\nThere is also the slippery slope argument that says, if America goes in to fight a war its not directly a part of and gains little from it what will stop the people from demanding more armed conflict.\n\nThere is also the idea that funding more foreign wars is not in the best interest of most economies at the moment. \n\nThe Ugandan government has had a history of human rights abuse them selves. There has been a push inside the country to have the death penitently for homosexuality. \n\nSome people do think its fare picking sides in a war, especially when there is a rich history or turmoil between these groups in other forms. Some might say that these individuals might not understand the peoples historical positions intricately enough to make the best decision. \n\nOthers claims that Uganda should solves it own problems for it will be a better nation because of it.\n\nSome claim that war doesn't stop war.\nSome claim that there are many systemic reasons why people like Kony gain a position and do what he did and in order to stop future Kony's solutions to those problems should be examined. \n\nSome claim the video is sensational and appeals to the viewers emotions rather then analysis the problem, or place it in a historical context.\n\nSome also see more support for war than for famine relief in other parts of Africa as \"evil\"\n\nMost people I have talked to who do not support it think that Kony should be taken to justice some how, but it is not appropriate for America to directly attack him nor fund it. These are not all my views but they are some of the arguments I have heard.",
"An organization called \"Invisible Children\" released [this](_URL_0_) video asking for support against an abusive leader of Uganda named \"Kony\" who uses a police force called the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) to do his dirty business, harming many citizens and children in Uganda. Often, this is done in the name of Christianity. Nobody sane is defending Kony and his corruptness and genocide, but the Invisible Children organization has been getting a ton of heat. \n\n1: Invisible Children's video has little to no information, and tries to tug at your emotions much more than describe how to fix the issue, or explain it in detail. Basically, the problem could be summed up in one paragraph and they take a half hour in order to strictly manufacture passion (as well as sell you merchandise).\n\n2: The video isn't entirely studious. For political reasons the LRA is never referred to as \"Lord's Resistance Army\" and it fails to mention that there is no evidence of Kony Being alive since 2006, all among other things.\n\n3: The obvious promotion of their goods is what many would call disgusting. When you buy a bracelet or t-shirt etc. from their site, almost all of it goes into their pocket. It's not donated to Ugandans.\n\n4: The video expresses support for US Military intervention and neo-conservatism. This makes you ask, why specifically Uganda out of all the countries in the Eastern world with corruption and genocide? Is it really the United States's job to intervene? Shouldn't Uganda, their surrounding countries, The African Union or United Nations be responsible? Also, wouldn't going in \"just the kill Kony and get out\" turn into another Iraq? Let me remind you that we went into iraq \"just to kill Bin-Laden\" and it costed trillions."
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34qbpv | why is money such a taboo topic? | Why is the subject of salaries so taboo, even amongst friends? I don't care if people know what I make, so I can't understand why it's such a taboo topic. Even talking about how much people pay for rent and such seems to be against social rules, which seems ridiculous to me.
As an American, I wonder if it's just an American thing. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34qbpv/eli5_why_is_money_such_a_taboo_topic/ | {
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"people don't want to find out they make less than someone else, its fairly natural. Its a pretty universal thing, no one likes being ashamed. If you're hanging out with friends and money comes up, and one of you makes a lot less its going to be awkward. Money and religion are two topics that discussing never leads to anything good. (Money in the sense of how much people have/earn, its fine in other contexts) ",
"Its not just an American thing. But in Israel asking someones salary or age are not considered rude questions. Though it may have something to do with the culture of honesty even at the cost of insult.",
"Because a huge part of society judges people based on how much money they earn. Learning that you make less money than someone else can be a big hit on your self esteem. And some people will treat you worse when they learn that you make less money than them.\n\n",
"I had some friends (we've regrettably fallen out of contact) who were living dirt poor at the time. For the most part it was never an issue, it's not like I hung out with them to exchange wine tasting stories, but whenever we went to a bar, or somebody wanted to go out to eat there was a definite shadow looming overhead. Oftentimes they would cook for guests and you /knew/ that eating any of their food was a strain on their budget. Some of our mutual friends would talk about how rude it was for them to be put in the awkward position of eating their food. \n\nOne day one of the two pulled me aside and thanked me. I always ate food when they offered, turns out I was the only one. Everybody else was \"too polite\" and it made them feel like shit. Now I never gorged myself on their hospitality, but it turns out it was a pretty big deal to them to be able to host friends and provide an environment that (while sometimes pressing their means) compensated for the fact that they couldn't go out/down town or to pricey events. They knew they didn't have money, they did what they could socially, and that was that. \n\nThe reason its taboo to talk about money is because no matter how much you like a friend, coworker or employer, there is a dollar figure where you /will/ behave differently.",
"I think where you are has quite a bit of an effect. In the UK it's a taboo subject where it's not discussed. We were once talking and both of my 2 close friends didn't know what their parents made or how much money they had.\n\nI'm from Turkey and it's completely different there. Relatives especially will know what each other makes. I know what my parents make, how much money they have in savings etc. because it's all in the open."
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2qb8w1 | are the kamchatkan languages similar at all to northwestern native american languages? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qb8w1/eli5_are_the_kamchatkan_languages_similar_at_all/ | {
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"Kamchatkan languages are part of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family. It doesn't have any known relations to other families, but there are some (not widely accepted) theories that would have it very distantly related to Eskimo-Aleut languages.\n\nPractically speaking, they aren't very similar in any tangible way."
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4vfksd | why is russia vs. usa still a thing? | Reading about [the recent claims that Russia is still meddling in US politics vis-à-vis the DNC email hack](_URL_0_)
why is this rivalry still a thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vfksd/eli5_why_is_russia_vs_usa_still_a_thing/ | {
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"The United States and Russia both want to be the most powerful country in the largest amount of areas. This would obviously bring them into conflict, since they want the other country to be less powerful than them. \n\nMeanwhile, there's really no reason for the rivalry to have ended. The breakup of the Soviet Union doesn't erase the fact that the United States and Russia have deeply, deeply distrusted each other's governments for about a century. What *would* erase it is if Russia started cooperating in a more friendly way with the United States and got a lot of benefit out of it. Russia and the United States gave it the old college try in the 1990s, but it didn't quite work out. Instead, the Russian economy flagged while the Russian public got to watch the United States undergo a terrorist attack, a few costly wars in the Middle East, and successive financial crises. The general impression in Russia was \"Hold on, why are we bending over backwards to work with these clearly incompetent people when instead we can strike out on our own? Maybe win a few countries out from under their thumb?\" So, we're back to the United States and Russia at each other's throats. "
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m0h41 | the platforms of the major candidates for the 2012 us presidential election in an unbiased format | I have been dismally remiss in my duties as a tax-paying citizen of the US in doing my due research into presidential candidates for the upcoming election. I was hoping that this community could help me to understand the platforms and party affiliations of the major candidates in an unbiased, factual format so that I could make an informed decision. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m0h41/eli5_the_platforms_of_the_major_candidates_for/ | {
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"Just because it isn't next month, does that mean that I can't ask for honest help on this right now? Also, neither of these responses are helpful in any way, shape, or form, which is the purpose of this subreddit. People ask questions; other people give answers. If you don't want to be helpful, then don't respond.",
"Just because it isn't next month, does that mean that I can't ask for honest help on this right now? Also, neither of these responses are helpful in any way, shape, or form, which is the purpose of this subreddit. People ask questions; other people give answers. If you don't want to be helpful, then don't respond."
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8velwz | how do tv shows and movies create "younger" versions of actors/actresses for flashbacks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8velwz/eli5_how_do_tv_shows_and_movies_create_younger/ | {
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"Depends on the range shift. For a few years, makeup and airbrushing can do a lot.\n\nFor very extreme times, a second actor may be needed. Childhood flashbacks would use this primarily.\n\nFor flashforwards, makeup will be the biggest one, and prosthetics as well if they're going for really older. "
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49bpmi | why do people have to swear under oath? if they're willing to lie, they'll do it with or without the oath. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49bpmi/eli5_why_do_people_have_to_swear_under_oath_if/ | {
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"If you lie while under oath, you're guilty of [perjury](_URL_0_), which is a felony in the United states, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. If you lie in your day-to-day life, you're just an asshole exercising the 1st Amendment.",
"I think it's more for the system wherein if they are found to be lying under oath, then they can be charged with perjury (willfully delivering a false oath (or affirmation)). If they didn't swear under oath and they lied, they can't be charged with perjury.",
"Lying is not inherently against the law. You are well within your civil rights to not tell the truth. However once you are under oath lying becomes a criminal matter. If you are caught lying under oath you can be found in contempt of court and you can be charged for perjury. Bill Clinton was almost impeached because of these very laws.",
"It's a formal declaration stating that you will tell the truth. It negate any chance that you could say \"I didn't know I couldn't lie\"\n\nThat's why you swear on something you believe in I. E. Your faith in your god (s) or you attest (like I do) \"*I do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that the evidence that I shall give, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the name of our sovereign lady Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and all dominions overseas*.\"",
"I think swearing on a bible is ridiculous. As an atheist it holds as much sway as swearing on a roll of Charmin. But the Charmin is squeezable."
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zrd3t | the news is confusing me, how does a bill create jobs? | Maybe itl help with jobs by making it easier to get them, or maybe itl lower money somewhere somehow. But I don't know how people can make bills that will make jobs without making companies or work that needs to be done. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zrd3t/the_news_is_confusing_me_how_does_a_bill_create/ | {
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"I know of three ways, but there are possibly others too. For one, government can introduce tax deductions and other relieving measures so an employer has more money left with which he can employ more people. Other form of job creation through government is public infrastructure spending where they announce/push lets say road building and lots of companies and people through them get to work. Third measure is through banking which can be any of various measures (varies from country to country - if there is central banking or not etc...), but most common are through making lending to companies cheaper, so they can borrow money for less and create new opportunities, jobs, expand their business...",
"I don't believe the government can create any kind of productive job, but here's what Obama says when he says they 'created jobs':\n\nThe government pays lots of people to do work. This is called the public sector, and includes people like teachers or road builders. A bill can create jobs by making the government employ people.\n\nA bill can also make it possible for more people to get jobs at companies. So if you lower taxes or regulations on a company, it has more money to spend so it can employ more people, which also creates jobs. \n\nSimilarly, you can give a company a 'subsidy' which is where you just give them some money to lower the price of their product. Then more people will buy that product, and together with the government's money that's enough to cover the lowering of the price. But that means the company's going to need to produce more, so they have to employ more people, so jobs are created.\n\nIt is also possible to 'create jobs' by lowering interest rates. The Federal Reserve lends money to banks at a very low interest rate, and they then lend that money to businesses. In theory, if you lower interest rates further, it becomes cheaper for the bank to borrow money so they lower their own interest rates, so businesses can borrow more money more easily. If businesses can borrow money more easily, then they can employ more people. However, interest rates are already very low, and lowering them causes inflation because there's more money around so prices go up anyway.\n\nIf you would like to understand any of the problems with these ideas, then please ask and I'll answer as well as I can.",
"Holy shit, you think \"**itl**\" is a real word",
"The answer is: indirectly.\n\nSuppose you have a fish tank with fish in it. You carefully adjust the temperature, pH value, and the plants in it. It is possible that you can make conditions favorable for the breeding of more fish.\n\nThat's what monetary policy is - playing with money, inflation, interest rates, and so on, in an attempt to create conditions favorable to job creation. Job creation is just what happens when business grows and they need more people."
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lq8ri | how snot/boogers/(whatever you call them) are produced | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lq8ri/eli5_how_snotboogerswhatever_you_call_them_are/ | {
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"You know how you get sick sometimes? The reason you're not always sick is because your body has ways of fighting off the bad things that make you feel like poop. This is called your immune system.\n\nOne of the ways your immune system fights things off is by stopping these things getting inside your body in the first place. The reason you get boogers is because one of the ways your immune system stops things getting inside of you is by making walls of snot that protect the entrances to the inside of your body. These are known as mucous layers. Mucous layers are basically just a physical line of defense against nasty stuff. Picture a wall of slime. If you throw a ball at it the ball is likely to get stuck in the slime and then drip off on to the ground. That's pretty much how the one in your nose works. It's there so the bugs get stuck in it and fall out of your nose.",
"You know how you get sick sometimes? The reason you're not always sick is because your body has ways of fighting off the bad things that make you feel like poop. This is called your immune system.\n\nOne of the ways your immune system fights things off is by stopping these things getting inside your body in the first place. The reason you get boogers is because one of the ways your immune system stops things getting inside of you is by making walls of snot that protect the entrances to the inside of your body. These are known as mucous layers. Mucous layers are basically just a physical line of defense against nasty stuff. Picture a wall of slime. If you throw a ball at it the ball is likely to get stuck in the slime and then drip off on to the ground. That's pretty much how the one in your nose works. It's there so the bugs get stuck in it and fall out of your nose."
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] |
||
1vxtrx | why do banks hold money when i use my card at a gas pump? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vxtrx/eli5_why_do_banks_hold_money_when_i_use_my_card/ | {
"a_id": [
"cewso1x",
"cewttcy",
"cewu3mn"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I've never had this happen to me, but I'm guessing your bank does it to ensure you have the proper funds. Ie, they hold on to $150 to make sure you have the available funds before you start to fill up, then return whatever you don't spend.",
"I work at a gas station. They only hold on to $150 if you use it as debit. Always use it as credit, it only checks if you have $1. Plus, the refunds if you pay at the register are almost instant.",
"Because the gas station doesn't know how much gas you need ahead of time. You could be putting $5 in, or you could have a huge truck with two tanks that costs $150 to fill. To hedge their risk, they place a hold for the upper end on your card, then correct it when you're done filling up."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
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