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a977dd | why is there a need for both "ip" and "mac" addressees to exist? | edit: thanks for the help guys
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a977dd/eli5_why_is_there_a_need_for_both_ip_and_mac/ | {
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"My very basic understanding is that MAC is like a devices serial number. Where IP can be reassigned. It's like you're living in a house. The mac is you and the ip address is your house's adress. If you move, your mac stays the same even though your IP address may change....... I may be totally wrong.",
"Mac is who you are. IP is where you are. It’s same reason you have both a social security number and an address. ",
"Mac addresses came first, back when computer networking was almost entirely a local-area thing. They are hard-coded into the hardware and in no particular order. There is no way to tell from mac addresses whether two computers are on the same section of a network. That's fine when you only have a few computers. But as you get more and more computers, you start needing to segment your network because the shared bus* gets crowded and congested. So, they designed an IP addressing scheme, which was hierarchical and configured by software. The first part of the address defined which network segment you were on and the last bit pointed to your specific computer. \n\nThere's also the issue of encapsulation. Computer networking relies on independent layers being able to do their job without any assistance from the layers above, or need to meddle with the layers below. The mac address is used by one layer, and the ip address is used by the layer above that. Think of it like hiring a taxi; you tell the driver where you want to end up and they figure out how to get there. \n\nFinally, ip addresses are often configured remotely, by a central server. So each computer needs some OTHER unique identifier so they know the server message of 'this is your ip address' is meant for that computer and not some other one on the same network. Long ago, it was common to shutdown a computers when it wasn't in use, so at the start of the work day, every computer is going to be powering up and asking for an ip address at around the same time. \n\n\\* the shared bus is a space where all the communications flow through. Often it was just a network cable that computers were connected to in some fashion. ",
"There isn't a \"need\" in the sense that we couldn't have computer networks without two forms of addressing. But the current model is a layered model where what happens at one layer doesn't care about anything happening at another layer. This allows people to design protocols, services, and applications without worrying about what's happening below or above the area they need to worry about.\n\nA result of this is you have things like multiple forms of addressing at different layers. The MAC layer doesn't care about the IP layer and vice versa, but each needs a form of addressing.",
"Historical reasons, really.\n\nThe usual arrangement is that you have an Ethernet network - a bunch of computers using the Ethernet protocol to talk to each other, which uses MAC addresses. Then that's connected to another network (your ISP's) which is then connected to a bunch of others, and IP is used to talk across the combined network. They don't all have to be Ethernet, though it's very common these days.\n\nSay you have a couple of Ethernet switches between you and your home router. When your computer wants to send a packet to Google, it puts the data inside an IP packet (addressed to Google), and then it puts that packet inside an Ethernet packet (addressed to your home router) and then it sends that. It's like having a letter inside an envelope inside another envelope.\n\n* The first switch looks at the Ethernet packet, goes \"oh, this is for the router\" and sends it to the second switch.\n* The second switch looks at the Ethernet packet, goes \"oh, this is for the router\" and sends it to the router.\n* The router looks at the Ethernet packet, goes \"oh, this is for me\" and so it opens it up.\n* The router looks at the IP packet, goes \"oh, this is for Google.\"\n* The router sends the IP packet on to your ISP... but first, it puts it back inside a new Ethernet packet (addressed to your ISP's router, from your router).\n* And so on.\n\nThe reason this came about is that originally, there were a bunch of *totally different* kinds of networks in use, and IP was designed to interconnect them all, and the way they did that was by having each router convert the packet into whatever the next network needs, while leaving the IP part intact. IP was designed to work on networks that don't have MAC addresses, and MAC addresses were designed for traffic that isn't IP. Nowadays, most networks are some variation of Ethernet, and most traffic is IP, so it's almost totally redundant.\n\nAlso note that, back when IP was invented, there were no IP addresses and MAC addresses were actually used for sending non-IP traffic.\n\nIf the system were to be redesigned from scratch today, we probably wouldn't have MAC addresses, only IP addresses. We'd be using something similar to Ethernet networks, but sending the IP packet directly without another envelope, and every device would know to look at the IP address to figure out where the packet should go.\n\n"
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34hr8s | why do my ears start ringing when it's too quiet at night? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34hr8s/eli5_why_do_my_ears_start_ringing_when_its_too/ | {
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"Well mommy and daddy told you not to listen music so loud, but you little kid didn't listen them. You probably went to some fancy parties and listened that music even more louder. So now you have tinnitus. \n\nSo if you have listened any loud noise, your nearby ear tissue might have gone broken, there is malfunction in your ear/brain. Insomnia can cause this too, or make the ringing worse. If you run out of magnesium in your body, that can cause it too."
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3rurre | why do your ears itch when you have a sore throat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rurre/eli5why_do_your_ears_itch_when_you_have_a_sore/ | {
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"The internal hardware for your ear and throat are adjacent, so a lot of nerves tend to get twisted up between the two, leading to what's called [Referred Pain](_URL_0_). It's effectively a glitch in the nervous system. ",
"I have never experienced this but my best theory would be the link between your ears and your pharynx which could be part of your sore throat. (Even based on it's close anatomical proximity). Basically this tube connects the inner ear to the pharynx (just above the throat) and irritation of the area could irritate the tubes and give the sensation of itch. ",
"Medical Student here: there is a tube that leads to ear from your throat that helps even out the pressure, when you have a sore throat, that tube gets blocked and pressure slightly builds in your ear which your sense as an itch.\n\nIt's called a (_URL_0_)[Eustachian tube] if you want to look it up"
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buafn6 | how did old timey torches work? how did they burn for so long? how did the fire not just burn down the stick? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/buafn6/eli5_how_did_old_timey_torches_work_how_did_they/ | {
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"They were often wrapped in a cloth soaked in some sort of oil or pitch.\n\nTar was common, so was tree pitch. Inuit cultures and Norwegians used seal and whale fat. It burned an extremely long time but didnt actually burn down the torch itself",
"There is actually not much difference between a thousand year old torch and a modern burning torch. The materials is different and the modern ones are better constructed but their basic principle is the same. The cloth used in a torch is not actually used as fuel. It is used to help reinforce the structure of the torch and to wick the fuel to the fire. To fuel a torch you would use any sort of oil like substance that need a wick to burn. For example olive oil, tar, animal fat, pitch. You would soak the cloth on the end of the stick in a pot of liquid fuel. So you would have a thick lump of fuel on the end of your stick with some cloth holding it together. When you set fire to it the fuel would evaporate from the cloth and the gasses would burn. The fire is quite small compared to what you might get the impression of in movies and the fuel can last for up to an hour before you have to remake the torch."
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38jsd7 | what exactly does a "multinational investment banking firm" like goldman sachs do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38jsd7/eli5_what_exactly_does_a_multinational_investment/ | {
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"The short answer is that almost everything related to finance is something that they do. The slightly longer answer is that the do investment banking, trading, brokerage, financial analysis, private equity, etc. Pretty much the only thing they don't do is insurance. The even longer answer would be to explain what each of those things mean."
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5oxodv | why are people typing & & ' ? | I keep seeing & & ' typed in a couple peoples post since this morning. Urban dictionary says & & is something from myspace that people type to be random. Since I only started seeing this today and with the ' after it seems to be something much more current than myspace. It just seemed odd to me, thought maybe reddit might know. Here's 2 examples I saw on my feed.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5oxodv/eli5why_are_people_typing/ | {
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"That's used in several computer programming languages to identify a logic argument, in this case “AND.” It shows that both statements are true."
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5y57m5 | why does half and half in containers not have to be refrigerated? how come it can be left out for days while milk has to always be kept cold? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y57m5/eli5_why_does_half_and_half_in_containers_not/ | {
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"Are you sure you're not referring to non-dairy creamers? Half and half most certainly needs to refrigerated. ",
"Dairy creamer is sealed, then irradiated to sterilize it. With no oxygen, the any bacteria that survive can't reproduce.",
"Milk has to be kept cold because it is not completely sterilized, as that would ruin the taste. It's sterilized enough to prevent bacterial growth for a few weeks if refrigerated.\n\nHalf-and-half creamers can be completely sterilized - you won't notice the ruined taste as you're only putting a little in your coffee. It's sealed sterile, so no bacteria can get in. I bet if you opened one of the creamers and left it out, it would spoil.\n\nAs a note, you can buy fully sterilized milk that can be stored on the shelf for months before opening. It's more popular in Europe than the U.S. It just tastes kind of weird."
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co7v5p | why are albums more likely to be leaked a few days before their release date? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/co7v5p/eli5why_are_albums_more_likely_to_be_leaked_a_few/ | {
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"Because they usually are in stores before the release date making it easy for people to get their hands on them and distribute. This is also the case with promo copies sent out to radio stations, etc.",
"More people have access to the albums at that time and more people are interested in it, in addition some of the \"leaks\" are publicity stunts to promote the music."
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4v4ocx | why are there over 100,000 children in the us up for adoption, and the average wait time to adopt over a year? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v4ocx/eli5why_are_there_over_100000_children_in_the_us/ | {
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"I think you have to jump through a lot of hoops to be approved to adopt. They don't want to just hand the kids out to anyone who says they want them (they could just be a pedophile etc...). ",
"1) Weed out the creeps.\n2) Weed out those who are really serious.\n3) Determine whether or not prospective parents are terrorists.\n4) Government funding.\n5) Racial preferences of children. (not popular but exists, hate me in comments)\n6) The discrepancy between locations of prospective adopters vs adoptees.\n7) Red tape.\n\nI think I could go on.",
"The most \"in demand\" adoptable children are white newborns, with a preference for girls over boys. The least in demand children are older children of color and children with special needs. So there ends up being a lot of kids without people to adopt them, while there are other kids who a large number of people want to adopt, and they have to wait a long time. \n\nThere is also a lot of red tape--applications, funds, home visits etc. Plus a woman who wants to adopt out her baby is likely pregnant when she realizes this so there's got to be a wait until the baby is born.",
"Because the people who want to adopt are typically looking for white, healthy infants, and the kids in need of home are often older, minority, and have health or behavioral issues.",
"Also, those 100,000 kids are spread out over the entire U.S. It's not like there's a central database of available kids and prospective parents that draw from the same pool.",
"There are several reasons for this. The largest factor is that adoption is a long process. It usually involves a state social services department getting involved because of child neglect or something similar, foster care, and then a vetting process for possible adoptive parents, and a petition process through the court. Second, the kids that are \"up for adoption\" often are older foster kids that are not in high demand for adoption. These kids might grow up in the foster system and never be adopted. There is high demand for young children, especially newborns (unfortunately white ones) and lower demand for older kids and those of non white races. ",
"Everything that's been said so far (ehzstreet handled most of it really well) but there's also 1.) mental and physical disabilities which many of the children have; many are not really eligible for adoption because agencies and the foster care system doesn't want them to be adopted. 2. Time. Time. Time. Especially with adopting older children they don't want to force a child into a new permanent home suddenly - it's bad enough when they're forced to change foster homes but that's not permanent. Trying to integrate the new child into the household is a long process ",
"I have worked in the foster care system and I'm an adoptive parent. So many of the kids in foster care have been abused and neglected that they have severe behavioral problems and emotional struggles, yet parents looking to adopt are often looking for \"normal children.\" This creates a problem with (and I hate to phrase it this way) supply and demand. Then take into account the red tape and it becomes a cumbersome process. \n\nI realize that it's only my experience, but in the year I spent working in foster care I saw 23 adoptions begin and only 1 finalize. Potential adoptive parents are often not prepared for the struggles the children have and they are (at least in Michigan) able to walk away, no questions asked, until the judge drops the gravel. \n\nFailed adoptions only cause more emotional problems for kids who feel unwanted. It's a vicious cycle. \n\nEdit: added a thought I had after posting. ",
"A lot of children have at least some trauma from their experiences. Most children are not infant new borns that will \"imprint\" on whoever cares for them. \n\nThe majority carry heavy emotional burdens, which severely undermines they're ability to find parents willing to deal with that.\n\nMy mom does social work, and the number of parents that fall in love with a kid, and then turn around and drop them like a piece of used garbage when they learn the darling little boy they found was removed from his birth parents because of things like sexual abuse, drug abuse, or violence is pretty sickening. \n\nTo be totally frank, people don't want \"damaged goods\". It's heart breaking, and is one of the many reasons I really advocate for people to seek adoption, and to be open when they hear a child they're looking at has seen abuse. Oftentimes going home to a loving family that will work through the aftermath is the only way to actually heal the kids wounds. ",
"In the words of James Caan, \"Great, so we'll take a kid that's not so desirable. You got a black kid? We'll take a black kid. You got a chink kid?\nNobody likes older kids. You got an eight-year old black chink kid, we'll take him.\"\n",
"Another point is that adoption SHOULD NOT be too easy.\n\nI mean, they could set up a drive-through, but i think we all see the problem right here.",
"The older and more difficult children are less likely to be adopted. Children often come from bad homes and suffer behavioral issues, drug and alcohol problems and mental illness. Most families lack the knowledge and patience needed. I'd imagine the adoption process is lengthy because the parents have to be vetted. No point letting someone adopt if they aren't financially secure or generally stable. ",
"What happens to someone who isn't adopted by age 18?",
"Most of the kids are \"damaged goods\", sorry for the horrible metaphor.\n\nCrack babies, fetal alcohol syndrome, sexual abuse, physical abuse, etc. And then there is the problem of people wanting to adopt specific genders and races, and not wanting to adopt an older child.\n\nAnd then a lot of them have disabilities. Most people don't want to knowingly start with a disabled kid. \n\nThe majority of these kids have zero chance of being adopted.",
"I don't have an answer for the ELI5, but for anyone reading this thread who is considering adoption and is cautious of all the \"red tape\" answers please still strongly consider. Not adopted myself, but we adopted my 3 siblings out of foster care who came from a horrible situation. Yes, there was a lot of red tape but seeing those kids grow up in a normal functioning home is one of the happiest feelings on the planet. ",
"My husband and I adopted. We ended up adopting through foster and adopted our then 4 year old daughter who is now almost 12. Its such a long process because the state and government want to make sure your sane, level headed people, with a stable happy relationship, well established work, a support system (family and friends) and that you have no criminal past. You do a home study, background check, finger printing, classes, etc. Once all thats reafy then the wait for the right match. In our case we tried infant adoption of any racial background, were matched and after 4 long months of preparing to parent the birth Mom changed her mind. So we started over again and went to the state and were given our daughter who is classified special needs, she has FASD and RAD. Almost 8 years later she is doing great and well adjusted. Adoption is simply a long process for the safety of the child. \n\nWe were told by so many people NOT to adopted an older special needs child. Its been a VERY hard road but we are doing well. She is high fuctioning. Were very lucky!!! \n\nAdopted an older child is not an easy task and not for most people. \n\nIgnore typos, im tired!!",
"A big part is money. I seriously looked into adopting when I was a single, 40-year old white male. I had no age, gender or race preference. I knew I couldn't handle a special needs child alone, so that was out. I was referred to a good adoption attorney who sat down with me and ran the numbers.\n\nSince I was an outlier in terms of potential adoptees (single, male, 40 yo), there was a chance I'd never even get the *chance* to adopt. But if I could, I was looking at about $75-80K, all told. And this was in the early 2000's. \n\nI didn't whether to laugh or cry. I certainly never considered adoption after that. ",
"What has always confused me is that anyone, even deadbeat people with no job, income, or prospects of any kind, can have a kid. But when it comes to adopting, unless you have a PhD / cured cancer, it's a nightmare to go through the process.\n\nAlmost anyone would provide a better environment for a kid than an orphanage, so I don't understand being so incredibly strict in the process. ",
"My aunt and uncle [45 & 50] are looking to adopt a second child. Their first adoption in USA was 10 years ago. The red tape was crazy extensive and it was heart breaking every time a mother changed her mind. They finally decided to adopt from overseas and Kazakhstan fit the bill. It was the fastest adoption I had ever seen. [I was 18 when it was finalised.]\nNow they want to adopt an older boy about the same age as their daughter [10]. They are trying again through the US system and its again been an exhausting process. They aren't expecting a white child but would like an older boy. Seems impossible in the US system.\n\nNote [my dad is the oldest of 4 children in the family. My dad and this aunt are 10 years apart. That's why I was 18 when she was 35.]",
"I am a foster and adoptive parent. I've also worked in the juvenile/family court system. An issue that I haven't seen mentioned here is that many of the children available for adoption through the foster care system have siblings. The kids retain sibling rights, so most agencies are required to have siblings adopted altogether by the same family. However, most potential adopters do not want, or can not care for an immediate \"large\" family.\n\nIf you are interested in becoming a foster or adoptive parent, google your state's **\"waiting children\"**. Most states maintain a type of online catalog of children and families needed permanent homes. (Get ready for some feels.) These websites will also help you understand the process of adopting or fostering.\n\nIf you want to help, but cannot take on the role of foster or adoptive parent, consider volunteering with an agency like Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Or, if you know of an adoptive or foster family in your neighborhood, just offer to help them out. Bring dinner over. Or offer to watch the kids for free one evening so the parents can get a night out. One good friend just showed up one day with two bikes that she had found at garage sales. Since we had just taken in two more kids from foster care, it was a great help to us. Ask around. You *will* find families in need who really will appreciate your help.",
" > the average wait time to adopt over a year?\n\nSimply put, if you are going to be given a child, we need to make sure you would be a fit parent.",
"Because everyone wants to adopt a 3-month old angelic white baby, but the kids in foster care are more likely to be 13-year-old abused black kids with behavioral problems.",
"Man this is seriously sad, this post has me in tears, I was born in a normal family and raised well just because I was lucky enough to be born to functional parents, these kids through no fault of their own end up so unlucky. ",
"Most of the available kids up for adoption aren't \"normal\". The normal kids are either kept by the parents, or adopted extremely quickly because they are in high demand. The rest are developmentally delayed or have birth defects. No one wants to spend tens of thousands on adoption, then spend tens to hundreds of thousands more to care for the special needs. Most of the long term orphans are just damaged goods, and most adoptive parents don't want that. They just want a normal kid that has been abandoned, but that is rather rare for the long term. The normal kids get snatched up quickly, the rest spend their lives in foster care. Don't feel bad for the kids that come from 14-17 year old mothers that can't take care of their kids. They typically get high quality homes. The kids in real need have fetal alcohol syndrome and extremely low birth weights due to their mothers being addicts that did nothing for them while they were pregnant.",
"Because almost no one wants to adopt a non-white kid, a kid with special needs, or anyone over the age of a toddler. Cute white babies though...",
"As someone who went through this I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in as well. Several reasons have already been covered but I'll add a few more nuances to this complex issue.\n\nTypically someone that is looking into adopting has already been through lots of very expensive fertility treatments and more often than not suffered loses during that. This is often a factor when looking into the foster to adopt scenario. The system is designed rightfully to reunite the children with their biological Parents. After experiencing lots of loss people are looking for a sure thing. So it's not always as black and white of an issue as \"we want a healthy white baby\". I'm sure we could have gone older and with disabilities and adopted outright. Problem was I did not feel we could handle severe disabilities as we would both still need to work for financial reasons and due to our professions have to travel several times a year.\n\nAdopting through an agency costs 35k plus in my area. The wait time is well over one year! Much closer to 3. But I've seen a lot families waiting a lot longer than that. PS even if you don't end up adopting you do not get that money back. That is just paying the agency for their services.\n\nIn my case my husband is a 2 time cancer survivor (testicular at 26 recurring in early 30s) and fertility was an issue but we both had always felt inclined towards adoption anyway. We wanted to adopt an older child because it wasn't necessary to us to have a baby but after attending all the introductory classes that actually seemed much more difficult to accomplish. Foster to adopt was terrifying to me because I was not sure if I could handle falling in love with a child and then possibly having to let them go. So we signed up with an agency and had zero age/race restrictions, pretty lenient on the drug use after tons of research in to which ones would be the most detrimental. We ended up matched with a pregnant birth mother. We were there for the baby girls birth, did first feedings, diapers, doctors appointments etc. after 3 days the birth mother changed her mind and we had to give the baby back. 100% her legal right but it was fucking heartbreaking. It felt almost like we had a baby and they died. I'll never forget having to stare at that nursery for months and months after that. Baby stuff everywhere but no baby. After that we had 4 different scams and I had to take a break emotionally. We are incredibly lucky and I decided to do one more fertility treatment and it worked! But inside my file box sits the foot prints, pictures and ultrasound of the baby we never got to adopt because even all these years later I can't bear to part with them.\n\nAdoption is also an industry. That is the ugliest thing I learned in the whole process.\n\n*Edit - It was very late when I wrote this so typos.\n\nAlso to add in for those pointing it out - My adoption agency was 100% a private agency adoption. Going through the state is significantly cheaper, but also has its drawbacks. We had looked into going through a lawyer but for some reason that felt scummy to us. It was also more money. \n\n",
"Honestly I've been pretty much 80% ready to pull the trigger on foster/adoption for a while. Have had the same career/job for 12 years. Even moved to a more kid friendly shift. Only issue is child care. My state (Ca) offers some assistance w/food stamps etc but not child care. I would trade the food stamps for child care assistance in a hot second. Child care in my area is about a rent payment. I already have a mortgage. I can pay all my bills just fine. I can absorb the cost of a child and provide a decent (not luxurious) but nice life. I have GREAT health insurance but the childcare costs are gonna cripple me, and it's just me. \n\nThat and at least in my county they're all about reunification. So while at least for the time the kid is w/me they'll have a stable life, all of it could be over and the kid could go back to their bio parent. I don't have tons of \"bonding time\" from work to start all over. \n\nThese are the things that hold me hostage---",
"I was adopted in 1981 and the process took 2 1/2 years.\n\nShort version:\n\nMy birth mother was a rape victim who had mental health issues, and I was taken by the state and put into care with a foster family (very different from a foster home/orphanage.) For the next 2 1/2 years my birth mother fought for custody, going back and forth between wanting me and not wanting me, taking steps to prove mental competence. My foster family had intentions of adopting me but by the time my birth mother's parental rights were exhausted, the foster family had a major crisis of their own, and I was ultimately adopted by another family who became my legal/adoptive family.\n\nFrom what I understand, the process is pretty much unchanged these 35 years later.",
"Does it cost a lot of money? I hear it costs 18,000 to adopt a child. If that's true, how does that make sense? Shouldn't the state being paying parents to adopt these children?",
"The older kids usually bounce around foster homes because of screwed up hosts looking for a paycheck. This screws up the kids, who then struggle to adapt to future homes. It's a vicious cycle. \n\nThen people who are looking to adopt usually only want infants. Just like people who want to adopt a dog usually want a puppy. Never gave it a lot of thought but the people who adopt older children are amazing. It's nowhere near the kind of person who adopts an older dog, and I don't mean to compare the two, but you can see the mindset of humans reflected upon the two.",
"I was adopted at birth. I was one of the lucky ones. You see, most parents are looking for healthy, infant children, and most children up for adoption are older than that (and therefore less like likely to be what prospective parents are seeking.\n\nWe don't have 100,000+ infants up for adoption and would-be parents of infants waiting to adopt; we have 100,000+ children of all ages up for adoption and would-be parents of infants waiting to adopt an INFANT. \n\nThere can be a lot of baggage that comes with kids who've been through the system, and unfortunately, this deters most prospective parents from adopting them.",
"Former Child and Family Service worker here. As previously mentioned, there is a rigorous process involved with adoption and like many other government run organizations, it is filled with many delays and setbacks. I worked in Cleveland so I can only attest to what I experienced there, but within CFS is a division of workers specifically for adoptions. A lot of adoptions end poorly for both sides involved (the adopters and adopted) due to many factors. The adoption unit has to be proactive in their processes in order to prevent placement disruption and to restore stability in the child's life. This means ensuring the adopting party is the best fit for the child. I was an intake worker (investigating hotline referrals) so I don't have firsthand knowledge of staffings or meetings with adoption, but my best friend was an ongoing worker who dealt with numerous adoptions. Those cases were always the toughest, most time consuming, and trickiest ones to close. \n\nI don't think this really answered your question, but just remember it's not as simple as saying \"this child needs a home so who wants them?\". The necessary hoops you must jump through are there to ensure long term stability and provide the best placement for the kid. ",
"Another interesting question is: Why does it take so long for someone to adopt a kid (with all the processes that the authorities have to go through to see if the parents are fit to adopt), while anyone can have kids with no questions asked? At least someone should ask really poor people, or people who has other hardships in their lives, \"do you *really* think you ought to have this baby? Have you *thoroughly* gone through which implications having a baby might have on your life?\"\n\nI don't have kids, or have adopted kids, but it seems like it's harder for a good couple to adopt a kid than it is for a bad couple to birth a kid. Doesn't make sense. ",
"Former Foster Kid and adoptee here. You guys have no idea the hell I went through in my youth. They heard you up like cattle and try to pick out the normal ones while the foster kids interact with each other. If you have behavioral problems, Deformities, social anxiety, ect. I can almost guarantee your not going to be adopted. I was adopted at 13 years old along with my three younger brothers. It was a miracle to say the least. I did my best to try and keep the four of us together because we were the only family that we had. That was hell. I can't tell you how many court appearances I had to make and how many times I had to intentionally misbehave to be kicked out of the home that the system placed me in. How many schools and family's I moved in each year. When we were in a group home called the sibling shelter all of your belongings are now everyone's. Including clothes. The only things that you were allowed to own was personal photos ect. I saw my younger brother get molested. I saw my youngest brother with autism get left out in the sun in a wheelchair and contract 4th degree burns. I've seen kids I mean KIDS attempt to hang themselves. I can't right anymore. This is digging up something I buried along time ago. The system is fucked. Its really hard not to become a statistic when you have an upbringing like that. ",
"1.Why 100000 children for adoption?\n\nCause there are over 300 million people in the US. So the number is not as high as it seems compared to the population. There are countries that have a far smaller population but about the same number of abandoned kids.\n\n2.Why does it take over a year to adopt?\n\nCause you don't adopt a puppy but a human being. The state has to make sure you are a responsible person, you'll make a good parent, you have the financial means to support a child, you have a proper place where to raise the kid, you had no criminal record, etc, etc, etc. It's a checking process that takes time and it's absolutely normal to be so.\n\nThey are more concerned for the kids well-being than for your wish to be a parent. What if you are unstable and after a while you suddenly change your mind and no longer want the kid? What if you only want a kid because of a past trauma? You do not really want this kid but the one you already lost. What if you don't care for him after you adopted him? What if you don't have the means to be a proper parent(financial, mental, physical, etc)? What if you are a pedophile or a sociopath who only wants to abuse the kid and/or get financial gain by exploiting him/her? etc.\n\nThere have been plenty of cases in which they didn't check things properly and those kids have suffered because of it. Even with a decent check up, there may be cases in which someone unfit to be a parent tricks the authorities and gets a child. Many times the authorities fail to keep on checking how the kids are doing after they were adopted. Simply cause they are under staffed or they want to make their jobs a lot easier.\n\nThis last issue was/still is a huge problem when adopting kids from abroad. Americans have learned that it was/is easier to adopt from other countries(far less time needed, minimal checking process, far less financial requirements cause the country is usually very poor and the wages are a bad joke compared to those from US, impossible to check the family in their own environment, etc). The problem was/is that the country from where they adopted the kid has a very hard time finding out what happened to that kid after it was adopted. The US social workers usually do not regulary report on these cases or do not report at all. The home country lost the thrace of the kid. There have been horror stories about some of those kids, going though unimaginable physical, mental and sexual abuses at the hands of the new ''family'' or those they sold them to. It's the reason why some of these countries completely closed any possibility for a foreigner to adopt.",
"there's a big pool of fish, all waiting to be picked up and taken away by a friendly person who wants an aquarium.\n\nThe fish have been in the pool for a little while, and the people who run the pool know them - they get to meet them when they arrive, and see how they are, how they get along with other fish, etc.\n\nWhen someone wants to have an aquarium of their own, the people who run the pool need to know that the person can look after a fish properly, and that the aquarium is the right size, has the right conditions, etc - not all aquariums suit all fish, and not all fish suit all aquariums.\n\nSo the people who run the pool take time to get to know the person, and how well they're going to look after the fish and clean the aquarium and keep the conditions right - this is very hard to tell, and sometimes the fish that suits the aquarium (or the aquarium that suits the fish) is hard to find.\n\n\nthis can take time, and some fish are only suited to a specific type of aquarium - so they tend to stay at the pool a long time, waiting for the right aquarium - but most aquariums don't suit them, so the pool tends to fill up with unusual fish.\n\nThe people with standard aquariums keep coming looking for fish, but the combination of them maybe not being very good aquarium keepers, as well as the pool having fish that don't match their aquarium, means that sometimes it can take a while to find a match - even though there are a lot of aquariums and lots of fish.",
"I was adopted by my great great Grandma but my story is different from some of the posts on here. Shortly after i was born my mother took me with her to her great grandmas house (my great great grandma) and stayed there for awhile until one day she said she was going to get groceries and would be right back She never came back.\n\nMy (gg) Grandma would then raise me from then and i think when i was about 8 or 10 kinda fuzzy with the memories she asked if I wanted to be adopted thinking it was a game i said YAY. So she took me to court the judge said with a smile on his face Would you like to be adopted young man? and i said yes sir and that was it. I remember the court guard there was very nice , he gave me a teddy bear.\n\n\nIve never asked if my nan ever went through hell to get me adopted and from what i remember that wasn't the case, maybe because I was already in her care for a curtain number of years it was easier. But i Love her for the way she took care of me all those years",
"I'm not in the US and this will probably be buried, but... I'm adopted and the hoops my parents had to jump through to get me were enormous (in the UK - before fertility treatment was routine). I have a stack of letters from adoption agencies saying my parents were unfit to adopt because they had no religion. It baffles me that a child in need of a good home should have its future governed by whatever religion its current carers have.\n\nLuckily they persevered and I had an excellent, loving home with parents who are most definitely \"mum\" and \"dad\" to me. But it took at least two years before they had an application accepted.",
"As a middle aged guy, here in Australia during the 60's and 70's adoption was common and cheap. The main reason was that back then if a child was born to someone who couldn't afford to raise it or was not in a position to raise it, the child went to an orphanage and was generally adopted fairly quickly and lived a happy life with a family that wanted them and could raise them.\n\nNow in Australia the government pays a baby bonus to new mothers and pays social security etc so people have kids for the cash and don't raise them well and they end up screwed up. A lot of kids end up in the foster system but instead of adopting a child you get them for an unknown period with the danger of having them taken back to the same shit hole they were removed from and bouncing back and forth getting more and more damaged.\n\nThe few kids that genuinely are available for adoption are in demand and the waiting list grows. ",
"I'm Australian. Single father of two biological children. 15 and just turned 18.\n\nI currently \"sponsor\" two children. One is a 15 year old male and the other is a 20 year old Tweenager. It was three but the 21 year old female has recently moved in with a friend. She was just here borrowing money for food and phone credit.\n\nPrior to that, I \"sponsored\" two 14 year old females who have since grown wings. One was back two days ago after having increasing troubles with her partner and I paid for groceries plus some cash.\n\nOf these children, four were the children of my ex-wife's half-brother's ex-fiance to previous partners. Legally not related. One was the ex-wife's half-brother's ex-fiance's sister (their Aunty). And was just a friend of one of the children and not a relation by any means.\n\nYet, I raised them all as I am financially and emotionally capable of doing so. They regard me above their biological parents yet I have never so much as adopted them. It's just what I do.\n\nIn short, there are other ways. It depends on what you want out of the arrangement. I do not require them to call me Dad. Hell, I don't even require my biological children to do so. To be brutally honest, it's just doing what makes me feel good. This places no onus upon the children.\n\nTLDR; Adoption is just one route. If you can afford it (and it you are paying an agency, you can) then there is other routes. Wards of the State are a highly complex matter due to bureaucracy. There are plenty in need free of this if you are willing to forego the ego fulfillment of \"legally, my children.\"",
"Hot damn this thread is full of sadness and anger. I guess the adoption system is not only somewhat centered around safety, but also profit in a lot of ways. And almost nobody is actually addressing the question poised by the OP other than there is some black box that makes the wait times long. ",
"The situation and backlogs were just as bad 20+ years ago when my wife and I were looking to adopt a \"special needs\" child. We already had two boys the normal way, and felt we had the spare emotional and financial capacity. I'll skip all the many details, but my final impression was that the system is NOT tuned to be efficient. The system IS tuned to perpetuate itself. \n\nThere is no financial reward or incentive for the social workers to be speedy and effective. They ARE rewarded by long careers and job security if they always have a tremendous backlog. It was quite a shock to finally realize this. \n\nWe saw this same job bias as we dealt with social workers helping a mentally handicapped relative. When this girl (now 50) lived at home, she was able to hold low-level jobs suited to her abilities. Since entering the many social programs and group homes that deal with the handicapped, she hasn't worked a day since, despite COUNTLESS programs for job and skills and interview training. If the social workers actually got her placed in a job, THEY would have less of a backlog, and it would put their own jobs in jeopardy.\n",
"If the statistic you found is only for kids eligible for adoption (as in their bio parents' rights have been terminated and they legally have no parents), you should see the statistic for how many kids are in foster care but are just waiting for their parents to complete a case plan (parenting classes, anger management, drug tests, AA meetings, finding a job, finding housing, etc.)\n\nAdoption is so difficult because you are waiting for the above to happen which can take over a year. Maybe the mom is mostly working on her case plan but can't find a steady job. Maybe they are waiting to get in contact with the biological father to see if he would be willing to care for the child. (Because you can't terminate his rights if he doesn't provide input or have a chance to get custody) and a kid can't be adopted if a parent still has legal rights. Most states have a time frame on this process but it can be difficult because, as a case worker, you essentially have to prove to the judge that the parents are not fit to be parents, which is a lot of responsibility for a child welfare worker that has a big caseload that works in a system that roots for reunification with bio parents or relatives. \n\nAfter parental rights are terminated (which probably also means all relatives have been determined unfit or are unwilling to be guardians...because sometimes the state will place a child with a relative in a \"permanent guardianship\" role in hopes that the parents will get their act together or still be involved in the child's life but the child is off the state's roster) then the adoption process can begin which is where all the issues mentioned before me come into play.\n\nOne of the most frustrating things I witnessed in my first job as a social worker, was an older child (probably about 11) whose parents VOLUNTARILY surrendered their parental rights when he was about 6 suddenly decided they wanted him back. Without any kind of case plan, the mom was permitted by the child's state case worker to start building a relationship with him. For a kid who had just spent the last 5 years of his life waiting for a family, he was ecstatic about his mom \"wanting him again\".. Well, what do you think happened when his mom missed a scheduled family meeting one weekend. I was the kid's therapist and my supervisor and I advocated against the state's decision.. But didn't help. \n\nTL; DR: red tape is obnoxious and there are lots of hoops to jump through but at the end of the day, these are kids that require special care and stable people to provide for them so there should be a way for it to be difficult on the prospective parents without making the kid suffer. \n\nStill TL;DR: system's messed up. ",
"So the reason it can take up to a year is that we don't just give kids away to whoever wants one. We have to make sure the family won't abuse, neglect, or do anything other than love and care for the child. So that takes time. And lots and lots of paperwork.\n\nAlso included in that 10000 number are 17 year olds. No one wants to adopt a seventeen year old. They're months from getting out of the system anyway. Point being, when adopting families want babies. Someone that they can mould as a person. They don't want the thug kid who was raised on the streets who social services \"has\" to deal with because he's technically a minor without a guardian.\n\nAlso teenagers suck. I'm amazed my parents didn't kick me out. Nobody wants teenagers. They're just old enough to actually do shit, but too young to have common sense. ",
"Short go : because you are not adopting you are BUYING a child \n\nWife and I tried to adopt and found that it cost way to much. Sad when you think about it.",
"Imagine what would happen if they let a child go to a bad home and \nsomething horrific happens......Cant be too carefull when it comes to vetting new parents ",
"First, Background checks: My wife and I met with a social worker three times, had a home evaluation where the SW walked through our home, and were fingerprinted by the FBI every six months for the duration of the process. \n\nOur agency required us to fill out a form detailing our knowledge and ability to care for a child with health issues. This remains the scariest piece of paper I've ever seen. Of course, natural parents get no \"choice\" but in our case, we had to research all of the potential birth defects and complications and honestly assess our ability to parent such a child. I have nothing but respect and love for parents who share their love with a disabled child, but in our case, we were able to parent in some conditions (cleft palate, for example) and not in others (HIV positive, for example). \n\nWhile a pain in the ass, and a huge personal expense, after completing the process I understand why it is designed this way: there are tons of terrible, awful people in the world. Some are already happen to be parents. Placement agencies want to make sure that adoptive parents are as \"good\" for the welfare of the child as possible. \n\nIn our case, we actually \"waited\" almost 8 years. First, my wife wanted a newborn, and so we initially pursued an international adoption in Russia. We had a \"match\" but the little boy had severe medical issues and passed away before we could arrange travel. We then switched to our agency's \"domestic\" program, where we waited about a year for a match. We went to the hospital and helped the birth mother through her process - but the birth father refused to sign the consent forms. So that placement fell through. The birth mother did not want to parent with the birth father, but without signed consent forms from both, we could not take custody of the child. It is my understanding that while she did not go to college as she dreamed of, she and the child are thriving. \n\nFinally, about eight years after we filled out the application forms, we had a successful placement. Our healthy, happy child was worth the wait. \n\nSpecific to your question, the large number of children \"in the system\" awaiting adoption all have a backstory and need the \"right\" parent. Older children are at somewhat of a disadvantage because some of those adoptive parents who endure the process - like my wife and I - want the \"full parenting experience\" which includes everything from the hospital to the high school graduation. This isn't to say there is anything \"wrong\" with a child ho isn't newborn, but the \"right\" parents for children with a backstory are just harder to find. Now that our son is a bit older, we've talked about adopting another, older child. However, the expense of children - and of adoption - is significant. The cost of everything - from background check until putting our son in his car seat and driving home (after living in a hotel for a month to satisfy state residency requirements) was more than 85,000 (american) dollars. That includes FBI fees to process our criminal background checks every six months to clothing and formula.",
"Doesn't really seem like the government wants the kids to be adopted. Instead of working WITH the potential parents - it puts barriers. Is this RPG or the life of real people? \n",
"Tacking on to this, I am curious as to why I never hear anything about our foster system or adoption in campaigns? Its something I hear repeated all the time that its an overburdened system. Kids die and are abused in this system, but I never hear politicians talk about it. WHy?",
"Quick UK perspective. There is a system to get kids adopted quicker here, my friends recently \"completed\" in 9 months. There isnt a cost to the parents of any significance as the system is run by Social Services.\n\nWhat was interesting to find out was that in the \"olden days\", kids that were available were often because of unmarried mothers having to give them up for various reasons. Nowadays, almost exclusively the kids are from backgrounds of neglect, and are often suffering the consequences. The kids are more, for want of a better word, complicated. There are often sibling and family issues. My friends adopted two sisters aged 3 & 18 mo, but their elder (6yo) sister had been adopted a few years earlier. There was a lot of court involvement regarding the separation of the children.\n\nIn that case, it worked out quite nicely. The elder sister was placed locally in the next town, and the adopting parents have been introduced to each other, and all the girls will grow up knowing all their siblings.\n\nSo its often complex. In the UK, I don't know if race is as much as an issue. I think the majority of people who are in a position to adopt, are not going to factor race in too heavily. I think we would see that as very wrong. ",
"This will likely be buried, but my experience led me to distrust the system.\n\nI grew up in a house that raised foster children, specifically girls. The law states In the State of Texas if a person turns 18 in a foster care home then their state school college tuition is paid for by the state. \n\nIn concept this is an an amazing idea that gets these girls an opportunity to achieve higher education without the necessary means to do so. \n\nIn actuality, it meant that we got a lot (probably 20ish) of 16-17 year old girls who were no where near ready to be put into foster homes. My parents tried as hard as they could to be good role models and parents for these kids, but 99% of them were well too far gone.\n\nOf the 20 or so girls we had live with us though age 18, only one of them actually utilized the free college tuition. 10 or so of them still keep in touch but mostly only to ask for money, and have all bounced in and out of jail since leaving our house. The other 8 or 9 we have completely lost touch with. \n\nMy issue is that the state still hit their quota and got funding for the next year every time, but is it really a good way to \"foster\" these children?",
"Most people wnat to adopt a newborn, preferably with the same or similar ethnic background as themselves.\n\nAlso the adoption process takes a long time because they have to make sure tha those people will be good parents and have the necessary resources to afford a child.",
"As a person who was a child in the foster care system, let me tell you it's hard not to come away from the system a little fucked up. I had two sets of foster carers who were uber religious and basically beat me for being a \"faggot\" (a word I hadn't even heard of until they used it to refer to me). Other foster homes were either uncaring or abusive with only one I recall any sort of positive memories.\n\nYou combine this with children who were for the most part abused before getting into care (let alone the abuse they suffered in care) and you get really bad results and since adoptive parents don't want \"damaged goods\" (can't say that I blame them) you end up in a situation where 99% of the kids that need to be taken into homes being rejected outright. \n\nI'm not really answering your question, but I just wanted to post this saying that if anyone is in a position where giving a kid to the state is crossing your mind, or someone else's mind that you know; don't do it. Look for a family member or a friend first. My mother wasn't in the position to be able to do so which sucked badly for me, but if you are in that position, if at all possible avoid it.",
"Because people are totally okay with premarital unprotected sex. But when it comes to abortion they suddenly become Christian saints. \nSo now you have these kids in orphanages, or these miserable single mothers barely scraping by on minimum wage jobs neglect or abuse their children because they never really wanted them, and because of that the kids are taken away and put into the child services system. \nAll because of irresponsibility, selfishness, and religious influence",
"Also, I assume, issues around slavery and child sex rings etc as well as basic obligations of the government under international conventions for children etc would necessitate how much red tape there is to make an adoption happen?",
"The following thoughts and statements are my opinion and i guess conservatives/religous people find it offensive. \n\nHow many children are up for adoption worldwide? It is sick, that humans have uncontrolled sex and create new children, while probably millions of children are alone, sitting in some facility waiting for a parent.\n\nSex-ed, human rights:\nYes, sex is a human right and government should not interfere directly, but this matter should be covered in school. imho people shall have a lot of sex just use condoms, the pill, the ring, copper IUD etc. Is it so hard? I think sex is a great thing and very anti-aggressive, calming, sportive and it prevents people from doing stupid things.\n\nCost\nAdopting a child should be paid by the government not by the parents. Actually they should receive money for their good deed. \n\nGovernment/Cost\nDoes the government/the people/the sovereign have no interest in preventing children from growing up parentless? They should educate, pay for birth control and pay for the whole adoption process. I bet this is done in some eruopean countries.\nTo sum up, adoption should be rewarded, creating new children while homeless children exist should be at least questioned in schools.\n\nnon-humam-animals\nIt is the same with pets. Why would anyone buy an animal from a breeder, while there are still animals in the shelter i dont get it. Worldwide. \n\nworldwide\nas so often the world should work together with a global database. because an orphan or a child soldier in Ruanda is not worth less than an orphan from the US. \n\nTo sum up: People should have more sex but use way more birthcontrol. Government and culture should award adoption. As long as homeless children exist, getting children should be questioned and discussed in school.\n\nLast but not least: Never buy a pet from a breeder as long as shelters exist!",
"Just think about this for a second.\n\nA few years ago a friend of my wife tried to adopt (along with her husband) , they went thru the process for 2 years and were rejected because at 19 (she is 35 now) she had a conviction for possession of a small amount of marijuana. She got a small fine YET that one incident was enough to deny them a child who was in need of a home.\n\nNOW FOR THE IRONY\n\nAbout a month or so after she was rejected she actually got pregnant and no one ever came to take the child because the state had already declared she was not fit to be a parent.",
"Because a lot of the children waiting to be adopted are not the children people want to adopt. Not many people want to adopt older children, children with behavioural problems or children that are a different race to them. ",
"Three issues I see in Indiana are 1) The kid is just too old for most adoptive parents - there will be no \"bonding\" before the child becomes an adult so they aren't likely candidates, despite them probably being the most appreciative. I was told a story about one teen that was adopted at 17 or so and he loved having a family to visit during the holidays, something he never had before. This is likely what I would adopt, just to give a person a home while they become an adult. Someday maybe...but I think I would adopt someone younger first. 2) The kid has serious behavioral issues - half the children were not recommended to be brought into a home with other children. 3) The kid is seriously physically or mentally ill (non-violent) often in need of medical treatment and/or surgery - cleft palates, severe autism and Down's seemed fairly common, but it was a host of mental and physical issues.\n\nCombine 1, 2 & 3 for maybe 25% on the state's list. The number of average, healthy, non-violent younger kids was zero. There might have been six between 8 and 12 who seemed \"normal\", but they were part of sibling sets, so you were going to have to take two or more and it is likely one or more had something wrong with them. The rest were likely to be stuck in the system till they aged out I guess.\n\nMight sound cold, but there is no way I could raise some of the children I reviewed. I was thinking of adopting in a few years when my son is 9 or 10, a boy or girl about his age. While my wife and I can have more children, this seems like the right thing to do, but there are no formal plans.",
"My husband and I have been foster parents for over 10 years in North Carolina. We are also the local foster care cluster leaders for 3 towns close to us. So we have some experience with the system.\nThere are many kids in care and the simple fact is that about 60% of the kids in foster care (in our area) do not go home to any family member. This means that if you are a foster parent for any length of time, you will be asked if you want to adopt the child that you've been caring for. \nThere are many, MANY, good and kind foster parents dedicated to helping kids. All have very different situations. Foster parents have the right and duty to back out of any situation that is not working for them. This may sound harsh to say \"duty\" but to keep a child and not give them what they need is more detrimental to the child. Kids that have been removed from their home already have emotional issues and likely have been abused in some way. These kids need adults that can learn and educate themselves to be able to help the child through these issues. The foster care system has training (we have been monthly for years). It takes time and effort to learn how to deal with children that come into care. Foster care is not an adoption agency even though it might look like one. They are there to give a safe home to kids where their own home has become unsafe. Our son was in a bad situation and was removed from his home. We gave him a safe place while his mother worked through the court to try to get him back. We worked with his mother during visits and shared parenting sessions (doctor visits, visitation, etc) to try to help her. Eventually, she just couldn't do what the court asked and she lost custody. She appealed and lost that as well. It took over 3 years. All the while, her son lived with us. When he did come up for adoption, we adopted him. His mother moved far from us after that but knows that he has a safe home. \nWe have a shortage of foster parents. We need people that love kids, are willing to get educated, are willing to be hurt when the child leaves to go back to a tenuous situation, who are willing to share just a bit of time to show that child that there is another way of life out there, and to show them that people care. If you are interested, visit your county human services website and go sit in an informational meeting.its truly sad when all of the good people say \"I can't do that\" when I know that it's just a kid and they just need guidance and love.",
"I have to say that all these stories have me in tears... But god damn I have respect for people who care and love children they have adopted. This is a reality me and my wife must face. We have health conditions that could hurt our chances of having our own child. I had a professor in college that adopted 3 kids from 9 to 14. I really liked this professor so we got pretty close. She was a single mother so she handles situations on her own. She would tell me the youngest would constantly try to run away for fear of abandonment, the middle child was constantly fighting everyone and the eldest had gotten a girl pregnant and almost been locked up. I looked in her eyes and I could see that she just wanted to care for them and find a way to heal them but they never trusted her. It's horrible that things like this happen to children, and I know I couldn't do what social workers do. My girl works for a vet hospital and the stories that she tells me about people make me wanna punch someone. Hearing this about kids makes me infuriated. I hope one day we can fix that system. Children have unlimited potential but this system destroys that potential so quickly...",
"I see a lot of answers as to why adoption is shit, and why the wait times are so long.\n\nWanted to throw in that the reason there are so many kids up for adoption, in part, is because of the pro-life/anti-sex movement and religious sentiment thereabout; many of these kids are going to be disadvantaged (looking into the NAEYC data on young children shows that the first months are hugely important, and unless you're looking at at-birth-adoption, the kids are going to be less than desirable, etc.), which makes adoption harder again. \n\nGenerally speaking, it's because people think that adopting out a kid is somehow \"saving\" it, when in many cases it's just a different form of throwing it away where it gets to suffer a shit life instead of just being dead.\n\n",
"The truth is, there are a lot of children who are available for adoption that are far too old for most people. By the time the children have been bounced around from foster back to parents who are trying to get it together (and some never do) and through all the channels to terminate parental rights, they're just too old from the couples who want babies. Add all the horrors they suffer while back in their parents' homes or foster care, these kids have baggage. Some singles and couples don't want to take on a child (for example) who has been sexually abused.\n\nI'm an adoptive parent and we did fertility treatments and went through all the hoops to become foster parents. We had hoped to foster and then adopt. We didn't care about age, gender or race. But faced with an adorable child (sexually abused and then the child sexually abused another child), we decided these issues were too big for us. We chose international adoption and adopted a 7/almost 8 year old daughter. What we didn't know, she has baggage of her own and we are learning.\n\nI've recently begun thinking about becoming a foster parent again. We're older now and far more experienced. Our daughter is the best. She's strong, resilient, and needs too much from us emotionally to really consider adding another child to our family. \n ",
"Going through this right now actually. \n\nWife and I started in August last year seeking to adopt an infant with other couples also seeking to adopt. This came after a two year effort into IVF that was proving to be physically taxing on both of us, so we stopped and took a few months to grieve. \n\nWe will more than likely be getting our new child placed with us in three weeks. \n\nOur agency thankfully has a large enough marketing budget to get a high percentage of women and a very diverse ethnic selection of women. Some cater exclusively to a specific religion, specific ethnicities, and some specialize in special needs, etc. picking the right agency can be crucial. We needed ours to be accepting of non-religious adoptive parents, which was more surprisingly difficult than anticipated. \n\nThe way it was explained to us is that it comes down to a matter of preferences. \n\nYou cannot specify gender preferences, but everything else is fair game. There are some people who come into this looking for a blonde headed, blue eyed child (whose birth mother never smoked, drank, did drugs, suffered zero abuse and no mental health issues) and will accept nothing less than this. Those people will go onto a rather long list with literally everyone else in the program and then wait until their specific match becomes available. \n\nWe were told \"this baby\" can take upwards of three years to be matched with since it's the baby everyone (theoretically) would be okay with accepting without hesitation. \n\nBut if you're willing to accept babies from other racial backgrounds the list and wait time drops tremendously. \n\nSome of the time spent waiting to get accepted into the program as new parents is part of this wait, too, as there are minimum requirements to be fulfilled like a home inspection, psych eval, paying lots of money and continuing education classes and training. \n\nWe took a class on grief over not having our own natural child for instance that took three hours. Three hours of constant reminders that we can't have a baby on our own. And this is despite the fact we had already grieved this well over a year ago and they're asking us to tear open these wounds and do this all over again. It's just legally required though. \n\nNext phase was getting accepted and then making a profile book so a birth mom can select us. That took my wife and I about four months from start to finish. Thankfully i'm a creative person with access to good tools (Adobe) so I was able to save us around $1000 that other couples will spend anywhere from $100 to make a basic photobook to around $1000+ for a professionally created book focused specifically on the adoption. The key difference is that your book is meant to help the birth mother form an emotional bond with the adoptive couple. A $100 book is rarely more than photos of the couple on vacation and of their home. What we made shows the mother our lives, where the baby will live, has sections on our neighborhood, extended family, our beliefs, promises of how the child will be raised, etc. and i'll tell you that both kinds of books have the potential to work, but you're baiting a hook to a very hormonal and emotional woman making the hardest choice of her life and ONE of those book options is like berries for catching Pokemon. Spend money on the book to make it nice. \n\nWe finished our book in March and we were matched in May and told about it three weeks later. Our book was what made the birth mother go with us over other couples because we wrote it like the pros did. \n\nSo here we are at the 12 month point and on the verge of being paired with a bi-racial child which will be loved like a natural child in our home but until the paperwork is signed and we have a baby coming home with us we are still at risk of the birth mother changing her mind. \n\nIf she clears 48 hours and signs the paperwork we have a baby and it all stops. If the birth mother changes her mind despite all promises she is ready to give up her child, we cannot stop her legally from doing this and it hits a full reset on the second half of the adoption process and we have to wait for another match which could take at a minimum another three months (our agency only does third trimester matching) and leaves us vulnerable to all potential risks in our birth mother's background (drugs, alcohol, psych, abuse, etc). Someone seeking that blond/blue eyed child could be waiting another year or longer. \n\nWe lucked out because of our book and because race did not matter to us. \n\nI can easily see how some parents let all their preferences dictate how they want their perfect baby to be, and they will pay for their choices in time spent waiting for their \"perfect child\". We rationalize that our baby will be perfect because it will be OURS. \n\nWe feel truly lucky that our only risk factor is that the birth mother has relatives with mental retardation and schizophrenia. We have been told that the baby does not have any physical/chemical traits of mental retardation from what they can see in labs and ultrasounds. \n\nSo if at the end, the only risk we could potentially stand is an unknown risk of a mental disorder that modern medicine can help treat, then we are coming out really far ahead. \n\nWe are hopeful that the birth mother is ready to let her baby come home with us and we are hopeful that this is coming to a close next month. I can't imagine being a person willing to wait years to be matched just on skin color, but its absolutely a thing, and it can take years for those people who want that. ",
"My friends parents were looking into adopting, and when they said they would prefer a black child, their wait time was reduced to practically nothing ",
"There are lots of great answers here. But I think the real ELI5 answer, and the one that cuts through a lot of the bullshit, is that no one wants to be the guy responsible for putting a kid in a home where they get abused. And if that happens, everyone along the chain wants to be able to say, \"Well I did what I could to keep the kid safe.\"",
"I know it's not OPs original question, but my wife and I adopted from China 3 months ago. That process took 18 months. If there's interest, I can explain how that went.",
"Most people who adopt have an idea of the child they want before they adopt. They want them to be happy, healthy, and greatful for what their adoptive parents have done for them by adopting them. These children do not exsist in our adoption system. They spent so long being bounced around from home to home, spending years waiting for parental rights to be terminated that by the time they are eligible for adoption, they are psychologically damaged and don't fit into the ideal families picture of an adoptive child. My parents waited 7 years to adopt my siblings. They wanted that perfect child and it took them 7 years to \"expand\" their horizons to see other children they could adopt. The average American family looking to adopt just doesn't have realistic expectations of the population of children they can adopt from. ",
"My CHRISTIAN preaching neighbor told me that there are no newborns for adoption and he likes to counsel unwed mothers to not have abortions because they will take the newborns. So far they have adopted zero kids and when I asked him why he doesn't adopt the 5 year olds he said and I quote \"We don't know how to raise a 5 year old that we didn't raise from birth. That kid could be nuts\".",
"This is one of the most surreal threads I've ever read. Half of the posts are people talking about how the adoption process is very rigorous because 'the state wants to protect the kids from going to bad people' and the other half of the thread are foster kid horror stories. ",
"A lot of potential adopters want to adopt a \"normal\" child. What they don't realize, is that most issues that children in the system have is because they are normal. Any normal person brought up the way they were, and who were part of a system representative of the one they are actually in will have the very same issues. All the \"problems\" that these kids have is because they are normal. It's their upbringing and environment that is not. Their reactions to such an upbringing are completely normal.",
"Hey story time. When I was young my parents tried to adopt. They left it open to anything younger than 4, don't care about disabilities, will take siblings. So after about a year and a half of paperwork and house inspections and all the other legal hoops you have to jump through my parents were told that a teen pregnancy had selected us from a book. Parents prepared everything, bought diapers, got the house ready, including doing things like helping the mom buy 4 months of healthy groceries and pay for her rent. On the big day my parents went to the hospital and got told that the mom changed her mind. Adoption off thanks for the $30,000. So my parents stay on the adoption list and sign up for a foster to adopt scenario. The first thing we get is a pair of hispanic brother and sister aged 2 and 9 months. They were my siblings for about a year and my parents put in to permanantly adopt them. About 2 weeks before the adoption was finalized the mother met with the children and was horrified that they were speaking english (she only knew spanish) then decided that she didn't want her children growing up in an english speaking household and demanded that they be taken away from us. We live in Michigan. So it wasn't long before I got another brother, this time a little black boy from an abusive home. We had him for about 9 months before his birth mom kicked her baby daddy to the curb and got her life together to get her child back. We were sad and happy to see him go (once we got him past a few behavioral issues he was a really sweet kid), but we figured that his mom fought hard to do the right thing and we can't be too upset about it. Then we were informed that the initial baby that we were going to adopt from birth was up for foster care because the mother got busted for coke and was raising her kid in the back of a semi-truck. So we had him for about a year before the adoption agency accidentally gave the kids birth grandparents our address during visitation. Suddenly we had crazy angry old guy showing up at our house at any time they pleased demanding to take their grandson to take family pictures and go to family reunions. It got to the point where my mom was seriously considering getting a restraining order, however due to the foster situation and the rights involved that would basically mean mom would have had to give her baby up for the second time (since the birth family has more rights to the kid than the foster family). \n\nEventually the harassment got bad enough that my mom couldn't take it and actually gave her baby back to the foster agency just to get away from the grandparents and that's what stopped the adoption. Probably 6 years and $70-80,000 spent on the adoption and all they got for it was my mom going to see a therapist for a while afterward.\n\nWe recently adopted a teenager with cerebral palsy, but we were smart. We adopted from outside the US where things are sane. 18 months of paperwork/court costs/paying the right people the right bribe (your adoption agent will let you know what that is), and it's almost a sure thing. Still costs about $30,000, but that's a bargain compared to what my parents spent for nothing but heartbreak.",
"I'm going to explore more...I need to retake the foster parent classes and get my house inspected. I took the classes but then was in the process of buying my 1st house. Once I have a kid no more OT (can live off of base wages) so trying to get all the extras done before I take on the responsibilities of another person so I don't short them time & attention. In the mean time I'll get the classes redone and my home approved. Luckily now I work 8-5 and only 3 weekdays and every other weekend. Problem is in NorCal low cost programs are heavily crowded so even if they're subsidized in my case they may not have openings. "
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3n3x3i | does the temperature of a hot object moved into a room temperature environment decrease evenly (in ideal conditions)? | I am wondering if, for example a piece of iron comes out of the forge, or a cup of tea sits on a table, whether the temperature is lowering at an even rate or it heat dissipation works differently than I assume. I know conditions would have an effect, so I suppose this is a thought for ideal conditions. Thanks, | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n3x3i/eli5does_the_temperature_of_a_hot_object_moved/ | {
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"It depends on what you mean by evenly. \n\nDo you mean evenly throughout its volume? No. As /u/cartmanseviltwin said, the surface cools faster than the inside. And I really like that hot pocket analogy ;) \n\nDo you mean evenly in time? No. [Heat dissipation is proportional to the difference in temperatures](_URL_0_). So a bar of red-hot iron will will cool off more the first minute after it comes out of the forge (when it's very, very hot) than the 60th minute (when it's lukewarm). "
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_cooling#Heat_transfer_version_of_the_law"
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7281dg | how does the body/or a developing organ, tissue mass, know which is the most effective placement of a vein or blood vessel while developing in the womb? is there some sort of developmental pressure at work that helps the new body know where best to place the new vessel/vein? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7281dg/eli5_how_does_the_bodyor_a_developing_organ/ | {
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"There are regions of DNA referred to as HOX genes that govern the spatial arrangement of the developing embryo."
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ecynrs | how does it work when business give all profits to charity? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ecynrs/eli5_how_does_it_work_when_business_give_all/ | {
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"So yes they can take a salary as owners of the company. What it really means is that they take all of the money the company made- what it spent including there own salary (which is usually enough to cover living costs) and give the rest to charity.",
"Profits meaning the extra goes to charity. They use the money they make to cover stuff like salaries, inventory, expenses, etc. Then anything that is left after that is what charities get.",
"Yes, salaries for workers (and managers) are a legitimate business expense. Profits are only after you've paid for materials, workers, buildings, machines, ... .",
"So profit and revenue aren't the same. Revenue (sometimes called gross revenue) is the amount of money a business makes before accounting for their various costs. \n\nProfit on the other hand is the amount of money a business makes after accounting for their various costs. \n\nEmployee and owner salaries would be a cost. Other examples for a restaurant could be buying food, rent, cleaning supplies, utilities, napkins, gloves and such, etc. \n\nTL;DR: Profit = money earned - money spent on costs. Paying employee salaries is a cost. So is paying for utilities. Profit is what you have left after those things.",
"The way business finances work is typically (and very simply):\n\nRevenue - Cost = Profit\n\nNow \"Cost\" is a big bucket and can contain just about everything you spend money on - materials, rent, taxes, loan payments, etc - including salaries. The people who work there - even the CEO - can draw a salary and that just gets included in \"cost\" before profit is calculated.\n\nAll that is different between a business like Little Pine and a normal company is that after all of those costs have been paid out, a normal company will give whatever is leftover to the owner(s), while Little Pine gives it to charity.",
"to add on to what others have explained about paying their salaries, some charities may pay very high salaries to people, so they may barely have any \"profits\" after that. \n\n\ni don't know the legal side of this, but in theory, you can make $100, but your salary is $90, so you only donate $10. of course, that would be considered shady, but that example is to point out that all instances of people saying 100% profits go to charity is not always as significant as we think it is.",
"Profits are what's left over after you pay all expenses like salaries and wages. They can even spend all but $20 in purchasing a new office and give $20 to charity at the end of the year and the statement of \"all profits going to charity\" would still be true.",
"Profits are what's left from a business' revenue after paying all their expenses. Typically, the owner(s) would take those as dividend income at the end of the year, perhaps paying some to employees as bonuses/profit sharing, or keeping some in the business for future use (ie. rainy day fund for weathering a recession, for making acquisitions).\n\nIn the case of businesses that donate all profits, then the owners choose to give all their profits away to charity instead of keeping it. They could pay themselves a salary that does not count as profits."
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18eto4 | why do we say the "o" when talking in single digit minutes on a clock? like 2:02. | Why do we say "the clock says 1 "O" 9" rather than 1 9 when the time is 1:09. 1:10 sounds fine to say, but drop down to single digit minutes and it sounds awkward.
Do we say it just because the clock says so? Also, who made him the king of time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18eto4/eli5_why_do_we_say_the_o_when_talking_in_single/ | {
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"Because it's faster to say \"O\" than \"zero.\""
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1mrvsh | when 13 people were shot yesterday in chicago it barely made national news, but when the shooting at the navy yard happened it had full blown coverage _url_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mrvsh/eli5when_13_people_were_shot_yesterday_in_chicago/ | {
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"I'm in Australia and I heard about both of them. I don't think anyone died in the Chicago shooting, so maybe it's getting less exposure. ",
"The Washington event left 13 people dead, and resulted in an armed manhunt/standoff a military institution. \n\nIt makes sense that such a story would grab more media attention.",
"A few reasons. Chicago has one of the highest gun crime rates in the country, so reporting a gun crime there doesn't grab much attention on the national media. Also, The shooting in Washington happened involving military personnel on a military base. The concept of military personnel being made victims is a sensational one. Then there's the elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about, but the victims in Chicago were black. It's not a secret that the media focuses less time on stories dealing with people of color than other stories. Sad but true. Then there is the fact that no one died. Death > injury to the media, regardless or cause or circumstance. ",
"ppl get shot everyday here in chicago. it's a non event. it doesn't even make the local headlines unless it's a kid or a grandma or something.\n\nat the least, it's basically what ppl even want to know. ppl don't care that 10 gangbangers shot up each others houses. \n\nin a more...forceful statement, \"media doesn't care when 10 black ppl get shot, but goes nuts when 10 white ppl get shot\" ",
"South Side Chicago is effectively more dangerous than a warzone in Afghanistan. [Here's an article](_URL_0_). And here's [another](_URL_1_). \n\nGang activity is completely out of control, and the majority of those *targeted* are gang members. \n\nWe've come to expect it. The majority of us know to *stay the fuck out of South Side*. We know its dangerous and we know the risks involved. The DC incident was quite different because it was in a part of town known to be safe. The DC incident was different because the firearms were acquired legally. The DC incident is sad, because its reflective of our misunderstood national attitudes on mental illness. "
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wpara | li5 explain to me how a salad from mcdonald's could be "less healthy" than a salad from anywhere else. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wpara/li5_explain_to_me_how_a_salad_from_mcdonalds/ | {
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"Here is all the nutritional information if you want to see and compare for yourself.\n\n_URL_0_",
"You can call anything a salad. If you use ingredients that aren't healthy, the salad isn't going to be healthy. Lots of times it's the dressing that's the culprit, or croutons, or fried meats or something like that.",
"Usually it is the dressing, McDonalds dressing is very bad compared to others having more calories then some of theirs sandwiches. "
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5hm4oh | the uk's visa policy is generally quite strict, but allows two very poor african countries complete visa-free access. why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hm4oh/eli5_the_uks_visa_policy_is_generally_quite/ | {
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"You'd probably need to ask the Home Office UKVI to get an authoritive answer, but I suspect a combination of a number of factors.\n\n* Namibia and Botswana have between them a population of only a little over 4 million people. That's less than half the population of Greater London alone so I suspect that there simply aren't very many people from either of those countries even thinking about coming to the UK.\n* Both countries have stable, democratic governments and have done so for many years. This means that the UK immigration authorities can have faith that passports and other paperwork issued by those governments are likely to be genuine.\n* Both countries are in the Commonwealth. Obviously there are other African countries also in the Commonwealth, but it means there are links between Botswana and Namibia, and the UK.\n* Lastly, but probably most importantly, the UK government bases its visa policy predominately on the past history of visitors to the UK from a given country. Presumably visitors from Namibia and Botswana have a historical record of complying with visa conditions and not overstaying or otherwise abusing the system, and the \"reward\" is that their citizens are permitted visa-free entry under certain circumstances.\n\nI'd also dispute your categorisation of both countries as \"very poor\". They're both among the wealthiest of sub-Saharan African nations in terms of GDP per head.",
"They are both members of the Commonwealth of Nations & Namibia was controlled by South Africa until the mid-80s. They're not just some random African country without any historical ties to the UK.\n\nSouth Africa was visa-free until 2009 when the regulations got changed, as per the article you listed."
]
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||
peu6a | this scenario (newtons 3rd law) | > Scenario: If a car travelling at 50kph hits a car going 50kph in the opposite direction, the net effect would be the same as if the car hit the car at rest, at 100kph. False, it would be the same if the car was at 50kph. Momentum!
Basically from another post on Reddit in a common misconceptions thread.
Now, I only know a little about Mechanics I'll admit so it's not my strong point. But somehow this just doesn't make sense In my head.
Surely if both cars are moving towards each other then the closure speed is the sum of both cars speeds towards each other, therefore the resulting collision is going to be a lot worse.
What simple concept am I not grasping here? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/peu6a/eli5_this_scenario_newtons_3rd_law/ | {
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"After seeing some confusion in this thread, it seems like there might be a couple points of confusion as to what two scenarios are being compared.\n\nIf a car traveling 50 strikes a wall, it decelerates to 0 (theoretically, let's assume this wall is solid enough to resist the impact of the car). \n\nIf a car strikes an identical, stationary car, you would effectively double the mass of the system without changing it's total momentum, meaning the first car would decelerate from 50 to 25, and the other car would accelerate from 0 to 25. We're ignoring some things like heat/sound energy being produced and so on, but that's standard fare for high school physics.\n\nIf two cars have a head on collision, both going 50, each car decelerates from 50 to 0 on impact. Each car experienced that crash as if it had just struck a solid wall."
]
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|
107q06 | how is leadership decided in china? | I've been hearing about the disappearance of the person that was suppose to be the next president. All I know is that he's selected by a very small minority of people. Is it just a figurehead? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/107q06/eli5_how_is_leadership_decided_in_china/ | {
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"text": [
"The communist party is the only political party in China and they control the government. They have a cabinet of 9 leaders that rule the country jointly. The head of this group of 9 is selected to be the President."
]
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[]
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|
1j3fwb | where does the spelling for asian names come from? | So a large number of Asian names have non-phonetically accurate spellings. For example, Nguyen is pronounced "win" even though phonetically that makes no sense. How did this way of spelling names originate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j3fwb/eli5_where_does_the_spelling_for_asian_names_come/ | {
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" > For example, Nguyen is pronounced \"win\"\n\nExcept that it's not. It's pronounced *similarly* to \"win\". The initial 'n' actually is supposed to be pronounced. The word starts with the same sound as the \"ng\" in \"si**ng**er\". The problem is that, in English, words never start with that sound, so most English speakers simply cannot pronounce Nguyen correctly, and \"win\" is an easily-pronounceable substitute.\n\n**EDIT:** I neglected to address the more general question here. The main problem is that many language contain sounds that don't exist in other languages, so if we want to write them in another language's alphabet, we have to come up with a convention that \"these letters in this alphabet represent this other sound that doesn't exist in the target language\". This is where we get these odd spellings from."
]
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3qabmw | why if i drink salt water will i become dehydrated, but if im dehydrated they will give me an iv of a sodium chloride mixture? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qabmw/eli5_why_if_i_drink_salt_water_will_i_become/ | {
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"It's a matter of quantity. Saltwater has a significantly higher salt content than the saline used in IVs. ",
"Basically normal saline has just enough salt in it to make it equal to blood. It's kinda complicated, but if there was no sodium in the saline, all the salt from the body would rush into the bloodstream because of diffusion and concentration gradients and such. ",
"Your body actually contains a decent amount of salt, and in fact you need that salt to be there in order to survive. \n\nBut the concentration of salt inside your body is far lower than the concentration of salt in sea water. Sea water has so much salt in it that your body cannot effectively use the water, and enough salt in it that the body cannot filter it out and discard it before it starts causing problems. \n\nThe relatively small amount in your IV is useful to your body. The relatively large amount in salt water is very bad for your body. \n\nThere are many things that are fine or even helpful in proper doses, but which become very dangerous in large amounts. Even plain ol' water can kill you if you drink enough in a short period of time. ",
"Ill answer the sea water part because most peeps have answered the IV saline part already.\n\nWhen you drink seawater, you're taking onboard farrrrr to much sodium. Your kidneys get rid of the extra sodium by putting it into water and letting it out via urine. The problem is that our kidneys cant concentrate the salt per water very well. So to get rid of the extra salt it needs heap and heaps of water. It ends up using more water than originally came in to get rid of the extra salt",
"Surprised I haven't seen a fully correct answer yet. In the hospital the standard approach is to give isotonic saline (there are times to give hyPERtonic or hyPOtonic but I won't go into details here) which means the salt water has roughly the same osmolarity as your body fluid (or what the osmolarity should be). The main idea is that it's important to first restore blood volume. Isotonic saline won't cause your cells to swell or shrink as opposed to say sea water where there is more salt per unit volume than your body which would cause fluid to leave your cells making the dehydration worse. ",
"To address why salt water will make you dehydrated - water follows sodium. In salt water (sea water for example) the amount of sodium is extremely high. In an effort to get rid of the excess sodium that is now in your body, your kidneys will use the water that's already in your body plus the water in the salty water you just drank. Since your body can only make urine that is less salty than salty water your body will end up getting rid of more water than sodium during each filtration in the kidneys. In simpler terms, to get rid of 2 sodium atoms, your body has to use 4 water molecules (not exact numbers, just for illustration).\n\nTo put it in perspective, hospital saline has a sodium content of 0.9% while sea water has a content of about 3.5%",
"Surprised no one referenced ppm (parts per million) for reference. Here's one example: \n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"As a point of contrast, drinking deionized water (which is water with all* salts removed) can actually cause you to get sick, as it sucks the available ionic compounds from your body, with similar effects to dehydration. \n\n*As close as possible, anyway",
"Medical students struggle with this very question. To restore blood volume (ie, in hypovolemic dehydration), you need a solution (note, not a mixture) that will stay in the bloodstream. Giving straight water IV would decrease your sodium concentration in your blood (bad in and of itself - look up hyponatremia), and the body would excrete the excess water through the kidneys. We have receptors that detect the osmolality - tonicity, really (salt and other solute concentration) in our blood and adjust kidney function to compensate. So low osmolality due to too much free water = dump water through the kidneys. This system is very finely tuned to keep our sodium concentration just right.\n\nIf you were to drink the IV solution (again, not mixture) that they gave you, which was probably something called normal saline (_URL_0_), it would be unpalatable. Way too salty to tolerate. Salt water in the ocean is about 3 times as salty than this. If you drink seawater, your body cannot handle the sodium load, meaning that it can't excrete that much sodium without getting rid of more water than you actually drank. In other words, if you drink a liter of seawater, you have to excrete (kidneys) more than a liter of water to be able to get rid of all the excess sodium you took in. That's how you get dehydrated drinking seawater."
]
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194cnw | why, when you drink a beer, does the smell of it stay in your lungs, in your breath, in a belch, for so long afterwards compared to other liquids, such as soda or juice | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/194cnw/eli5_why_when_you_drink_a_beer_does_the_smell_of/ | {
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"When you drink grown up drinks, just like when you eat food, energy, nutrients and waste materials all go into your body. There is a chemical called alcohol that is in your drinks that ends up in your blood. When you breath, the air you breath and your blood are actually swapping certain things back and forth. When you have had a drink with alcohol, a small amount of it comes out when you breath out. BTW, this is really creepy to explain as though a 5yo asked.\n\nAdult version: The alcohol you imbibe ends up in your bloodstream. Exhaling actually expels some of it. This is the mechanism a breathalyzer employs to estimate your BAC. Anybody who uses an alcohol-based mouthwash if they get pulled over actually runs the risk of increasing the results of this indirect measurement, because the test itself is non-discriminatory as to the source of the alcohol. More info here: _URL_0_",
"Alcohol takes some time for your body to break it down, so it stays in your blood for a while.\n\nYour blood gets sent to your lungs on a constant basis, which is how the air you breathe gets into your bloodstream.\n\nWhen that blood (containing the alcohol) gets to your lungs, some of the alcohol still in it will continue to smell like alcohol when your breathe out.\n\nThat's what a breathalyzer measures- how much un-broken down alcohol you're still breathing out with every exhalation.\n\n"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathalyzer#Law_enforcement"
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1jtiji | what happens moments before someone plunges to their death. shock? if so, what does that mean? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jtiji/elif_what_happens_moments_before_someone_plunges/ | {
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"Like you're five? Poopy pants.\n\nReally, though, I'd assume it's a different response for different people. Probably impossible to know with today's technology.",
"I once jumped off a 40' cliff into the water. There was fear, exhilaration, disorientation, but mostly, it happen too fast to experience much of anything. Even a 100' fall would take only around 3s."
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bbqymm | how are formula one cars so fast with a v6 turbo engine? | I know a V6 Turbo is really good but how do they go to 200 MPH and back to 0 in 6 seconds? I know it has something to do with the insane down force that the cars have but even then its still crazy with all the technology is in the car. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bbqymm/eli5_how_are_formula_one_cars_so_fast_with_a_v6/ | {
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"F1 cars are some if not the most extreme cars on the planet.\n\nThe cars generate tons of aerodynamic downforce which pushes them against the track to massively increase grip. This prevents the cars from skidding and flying off the track at those speeds and helps in acceleration and breaking.\n\nThe tires are slicks with extremely sticky compounds (at temperature a Pirelli tire is as sticky as chewing gum) to generate more grip.\n\nAnd the engines generate near up to 1000 hp.\n\nThe stopping power is a combination of using heat resistant carbon brakes that can generate a lot of stopping power, engine breaking from the ICU (I forget if this is legal these days), and electric braking from the MGU-K that is mounted to the transmission.",
"Downforce is more useful for cornering at speed that accelerating/braking. Braking performance is mainly a combination of massive high grip tyres, massive high end brakes and little weight. Note that the tyres are usually softer than normal car tyres, giving far more grip but wearing out very quickly.\n\nI don’t know all the details of acceleration as I’m not really big into F1, but lack of weight will be a big advantage. They also have very high revving turbo engines that can produce a lot of power compared to their size/weight. Of course F1 engines are pretty temperamental and have complex starting procedures and regular rebuilds so you can’t really get something similar in a road car (although the new Aston and Mercedes hyper cars seem to be getting surprisingly close)",
"Also these cars are super light to capitalize on what power the ehnies) engines have. Literally just a frame, fiberglass and an engine."
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6ov6tj | why can't another nation create their own internet without the usa involvement? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ov6tj/eli5_why_cant_another_nation_create_their_own/ | {
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"[North Korea did it.](_URL_0_\n\nIt’s just pointless to bother setting up a separate network not connected to the global internet.",
"They can. That is exactly what North Korea did. The issue is that they would be the only ones on it and that would mean it would be basically useless. \n\nIt should also be noted that the US have very little control over sites not hosted in the US, and virtually no control over civilian users not in the US. They can ask for you to be extradited if you violate US law, but that is about it. \n",
"Other wealthy countries are also interested in enforcing their own patents & copyright. WTO membership requires enforcement of copyright. Most countries depends on import & export. US economy power also ensure even pragmatic country won't openly flaunt piracy laws. \n\nYou don't actually need a nation to create your own internet. Just setup your own DNS server & convince people to use it, voila, your own addressing system. Use whatever darknet infrastructure, boom, your site is available anywhere. Would people actually use it though? Nah, the system will be slower, less reliable, and chock-full of malware. Nothing stops the MPAA to get antsy and ask FBI, in turn your local police to put you in jail. \n\nUnless every single country actively hunt down & prosecute seeders & trackers, people will use the easiest routes. Current system works well enough for practical purpose, no 3rd world police will waste their time hunting torrent users for simple piracy, first world citizens can use anonymous seedbox or VPN. "
]
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||
74vgm4 | what's counter torque and why is it needed to make a helicopter fly? | I once asked someone about how propellers can make an object fly. He said that without counter torque, no helicopter can fly no matter how fast the propeller was spinning. So what exactly is counter torque? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74vgm4/eli5_whats_counter_torque_and_why_is_it_needed_to/ | {
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"A helicopter flies by using an engine to spin a primary rotor, but that rotor has inertia so when trying to spin it there is a force pushing back that tries to spin the helicopter body too.\n\nCounter torque is provided by the tail rotor and ensures that only the main rotor rotates around the shaft and the body of the helicopter isn't also spinning around the shaft. This is why a helicopter that loses the tail rotor starts spinning out of control",
"The main rotor is constantly cutting into the air in one direction. If there was nothing bracing the body of the helicopter it would start turning in the other direction. Just like if you try to push something heavy while standing on a slippery surface you could go backwards, instead of pushing the object forward. \n\nA helicopter has a vertical rotor on the back to counter the spinning of the main rotor.",
"The helicopter isn't attached to anything, so as the main rotor turns, the helicopter will start to turn with it. Something has to counteract that or the helicopter will just spin eventually. The common way to do that is with a tail rotor, which pushes against the direction the helicopter would otherwise spin. The tail rotor is countering the torque of the main rotor. ",
"Remember Newton's third law of motion? Each action has an equal and opposite reaction.\n\nImagine a helicopter with no tail rotor, and the main rotor spins counter clockwise. The helicopter's body will spin opposite to the helicopter's blades. So without a tail rotor, the body will just keep turning clockwise. In order to stabilize the body from turning in circles constantly, the tail rotor provides a force that pushes the helicopter's tail counter-clockwise, balancing out the torque provided by the main rotor.\n\n[Here's a video on YouTube that provides a visual example and explains the mechanics behind a tail rotor.](_URL_0_)\n\nThere are helicopters without tail rotors, but they have some sort of mechanism at the tail that produces the same effect a tail rotor does: provide a force at the tail opposite the helicopter's spin.",
"People here are mixing up the air resistance of the rotor with the torque from the engine. \nThe torque that makes the helicopter spin comes from the engine spinning the rotor. \nIf the rotor spins and is braked by air resistance no torque is applied to the body. This is actually very important, as it allows you to do an autorotation (landing without engine power) if the tail rotor fails. \n. \nAlso there are helicopter designs that do fly without any sort of tail rotor or torque compensation. \nE. G. You can pump gas through the blades, that comes out at the tip of the blade pointing backwards. This induces no torque on the body \n_URL_0_ "
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3xf8zc | how are we so certain that fossils from early hominids belonged to different species? | I will be up-front with you. I am a Christian who subscribes to Intelligent Design. However, for me, I want to reconcile, as best as I'm able, the creation story with scientific discovery. I am *not* here to troll or feed trolls. I *am* wanting help understanding how science makes the connections it has.
My pressing questions are these: How are we so sure that the fossil records we have found are different species, instead of something like mutation of a regular H. sapiens line? Some of the fossils for which we have photos of look remarkably close to human to me. Could something like H. habilis have been something like one genetically mutated man who had offspring? Also, when I see some of the photos of the fossils, they are often just one jawbone or leg bone. Same thing: could that have not come from just one man who had a birth defect, but science extrapolated a whole skeleton from a small bit?
I can already see this post being controversial. Just know I respect all opinions and am not here to start a fight. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xf8zc/eli5_how_are_we_so_certain_that_fossils_from/ | {
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"Generally they take detailed measurements, often done by a computer, and use those measurements to see if a fossil fits within an expected norm of a given species.\n\nWe know the *Homo habilis* isn't a human because we never find humans with the same morphology, or simpler the same bone measurements. There's often some distinguishing features in the fossils that help us. We can separate *Homo habilis* from the earlier *Australopithecus* because of features in it's wrist/hand, and its teeth. Things get a little murky if we're talking about distinguishing *H. habilis* from *H. erectus* I'll expand on that in a moment.\n\nNow some people have raised the argument that these primitive *Homo sp.* could just be a mutated human. Specifically creationists. One of the reasons we don't think they're just mutants is because we keep finding them, and they all look exactly the same, and... we never find \"normal\" humans along side of them. You'd have to be exceptionally unlucky to keep finding all the mutants of a population, and none of the normal ones in the fossil record. \n\nNow the reason we can often make a species identification based on a single bone, is because we have **tons** of fossils. It's often been repeated that the fossil record is incomplete, and in some ways it is, but that was really only a valid criticism 50 years ago, we've discovered a lot more since then. Everyone knows the famous fossil Lucy, or *Australopithecus afarensis* but what almost no one knows is since her initial discovery we've found another 200 more like her. There's also a few hundred example of *Australopithecus africanus* which you might know as Taung Child. *Australopithecus sediba* is a species you've probably never heard of, but there are at least hundreds of examples, or perhaps thousands. All told there's ~30 species of extinct hominids, and while some are represented by only a few findings, most represented by hundreds or thousands of examples. That's why we can (mostly) determine a species just from fragmentary finds.\n\nNow what's interesting, is in some ways, we have to many fossils. Or more specifically we have so many fossils it is at times difficult to precisely determine exactly which species they come from. That's why I said there's ~(approximately)30 species of extinct hominids. The truth is, that's debatable. Lets take the example you used of *H. habilis* the \"type\" specimen, or the fossil that defines the species is [OH 7](_URL_0_) another is OH 62 (couldn't find a free reference,) which some people have debated is actually an *Australopithecine* and on the other end [KNM ER 1805](_URL_1_) which some people have argued is actually *Homo ergaster* or *Homo erectus*.\n\nThis is far from the only example that I could give. Truthfully we have so many fossils, showing such a clear linear transition (especially in the genus *Homo*) that's it's hard to tell where one species ends and another begins. Species like *Homo erectus* are even worse given the vast amounts of fossils we have of them. It's like arguing when the color blue becomes purple.",
"Basically, we don't. It can be hard to know what's a separate species and what's individual variation when you don't have that many fossils. Whether recent fossils are actually just deformed homo sapiens is also something that scientists need to consider. \n\nBut the thing is that scientists *do* consider these things. A research team that digs up what they think is a new species has to lay out their evidence to the scientific community that the fossils they've discovered are *not* just malformed homo sapiens or another known species. \n\nBut one of the best ways to prove a new species is simply to find more fossils of that species. That's how they proved that Homo floriensis (the hobbit man) was a separate species. One individual might have strange-looking bones due to disease, but probably not a dozen different people.\n\nAs for \"how do we know it's not just a mutated human?\" it's because humans and animals just don't mutate into an entirely different creature. No human is ever going to randomly mutate into having dozens of archaic features anymore than they might randomly mutate into a chimpanzee. Finding a population of individuals all with the same archiac traits is a good sign that they form a separate species.\n\nAlso, humans simply don't go back more than 1.5 million years or so. You might dig up *H. habilis* fossils from 2 million years ago, but you're never, ever going to dig up a modern human skeleton that old."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KNM_ER_1805"
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268bs1 | how is larry page able to sell and buy google stock without it being insider trading? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/268bs1/eli5how_is_larry_page_able_to_sell_and_buy_google/ | {
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"There are restrictions. Most companies have a blackout period where employees are not allowed to trade stock for a period around when financial reports are released. Also executives have to file with the SEC to publicly disclose that they're trading stock. This way if they're selling stock because they think the shares will drop, everyone knows they're doing it. What executives are doing with the stock is something stock analysts look at. ",
"Well specifically for Sergey, he probably has about zero decision when it comes to selling or maintaining his google stock, its not controlled by him, its controlled likely by a blind trust financial/wealth manager to avoid any even perception that there would be insider trading or anything illegal going on-- not that there would be anything illegal going on, but he would not control his own finances, very few wealthy people do.\n\n"
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6rycks | why we can't stop time? | As we know is space-time is the 4th dimension, but we are all aware it is qualitatively different. We can stand still in space (choose any coordinate system) but we can’t stand still in time. But why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6rycks/eli5_why_we_cant_stop_time/ | {
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"The thing is, I doubt we are able to stand still in space either. Everything depends on the frame of reference. We can sit still relative to the earth, but the earth is still rotating and revolving, and the galaxy still spins, and the galaxies generally move apart from each other.\n\nNot only that, but assuming we did find a way to essentially pause time, we couldn't sense it. Our consciousness depends on the firing of neurons, which itself takes time. Assuming we're in a cosmic simulation and our creators paused/shut down the computer for any length of time, they could start it back up from that point and we'd never know the difference.",
"Your question is one of the great unsolved questions of physics.\n\nAny one who could provide you with an answer here would be worthy of a nobel prize!\n\nFurther reading :\n\n_URL_1_\n\nand \n\n_URL_0_"
]
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2gwsfo | why does the big lewbowski have such a strong cult following? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gwsfo/eli5why_does_the_big_lewbowski_have_such_a_strong/ | {
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"Because, man. It's just like...a good movie to relax and shut down to. \n\nThis could be a a a lot more, uh, uh, uh, complex...I mean it's not just, it might not be just a simple, uh. Ya know?",
"Just the right combination of interesting story, interesting characters, quoteable, quirky, and funny. ",
"Because it really ties the room together.",
"I can't directly answer your question, but I can give you my experience.\n\nWhen I first watched The Big Lebowski (on VHS!) I hated it. I thought it was a stupid movie.\n\nThen I met a co-worker who quoted it all the time. And I laughed. And he would talk about his favorite scenes, and I would remember them too and think how funny it was. And then it hit me--I thought it was stupid, yet I'm remembering all of these funny scenes. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all? I re-watched it and loved it, and now it's one of my top ten movies.\n\nSo I dunno, but maybe that's the experience of a lot of people--it takes some time to \"like\" it, which means a lot of people are turned off by it. So it's a cult movie because there's a large set of people who may have watched it and dismissed it, but a smaller subset who \"got\" it after another viewing and loved it.\n\nMaybe. I dunno."
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574i7b | why is citing so complex? | I'm an 8th grader and so far I've seen that in college and high school you have to do it in a certain format and a certain website. Why can't you just copy and paste it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/574i7b/eli5_why_is_citing_so_complex/ | {
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"To be an effective writer you can't just make up facts. To prove you aren't doing so, you need to show where you got your facts. Citations are complex because they need to show someone looking later exactly how to find the facts you referenced, even if you're not there to show them the source. \n\nFor example let's say you're writing a report on citations and you say, \"I saw this passage in a book on citations\". Why should anyone disagreeing with you believe that you didn't just make up the passage. If you say, I got this information from the MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, page 49, Published by the Modern Language Association of America. Someone wanting to know why you said can verify using the same source that you used and can then verify that your source says the same thing you claim. \n\nThe complexity also comes from standardizing the order and format because it's much shorter to write a standard citation than:\n\nI got this fact from the book entitled *MLA Handbook*, authored by various authors published by the Modern Language Association of America in New York, NY. The copy I used was the 8th Edition of the title, and it was published in 2016. ",
"When you write a report or a paper and are making critical statements, we need to provide a citation that is peer reviewed so that the reader will understand that the statement is valid (as it was peer reviewed). Now, the different formats happen to be because of different fields of study and their preferences. The sources can be any peer reviewed publication or book etc.",
"I am not sure what you mean exactly.\nThere are several different citation methods but they all serve the same purpose: to provide the reader the source of a fact that you have not discovered nor proven in your work.\nThe tricky part, and what I think you might be asking, is what formatting method to use, i.e. MLA format. This depends entirely on your audience, but they all contain the same information. There are slight differences in formatting depending on your type of source; magazines are formatted differently than textbooks or websites, for example.\nSince you're in 8th grade, I wouldn't worry about the various formats until you're out of high school. MLA was all I ever used until college. \nAlso, MS Word has built-in tools for citations and will create and format your sources to any standard. Hope this helps.\n",
"There is a legal minimum standard for this kind of thing, and in fact the Academic Research Paper Citations (Plagiarism and Falsification) Act of 1985 imposes stiff fines on those who fail to adhere to these standards. It was passed after a number of highly paid government researchers were found to have falsified all of their work over a period of eight years.\n\nNow, is what I just said true?\n\nMaybe it is, but how do you know? And which country am I talking about? Is this US law, English law, Scottish law, or what? Even if it is true, have I understood it correctly? Have I missed something important? Am I deliberately misquoting or misrepresenting what it says? Is my source even reliable? Basically: where did I get my information from?\n\nOf course, I made it up completely. But if I'd cited a source, you could have checked up on it.\n\nA citation needs to include all the information necessary to help you find my source, if you need to. And if it's presented in a standard format, you can understand the citation almost at a glance: you know exactly which bit of it is the title, which is the author's name, which is the title and so on.",
" > Why can't you just copy and paste it?\n\nNot for a very good reason; you're right that it's kind of silly that we can't just copy & paste a citation easily.\n\nThe reason is that there are many different groups that govern scientific writing in different places, and those different groups use different standards for how to cite something. \n\nSo a psychology journal might want you to write the author's full name but a medical journal might just want the first letter, and a physics journal wants you to list the pages it was published on but a math journal just wants the issue number, and etc.\n\nThis means that there's no one standard way to write a citation, so you have to go through and fix any citations you're using to match the format of the place you want to publish (or in your case, to match the format your teacher told you to use). \n\nIt's kind of silly, but these different groups just haven't ever gotten together to agree on one, universal format."
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21uynf | why do we have standardized tests that reward the students for memorizing not learning | Sorry I ment state testing like the CST or STAAR | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21uynf/eli5_why_do_we_have_standardized_tests_that/ | {
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"Tax money is controlled by politicians.\n\nPoliticians know nothing about education.\n\nEducation is available because of tax money.\n\nTax money is controlled by politicians...",
"Can you be more specific as to what test you are talking about? The SAT has a bit of vocab on it, but it's a relatively small portion, and the rest of the test don't really have a memorization component.",
"Seems to me that it is probably because nobody can think of a better way that is practical! It would be much better if they could individually interview the students and work with them for a length of time to gauge their ability but that would take an impractical number of people, time and money to do. The current system is far from ideal but until they can come up with a better one we're stuck with it, sadly.",
"I'm not sure that's actually the case for most standardized tests. I couldn't just memorize problems and answers in order to pass my tests, I had to actually understand how to solve the problem so that when I was presented with a completely original problem of a similar form I was able to apply the correct steps to solve it. If that's not \"learning\" I'm not sure what is learning.\n\nIn comparison some of my co-workers have told me that a common situation in some developing countries is that they give tests which have the exact same questions and answers as the books provide, so they were able to get through by simply memorizing the exact numbers that existed in the book."
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3nrqe3 | why does it seem like american football is so much more dangerous than sports like rugby or wrestling? is it actually more dangerous? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nrqe3/eli5_why_does_it_seem_like_american_football_is/ | {
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"By wrestling I'm assuming that you are talking about Greco-Roman wrestling and not WWE, which is fake and a lot of the \"contact\" doesn't happen. Real wrestling doesn't have a ton of impact, mostly pushing, pulling, twisting, etc. While there is a danger factor there, it's nowhere near as high as with impact activities. \n\nNow, for football vs rugby. Rugby does have a ton of injuries, but they tend to be more of the cuts and scrapes variety, although broken bones do happen. There is a fair amount of impact in Rugby, but what makes football arguably more dangerous is actually the pads in football. Counterintuitive, but stick with me. \n\nWhat ultimately causes the most damage people is impact, which football has a ton of. Football pads offer a ton of protection, and as a result players don't hesitate to put all of their force behind a hit, knowing the pads will protect them. And usually they will. But pads aren't perfect and there are certain hits that they aren't going to help with. When those hits happen, the amount of force involved can result in massive damage. ",
"American football players take blows to the head with more force than most other sports except combat sports (boxing, MMA).\n\nThe principle reason is because football players tackle differently than Rugby players due to wearing helmets and pads. Rugby players tackle by wrapping the opposing player up and dragging them to the ground. Football players tackle by spearing into the opposing player using their head/shoulders. The advantage of tackling like this is it increases the chances that the tackler dislodges the ball from the opponent, allowing for an incompletion or fumble. The obvious disadvantage is hitting things with your head is generally not healthy for you and spearing people in their knees or bones can seriously injure them."
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3a29ie | does the us federal govg have any power/influence on local police? | Also, if it is, why has it been so lame to do anything? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a29ie/eli5_does_the_us_federal_govg_have_any/ | {
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"So the US federal government doesn't have direct control over the municipal or state police departments in any given state or municipality. However, these institutions are subject to federal law (including anti-discrimination law). The federal government can, and is, charging departments that it investigates and finds is in violation of federal law. "
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5ni5vg | why are most flag ratios consecutive fibonacci numbers? | The Fibonacci ratios 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 3:5, 5:8, etc. and the Lucas ratios 4:7, 7:11, 3:4 are some of the most common flag ratios in the world (only two of them account for 73% of all flags of sovereign states).
I'm guessing this has a lot to do with approaching the golden ratio but I wonder whether this is a natural occurrence (maybe golden ratio flags look better) or if they all arose from careful consideration.
Also, does having a golden ratio flag make it wave any better?
Thanks | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ni5vg/eli5_why_are_most_flag_ratios_consecutive/ | {
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"The most common dimensions of flags are also roughly the golden ratio; human , artwork, and architecture dimensions containing the golden ratio are generally considered attractive so why not flags? \n_URL_0_"
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5km8hz | how did the romans raise so many armies so easily? doesn't it take a long time to train legionaries? | as i read through the history of rome, it seems like were able to raise armies at the drop of a hat.
is this an oversimplification of history books? or were there really just always enough people around to round up before the plagues?
also, how long was their equivalent of modern militaries' "boot camp"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5km8hz/eli5_how_did_the_romans_raise_so_many_armies_so/ | {
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"Rome changed a lot throughout its existence, so the answer depends on the time period. That being said, around the time of Julius Caesar here's how it worked. A *dilectus*, who was an officer, would go from village to village in his area and recruit young men who wanted to join the legion. Young men were tempted by promises of money, loot, glory, and retirement land. In order to join you just had to be of age and strong enough.\n\nOnce you joined, you would go to a training camp for about 6 months. There you would learn to use your weapons, but mostly you would do discipline drills. The biggest threat to an ancient army was routing due to lack of discipline. Usually the first army to lose morale and break ranks would be the first to lose. If you could make sure your soldiers stayed in a line and kept their cool, you would be at an advantage over your enemy. The training took about 6 months.\n\nI shamelessly stole all of this from /u/celebreth at this thread on/r/askhistorians, which has more detail:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n"
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3eddie | regarding planet kepler-452b, how can scientists determine how old planets are? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eddie/eli5_regarding_planet_kepler452b_how_can/ | {
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"They can make estimates of how old the star is and extrapolate an age for the planets around that star.\n\nThey can estimate the age of the star based on its mass and the types of elements that comprise the star. Stars have a pretty predictable lifecycle and if you know a stars' mass and you know what elements comprise it you can estimate its age pretty accurately.\n\nThe mass of the star can be determined by a number of precise measurements of it's velocity. It's elemental composition can be determined by spectrographic analysis of the light it emits.",
"This has been posted a few times already, but the basic answer is they know how old the host star is, by examining its spectral class (what type of star it is), and determining in what stage of life it is and what it's luminosity is compared to its mass.\n\nThe Sun, for instance, steadily increases in luminosity during its main sequence, it has been doing this all its life and it's only getting brighter as it ages. But its mass isn't changing significantly, only slightly lowering. So, you can tell how long a Sun-type star has been existing by these two parameters. Other stars behave slightly differently, but have similar luminosity changes over their lifetime to be able to estimate their age.\n\nAnd of course, a planet would be about the same age as its host star."
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6re1co | what propels life out of lifeless atoms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6re1co/eli5_what_propels_life_out_of_lifeless_atoms/ | {
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" > I'm wondering what physical influences decide carbon atoms become life versus pencil lead.\n\nCarbon atoms don't become life. A carbon atom in a lifeform is a carbon atom. A carbon atom in pencil lead is a carbon atom. Life is not a property intrinsic to certain atoms, but more along the lines of a complicated set of ongoing reactions occurring with some set of atoms. Just as not all atoms comprising wood are involved in fire, not all atoms comprising meat are involved in life. Only those where the set of behaviors we observe as life are active. That 'change' thus isn't some sort of change to the atoms themselves, but having the proper starting conditions to initialize the reaction.",
"These questions you've asked are pretty difficult to put into a truncated answer, but I'll do my best with what I know. One thing you should check out, however, is a fascinating book by Richard Dawkins called [The Ancestor's Tale](_URL_1_) which will answer a whole lot of these questions. Also, a recent article touches on some of the questions you've asked which are categorized as \"origin of life\" questions. [It proposes that life itself is an inevitable result of the laws of physics in our universe.](_URL_2_) Another great thing to absorb is some of Murray Gell-Mann's thinking on this subject since it's got a lot to do with his work and he talks about this stuff often. [This is a portion of one of my favorite of his lectures.](_URL_0_). Given the nature of your questions I might guess that a good amount of what he discusses will be kind of advanced material, but give it a whirl. It's really great and he's one of the greatest theorists on Earth right now. \n\nTaking a stab at your questions myself- In the simplest of terms, atoms bond together through electrical relationships to form molecules. Those molecules come together and make complex chemicals in many, many different ways. From this process and other electrical events (accidents) life can form. There is an argument against this from the perspective of probability, but given that the process could've happened infinite times, it's hard to say it would never. Top scientists in the field have found that it actually wouldn't take that long, but we'll likely never know for sure. Some experiments have been done, however, to show that proteinoid microspheres spontaneously arise under the correct circumstances and show many of the criteria for life. So, it may be a pretty simple process after all. \n\nSo that brings us to protein. Proteins are nitrogenous molecules (patterns of bonded atoms) essential for life. They can occur spontaneously, but mostly proteins are constructed within the cells of living organisms. Protein synthesis is a process by which sugars (DNA/RNA) within an organism are used to arrange available molecules into proteins. These sugars aren't used for sweetener or energy the way we think of them, but to embed a code for protein synthesis. It's a crazy process that I won't get into, and before you ask, no we don't know a whole lot about how this process came to be. There are a lot of chicken/egg questions that we don't have answers to right now. One of the real confounding mysteries comes from a protective protein that covers DNA called histone. Where did it come from? By what process could it have come about? How would it have been selected for? We don't have answers on that stuff. What we do know is that there is an unbelievably complex process by which DNA is unraveled, read, and replicated. It's also unraveled, read, and used to arrange amino acids (a certain group of molecules) into a line of larger molecules according to the code the unraveled DNA expresses. When that line of molecules folds naturally because of the electrical relationships between the atoms in those molecules, you get proteins that function in different ways. I'm skipping a lot, but that's essentially how your whole body gets made, believe it or not. It's essentially how all life is made, actually. The illustration on the front of that Dawkins book is an artist's rendering of the process (flawed, but that's what it's supposed to be). Here's something that'll really bake your brain. I've never gotten confirmation on it, but [this is a pretty good imagining of what part of the process looks like.](_URL_4_) I haven't written enough to explain where this would fit into the whole thing, but I wanted to show you that because it's hilarious, very cool, and gives you an idea of how crazy the whole thing really is. So, to answer your question as best I can, protein synthesis is done by unraveling DNA and using the sugars as a code, creating every protein your body will ever need until you die. Protein folding that I touched on is super complex. So is molecular structure. There's a whole area of science dedicated just to understanding molecules in three dimensions and how their structure changes their function. It's called stereochemistry. \n\nWhat seems to have happened is that the right environment gave rise to single-cell organisms. They began selectively ingesting chemicals in their environment which allowed them to repair themselves. During this process it's likely that reproduction of parts led to reproduction of whole organisms. Another thing that we don't really know is how life went from single cell to multi-cellular organisms, but it happened, clearly. We're yet further away from understanding how multicellular organisms began specializing cells to make certain cells function in specific ways. Cells don't appear in the fossil record so we can't do with them what we can with other prehistoric life in terms of looking at morphology and trying to figure out a storyline. \n\nWhat gives cells their locomotion is any number of things. Cellular organisms use an array of methods for travel. Some use cilia, others don't use anything at all, but my favorite is the [bacterial flagellum motor](_URL_3_). \n\nI think that touches on everything. If not, it's a good start. There are a lot of science geeks around who'll likely toast me for mistakes I've made here, but generally that's my understanding. Sorry for any inaccuracies here. "
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9q7lar | why is the murder of this journalist in saudi arabia such a big deal compared to russian journalists who are killed seemingly every wrek? | ...seemingly every week*** | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9q7lar/eli5_why_is_the_murder_of_this_journalist_in/ | {
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"Something not mentioned yet is that it happened in a Consulate on foreign soil. That itself is a huge diplomatic no no.\n\nKilling people in your own country is very different from killing people in other peoples countries.",
"Because he was murdered in a consulate, - basically the building is an extension of Saudi Arabia within Turkey. These international arrangements bring with them many written and unwritten rules about how to behave in a foreign country. Sending a load of executioners to chop up a journalist inside a consulate is well outside these norms and it has very little plausible deniability by the Saudis . The Russians simply pay thugs ( FSB) to do their dirty work on the streets, they can then blame it on criminals, accidents etc.",
"I don't think any of the answers have so far gotten to the reason why this is a big deal. My view:\n\n1. He worked for \\*The Washington Post\\*, one of the US's most prominent and influential newspapers. They have used all of their influence to get this on the front page and make this a major story.\n2. He was a permanent resident of the US.\n3. The proximity to the Trump family. Jared Kushner and Trump have close ties to the Saudi crown prince and Jared may have given MBS intelligence on Khashoggi.\n4. US security forces may have known about this ahead of time and did nothing to stop it.\n\nMost of the other responses here have focused on it being particularly bad because it was in a consulate and on foreign soil, but this doesn't really differ much from what Putin has done. He's (allegedly) had a lot of Russians killed, including on the soil of our closest ally--the UK. And in a lot of other countries. This has been reported on in the news a lot, it just hasn't stirred up that much interest in the US. They've also focused on how brutal it was, but I don't think that's it either, because I don't think it was public knowledge initially about how brutal it was. It was a big deal even before that.\n\nIf we compare this to the murder of Daniel Pearl, which was also a big deal, I think it got a lot of coverage because he was a \\*Wall Street Journal\\* reporter, and the WSJ made sure it was a big deal, just as the WaPo is doing now. A few other Americans were also beheaded in gruesome videos, just like Daniel Pearl, but they didn't make as much of a public news story out of it simply because they weren't as well-connected.",
"1) The murder of journalists in Russia and other countries is a big deal in and around those countries. Just maybe not in the USA.\n\n2) Jamal Khashoggi was a US permanent resident, so he was more or less under the protection of the US government. Not quite a citizen, but in this case it's close enough.\n\n3) He was also working for a US paper (although plenty of stringers and local correspondents working for US papers get killed around the world).\n\n4) He was killed by agents of Saudi Arabia, a country the US is very close with. Sure, the US doesn't like Russian journalists being murdered, but the US doesn't like the Russian government as a whole. It does, however, like the Saudi government."
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6npny1 | why do our funny bones feel so... funny? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6npny1/eli5_why_do_our_funny_bones_feel_so_funny/ | {
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"It's not actually a bone. It's a big cluster of nerves that connects signals from your entire arm. When it gets hit all the signals fire at once, and it shorts out the nerves for several seconds."
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f8fu35 | how do property surveyors figure out where to start? | I think I can figure out once they have a reference point, how they could super accurately measure everything from there. But often times property disputes seem to come down to a matter of inches.
How does a surveyor know *this* spot is for sure correct and I can base the rest of the measurements on it? It seems like tiny errors over many plots of land could add up to being off by several feet. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f8fu35/eli5_how_do_property_surveyors_figure_out_where/ | {
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"In the UK at least there are numerous trig points set up throughout the country and surveyors will work back from one of those to create their own reference point within the site.",
"There’s a system with a small number of level-1 markers in a country and then many more level-2 markers based on those, and so on. By the time local land surveyors do their job they’re using level-4 or -5 markers which can be just plaques set in the curbs. They have access to a database giving the positions of the markers. Unless some gross error comes to light, these markers are considered accurate enough for property disputes.",
"others have answered how surveyors work so I'll just add\n\n > It seems like tiny errors over many plots of land could add up to being off by several feet.\n\nit's rare for them to be that far off, but the law actually has stipulations to deal with things like this. if you treat an area as part of your property in good faith (meaning you honestly and reasonably believed you had the right to) and the rightful owner of that land doesn't contest it for an extended period, you can be granted the legal right to continue to use that land (called an easement), if not gain ownership of it outright. \n\nthis is fairly common in suburbia, where fences and parts of driveways can extend into neighboring properties."
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3omusj | how do you go about setting up a vpn? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3omusj/eli5_how_do_you_go_about_setting_up_a_vpn/ | {
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"Removed as not ELI5 material. See [Rule 2.](_URL_0_)\n\nELI5 isn't for everything; this post may do better in a different subreddit. Try /r/techsupport"
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2qdp40 | how exactly does one use an abacus? | Help | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qdp40/eli5_how_exactly_does_one_use_an_abacus/ | {
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"This is really something best explained visually. explaining here in words would not be as helpful as a video tutorial. so [here](_URL_0_) ya go.",
"You literally count. \n\nThere are 10 beads on each rod, and there are a set number of rods. Each rod is a unit place, so the first rod represents the singles, the second rod represents the 10's, the third one represents 100's and so on and so forth.\n\n.\n\nYou can then use each rod to denote a value or add together values. For each 10 1's beads you place to the right you have made the number 10. If you can place 1 10's bead to the right and then reset the 1's rod. SO, if 5 1's beads are to the right, 2 10's beads, 0 100's beads and 9 1000's beads you have created the number 9025 using just 16 beads all an all.\n\n.\n\nSo, for a visual explanation:\n\n~~00000 - - - - - -00000~~\n\n\n~~000 - - - - - -0000000~~\n\n\n~~0 - - - - - -000000000~~\n\non an abacus would be equal to 5 1's (the top rod has 5 beads on the right), There is 7 10's (7 beads are on the right on the second row) and there are 9 100's (9 beads on the right on the last row).\n\nSo, this abacus represents 5 + 7 * 10 + 9 * 100 =975. \nIf you then want to subtract 133 you just move one bead from the lowest row and place it to the left, three on the middle row, and three on the top row. The resulting abacus then looks like this:\n\n~~00000000 - - - - - -00~~\n\n\n~~000000 - - - - - -0000~~\n\n\n~~00 - - - - - -00000000~~\n\nand you find the result: 2+4 * 10+8 * 100 = 842\n"
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6ttx7f | how do judges come up with the points to judge participants/athletes, like during the olympics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ttx7f/eli5_how_do_judges_come_up_with_the_points_to/ | {
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"There is a code of points that gives value for skills performed and/or deductions required when form is broken. Each sport has their own rules and code.\n\nYou won't have a skating judge judge a gymnastics competition for example. The judges that work at the Olympics are experts in their respective disciplines. ",
"There's a strict rubric that they're supposed to follow. While I'm not familiar with olympic sports, it might look something like this:\n\nJumps: Back straight, toes pointed, full motion = full points.\nX point deduction for not enough jumps\nX point deduction for legs not over 45 degrees past horizontal\nX point deduction for partial rotation\n\nThe role of the judges is to know these rules 100% and be able to spot the flaws and grade accordingly. No one is perfect but most judges should be within a few 0.1 points of each other. It's typically somewhat suspicious if a judge awards significantly more or less points than the other judges."
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7j5118 | how do we know when to use "a" vs "an" before an acronym? | For example, if the acronym was "RPG," we would say "an RPG." If the acronym was "KLS," we would say "a KLS." What's the rule? How do we know? It just sounds correct and that's all I got. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7j5118/eli5_how_do_we_know_when_to_use_a_vs_an_before_an/ | {
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"If it starts with a vowel sound, you use an.\n\nWhile RPG doesn't have a vowel as the first letter, it is a vowel sound (ar-pee-jee).\n\nAn example of the opposite is USB. Its pronounced with a consonant at the start (yoo-ess-bee), so its a USB, not an USB.\n",
" > What's the rule?\n\nAs others have pointed out, it's about how you *pronounce* it, not about how you *spell* it.\n\n > How do we know? It just sounds correct\n\nThat's basically it: it sounds correct. You \"know\" how to apply all the complicated grammar and pronunciation rules of your own native language almost instinctively, even if you can't say what the rules are. You learned these rules not by having somebody painstakingly explain them to you, but by listening to people talking around you when you were an infant and analyzing their speech automatically, without even consciously realizing it."
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46t6fl | since glasses fix blurry vision, can a picture blurred with photoshop be unblurred by looking at it through the right kind of lense? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46t6fl/eli5_since_glasses_fix_blurry_vision_can_a/ | {
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"Blurry vision of the sort you're thinking of is caused by the rays of light not being pointed in the right direction. Lenses bend those rays of light so that they are pointed in the correct direction.\n\nA photograph has already captured the effects of those rays of light. If they weren't pointed in the right direction, there's no way to move them now. They're gone and only their effects remain.",
"No. In order for a lens to focus an image the focused image would have to exist. Once the image is blurred by Photoshop the focused image doesn't exist anymore. If you had an image that was distorted just right so that all of the original image was still there it *might* be possible."
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1xd7v0 | why are people threatened by gay marriage? | I just read an article about how a five year old child actor received death threats because she was on some Disney show that had a lesbian married couple.
I'm not gay, and I won't even pretend to understand why two people of the same sex are attracted to each other. But I've always followed the philosophy that if nobody is being hurt then it's none of my business.
So why do people feel so threatened by gay marriage, or really anything that other people do that doesn't harm anyone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xd7v0/eli5_why_are_people_threatened_by_gay_marriage/ | {
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"Note: I am a strong supporter of gay marriage. I am not putting in the many, many counter-arguments to these positions, with limited exceptions.\n\nThere are many different reasons that people oppose gay marriage or the acceptance of gay relationships/gay people more generally. Usually it is because they do see a harm, just not one that most people recognize.\n\nFor many, it is purely religious, by which I mean they view gay sex as a sin the same way that they view something like masturbation or greed as a sin. So \"gay marriage,\" in this mindset, is like saying \"adulterous marriage\" or \"wrath marriage.\" They do see a \"harm,\" but it's a religious harm, an affront to the rules that God has established to guide human behavior. They oppose gay marriage because it is sinful, which tehy see as a harm. They may also oppose things like divorce and contraception, though they may see the battle as mostly lost already on those issues, and are drawing a line in the sand. An\n\nFor others, it is quasi-religious. They see gay marriage as a sin, but they justify their opposition to gay marriage on some other value. This can include \"positive\" values or \"negative\" values. The positive values might be something \"protecting\" children by increasing the number of heterosexual marriages that can help to raise them, getting off a slippery slope to unequal marriage arrangements like polygamy, or avoiding giving children the impression that same-sex relationships are healthy. People in this group often believe that homosexuals are more likely to engage in other kinds of sex acts that are harmful or non-consensual (like pedophilia and beastiality) and so see societal condemnation of homosexuality as a means to control these other things that do harm others. They may even think that homosexual sex \"harms\" the participants, and oppose homosexuality for the same reason they oppose legalization of drugs. \n\nLastly, and overlapping with both of these groups, are people who oppose homosexual marriage for cultural reasons. They tend to be older, and have been raised at a time where it was appropriate to react to homosexuality with revulsion. Even with no religious basis, they may believe many of the values that I introduced in the quasi-religious category above, thinking that social science confirms their biases. \n\nIn all of these broad categories there are of course many sub-species, and many relatively sane people as well as the kinds of crazy assholes who would send death threats to a five-year old. ",
"Although in many cases it is related to religion, I don't think its fair to directly conjoin the two. I think its simply that because it has been considered wrong for so long, people become afraid that their loved ones will become it. They act violently toward it to try and keep their family from moving toward it.\n\nThink about it like this. Don't take this as me relating the two, but its all I can think of to show my point: why is it taboo to be naked in public? In modern times, there is no real reason for it to be frowned upon.",
"Many people hold a sincere belief that engaging in homosexual sex is morally wrong. \nWhat they fail to even consider is that they feel exactly the same way about sex outside of marriage, yet they don't make such a big fuss about it because they're just used to it. ",
"Personally I think the reason a lot of Americans resist gay marriage is that their impression of homosexuality is dated. If you were out of the closet in the 70's or 80's, then it was because you weren't afraid to be unconventional. Being openly gay put you at odds with the rest of society, so you might as well embrace being \"odd\" and take it to extremes. I suspect that's the reason it's pretty easy to call to mind the stereotype of the eccentric, selfish-but-loveable, promiscuous, self-indulgent, hard-partying, flamboyant drama queen. The gay community was limited to a narrow demographic of people who were willing to be openly gay at the time, and so being openly gay entailed being a lot of other things too--most of which just weren't conducive to marriage (i.e., monogamy, responsibility, parenthood). But since homosexuality has become less censured by mainstream society, people who are openly gay aren't by default placed at odds with the mainstream. The gay community today is more diverse than it was before, encompassing a whole spectrum of values and beliefs. Homosexuality is now simply a sexual orientation, whereas before it was perceived as an ideology. People who feel threatened by gay marriage most likely continue to view homosexuality as an ideology and not as a sexual orientation."
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41vovl | what is the difference between a wizard and a sorcerer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41vovl/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_wizard_and/ | {
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"It entirely depends on context, the words don't have any inherent difference in meaning. In various mythologies, novels, roleplaying games, etc, there may be a difference in meaning depending on where they get their powers from or such things, but it's not fundamental to the words."
]
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85c0mf | why is it that when our hearing is damaged it can never regenerate more like why is our cochlea hairs in our ears can't heal itself? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/85c0mf/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_our_hearing_is_damaged/ | {
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"text": [
"Regeneration and repair are evolved traits, where the animal who exhibits the trait gains an advantage in future mating. Noise damaging hearing loss is rare, and so there isn't much mating advantage to having a repair trait for it. Skin damage is not rare, so we have a repair trait for it.",
"Very basically there are 3 types of cells in your body when it comes to regeneration.\n\n1. Fully regenerative - e.g. Skin and Bones \n\n2. Partially regenerative e.g. Liver \n\n3. Non-regenerative - e.g. Nerve cells \n\nThe vestibulocochlear nerve is involved in hearing and components of it are what usually is damaged during hearing loss especially sensorineural hearing loss.\n\nThere are terrific advancements for sensorineural hearing loss though which can restore hearing to an extent. They’re these amazing implantable devices called cochlear implants. \n"
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c9ollm | when smoking cannabis, why do you only get high for a few hours even though thc remains in your body for 30 days? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c9ollm/eli5_when_smoking_cannabis_why_do_you_only_get/ | {
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"text": [
"The psychoactive effects wear off bc your brain flushes the THC. What doesn’t cross the blood brain barrier is stored in muscle and fat tissue after the body metabolizes it."
]
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||
9uy8tc | when two mirrors are placed opposite each other and their reflection seems to go on forever, why do the reflections further away appear darker? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uy8tc/eli5_when_two_mirrors_are_placed_opposite_each/ | {
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"Mirrors aren't 100% reflective, so with each bounce, some of the light is absorbed, ie., lost.",
"Because even though you’d think a mirror is something that only reflects light, it also absorbs a small percentage. This is the same reason a mirror “seems green” after a few reflections ([like this](_URL_0_) )\n\nThe further away the reflection, the more the light has been absorbed. ",
"Each time the light bounces off the mirror, it passes through the sheet of glass, twice. Standard glass contains a little amount of impurities, mostly a trace of iron, that turn the glass slightly green. You can see this by looking at the edge of a pane of glass.\n\nSo the more times it passes through the glass, the more times it bounces between the mirrors, the more green and dark the reflections appear."
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3e8wq5 | why is kojima being erased from everything mgs:5 and konami related? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e8wq5/eli5_why_is_kojima_being_erased_from_everything/ | {
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"Konami is undergoing a restructuring, and will not be focusing on developing console games as their primary projects, favouring casinos and mobile game development instead.\n\nTo this end, Kojima Productions has been liquidated.\n\nKojima himself is still under contract to Konami, though it will not be renewed once The Phantom Pain is released. His name is being removed because his company has been liquidated, and Konami would rather have Metal Gear associated with them, than Kojima.\n\nPeople are likely to tell you it's one of Kojima's ruses, but the stocks plummeted in Konami after the news, projects have been cancelled, and dozens of people have lost their jobs. Konami have also begun hiring for future Metal Gear projects."
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35g2eg | why is the argentinian economy doing so bad? | Also how can the government just force Argentinians to pay a 35% tax on all credit card purchases abroad? How can they just not allow people access to U.S. Dollars or Euros?! Is it not some kind of infringement on personal rights?! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35g2eg/eli5_why_is_the_argentinian_economy_doing_so_bad/ | {
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"Mao said: Power comes out of the barrel of a gun.\n\nWant to oppose the laws of a government? You need guns and the willingness to use them.\n\nThe country has been systemically mismanaged for a long time, cyclically (sometimes they get their act together but then the population elects another \"populist\" set of leaders who trash the economy again).\n\nThe current issues all stem from the classic problem: The government tried to pay its bills by printing money, and triggered a runaway inflationary spiral.",
"Just a thought experiment but why exactly is the Argentinian government required to respect the rights of its citizens? Besides it is an easy cover to just blame the US or their old friends the Brits whenever things get extra bad to mask their own terrible financial decisions. "
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6dw83m | why does it seem to take humans many more "tries" to get pregnant, while many wild animals seem to mate once and reproduce? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dw83m/eli5_why_does_it_seem_to_take_humans_many_more/ | {
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"Different reproductive systems.\n\nThe vast majority of animals *only* mate when they are already ovulating. Some are induced ovulaters even. Meaning that the very act of sex makes them ovulate.\n\nIn humans, mating is more of a social / partner bonding thing, so we also mate when we are not ovulating and there is absolutely no chance of pregnancy. \n\nOne other fact is that humans have a very high rate of miscarriages. There is some research that 70% of fertilised eggs never make it to full term pregnancy. Most of these eggs are lost before we even realise we are pregnant. This might be due to the fact that humans invest a lot of resources into very few children / pregnancies. So for us, it is better if 'flawed' conceptions terminate early, before all that effort was put into things. ",
"I'm pretty sure animals couple many times during ovulation, not always resulting in pregnancy- google Panda's in captivity, compared to Lions quote \"During a mating bout, a couple may copulate twenty to forty times a day for several days\" from _URL_0_",
"The exact answer would depend greatly on what kind of animal you're talking about. Primates? Mammals? All non-human animals?\n\nBut generally speaking, we don't necessarily have a higher *rate* of pregnancy or ratio of attempts to successes. For every couple that has to try several times or needs to use IVF to get pregnant, there's someone who got pregnant by accident. But we hear about couples who are struggling to conceive more than we hear about accidental pregnancies. Especially so within our communities - a couple who is trying to conceive will be widely celebrated as a couple that is struggling to do something admirable, whereas someone who got pregnant by accident will generally try to hide it. This leads to the perception that humans - as a species - have a greater difficulty in conception than we actually do.\n\nAnd due to the institution of marriage, we're more likely to stay with one partner and keep trying - or needing to try - to procreate with them. Animals in the wild can and will (at least depending on species) abandon an infertile partner and pursue a fertile one. Humans generally don't do that, we'll stick around with an infertile partner and try until the day we die, wheras animals have little issue abandoning their if infertile partners to go find fertile ones, instead.\n\nOn top of that is the age and health factor. Humans live longer (relative to their span of fertility) than animals in the wild, and we as a species live longer with debilitating conditions, many of which can affect your fertility. Wild animals would just die before they could reach mating season, we live long enough to procreate or kill our bank accounts trying."
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1qthjy | what's happening in sri lanka currently? | I've recently been hearing a lot about Sri Lanka from both the news and my parents and I would like an unbiased account of what is happening currently in regards to the UN Investigations, CHOGM and aftermath of the war. I am aware that there have been atrocities from both sides, particularly the hospital shootings. I would just like a straight account of what's up, why and what the consequences are if either side got their way. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qthjy/eli5_whats_happening_in_sri_lanka_currently/ | {
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"Sri Lankan government killed a whole bunch of civilians who were in the no fire zone. This is now beyond dispute.\n\nThey deny it / ignore it / continue to \"silence\" journalists.\n\nSri Lanka is set to become the chair of the commonwealth.\n\nThey do not deserve this honour, hence timely outrage.\n\nSource: worked for Amn. Int. recently.",
"Here's another take on it.\n\nAmerica is in a civil war.\n\nAmerica tells civilians to go hang out in Chicago, it's a no fire zone where no combat takes place.\n\nAmerica bombs Chicago repeatedly.\n\nAmerica wins bid to host the Olympics, most other countries don't care about the above.\n\nHence outrage."
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2lajal | what is the "industrial complex" in the context of prisons or the military? | if these mean two different things in these contexts please explain the differences. I assume its the corporate profit gain stemming from an increase in military or prison activity, but what is the actual mechanism which drives these profits? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lajal/eli5_what_is_the_industrial_complex_in_the/ | {
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"So, normally when referring to an indistrual complex you have a situation where an entire industry exists to service 1 customer, the government. That industry is so heavily dependent on their one customer that they become involved in the politics of the situation in an effort to increase profits.\n\nSo the military industrial complex would refer to everyone ranging from the companies who build military equipment to the contractors who build military buildings. But also remember there's private military organizations like Blackwater in there, and private contractors who do IT or web design. Basically the military industrial complex is EVERY company involved.\n\nThe controversy exists because the public would generally prefer to spend less on prison or the military. But that's the exact opposite of what these companies want. They want us to spend MORE, not less! So they get involved in politics to protect their businesses by making their only customer buy product.",
"Weapons manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, uniform manufacturers, food providers, infrastructure workers, etc. The mechanism that drives these profits is being paid for work done and items purchased. "
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e3q3dg | when your permanent teeth form and get pushed up, what pushes them up and how deep do they form? | I was curious about how our adult teeth form and replace our baby teeth. I know they form in our gums but how do they get pushed up? Do the gums push the tooth after it’s fully developed or do the roots push it as it grows?
Secondly how do our teeth “know” where to form? As generally our teeth come in with a relatively similar pattern as humans.
Lastly how does this apply to wisdom teeth?
Do they form similarly to our other molars and why do they come in during our late-ish teens to early twenties and not with the rest of our permanent teeth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e3q3dg/eli5_when_your_permanent_teeth_form_and_get/ | {
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"There are a lot of theories actually about what prompts the eruption of teeth. Some think the development of the roots are what pushes them up, but since teeth erupt before their roots are fully formed this likely isn't the reason. Other theories suggest that the cells near the apex of the primary teeth send signals for the permanent to start the process or that the resorption of the bone separating both sets of teeth makes the permanent naturally drift up. No theory is confirmed as far as i know and it's likely a combination of factors. \n\nAs far as why they are placed the way they are it's just genetically encoded as is everything else in the human body. You can get variations like missing or extra teeth or switching of places sometimes, but it's rare.\n\nWisdom teeth just start forming later in life and also evolutionary they are probably going to be discarded from the dentition as the facial parts of our skull gets smaller."
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5sn0yq | how does seeing a therapist actually help someone who is having a hard time coping with a situation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sn0yq/eli5_how_does_seeing_a_therapist_actually_help/ | {
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"There are a lot of things that are easy to spot for an outside observer.\nWe humans tend to get stuck in our own patterns.\nTo be able to have an overview that is not contaminated with emotion can be very insightful.\nIn my opinion the best therapist is the one that can guide you in your own mind.\nThere are many theories about this and a lot of opinions.",
"Yes, *if* you believe therapy is helpful, *and* the techniques you're given work on you and you've never tried them before.\n\nA lot of therapy is being able to talk through something and arrive at helpful conclusions. Depending on your issues, a therapist may give you exercises to work through to help arrive at causes, and solutions to your problems.\n\nIn the end you do all the work. Therapists don't solve things, but give you techniques to help yourself. Not everyone has self-actualized their problems, and use assistance to find root causes of problems, and methods of resolution.\n\nIt's not all just sitting around talking about your mother, unless your mother is your problem, then you may have to talk about your mother a lot.",
"What your looking for is called [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy](_URL_0_). \n\n\nAt the end of the day it's simply retraining your brain to react to your environment differently(in this case your emotional response to external stress). Fundamentally it's the same classical conditioning that made [Pavlov](_URL_1_) famous. ",
"Therapists tend to be experts in the natural language of our brain, they can help us navigate our own problems as well as provide a perspective that we are innately blind to.\n\nWe are often unaware of what our mind is doing wrong. What happens is that, in an emotional situation, our \"old\" brain, our \"reptilian\" brain, our stupid/primitive reflex side is the one that responds. And we aren't aware of this process where we forfeit cognitive reasoning in response to a powerful emotion.\n\nI guess i imagine there are lots of ways that a therapist can help. The therapist doesn't make the problem go away, but they can help you to deal with it in ways that you can't really do yourself. It's kinda like cutting your hair- if you were to cut your own hair, it would be impossible for you to cut it perfectly, but another person could have an external perspective and expertise that makes it relatively easy.",
"The ultimate goal of a therapy is to increase your range of options. Often people only see one way of coping with a situation, for example getting angry, getting drunk, overeating, hiding away, whatever. Those things usually don't help at all, but if you don't know any better you simply have no choice. A good therapist can help you to find more useful behavior patterns, for example, try to understand the other side, don't blame yourself and/or don't blame others (that can be a tricky one :-) or avoid unrealistic expectations that lead to frustration. The new behaviour may be much better suited to cope with the given situation. It doesn't help always, but there's a good chance.",
"My therapist the first day said \"I'm not here to give you any answers. I'm here to look at the cards you were dealt and see if maybe there's a better hand there that you're not seeing. Later we might try to look for what would get you a better hand.\"\n\nIt's a little like a coach. It's a neutral but knowledgeable person who can't do the work for you but can honestly help you become a better version of yourself.",
"There are hundreds of approaches to psychotherapy, but here are some common categories:\n\n- Therapies that change behaviours (i.e. how to stop doing things that don't help/harm your current situation)\n- Therapies that change thought patterns (i.e. getting over automatic thoughts like \"nothing good ever happens to me\")\n- Therapies that use past experiences to help you look at your current situation\n- Therapies that encourage some sort of self-awareness and acceptance \n\nSo cognitive-behavioural therapy is a combination of thinking (cognitive) and behavioural approaches, acceptance and commitment therapy is a combination of CBT and acceptance, etc. \n\nHow they work depends on the type of therapy. Some therapies are the stereotypical 'sit on a couch and talk about your childhood' to help the practitioner understand what's going on so you can look for commonalities and make healthier changes. The cognitive and/or behavioural therapies (CBT, DBT, etc.) that are popular today are forward-looking and focus on building coping skills rather than looking back and everything that brought you to your current state. What works in your exact situation depends on the problem you're addressing, your relationship with the practitioner, and your ability to do the legwork and try the practice that your practitioner 'prescribes.'\n\nThere is a lot of evidence that *any* therapy approach is better than doing nothing. A lot of the healing is in the relationship between you and whoever you see. ",
"I can only explain it within the context I have used it professionally. I used cognitive behavioural therapy working with repeat offenders and drug/alcohol addicts. Put simply explaining the situation and changing the behaviour can teach them coping mechanisms or change problem behaviour which causes this issues. So:\nA client came in upset he had been mugged and this was used as a reason to use drugs. He didn't recognise he had been mugged as he was with a circle of peers who were thieves (this was leaving court for a burglary he had just been convicted of). He also didn't see that his drug use was the reason he had been with them people, therefore using it as a reason to continue using drugs was an illogical conclusion to anyone but himself.\n\nSo I switched the context and asked for his thought on a different situation.... a colleague of mine who he saw regularly bring me a coffee each day helped themselves to my crisps because they were hungry and it had annoyed me.\n\nHe said that I shouldn't be mad because I always took something from that person.\n\nThen the penny dropped.\n\nThis didn't solve his issues, but it was a small step, therapy is lots of small steps on a long journey to change the perception of an event or attitude and behaviour of an individual.",
"There are different forms of therapy and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Most of them however teach you new tools to use in your life and in maintaining your mental health. Some work at prividing you ways to alter your cognition so that it is healthier (CBT, DBT), some works at helping you be more aware of reality as it is (mindfulness, meditation), some works on helping teach you new social or behavioral skills (psychotherapy), some works on helping you identify and resolve past conflicts (dialectic, talk therapy). Others try some combination of this. Some specialize in certain disorders or situations like depression, post partum, relationship councelling, childhoodn, and so on. The mahor key to successful therapy is 1) getting the right type of therapy, and 2) forming a healthy relationship with your therapist/therapy meaning you trust them, dont bullshit them, and do the work they give you which is usually practicing techniques and ways of thinking. ",
"I'm a graduate student currently in training to be a psychologist, so my answer may be a tad self-serving. I'll start with the generality of therapy and move towards specifics.\n\nTherapy in general helps with a variety of situations due to the nature of what we call the \"therapeutic alliance.\". This relationship between client and therapist is one built, on the therapists end, by unconditional positive regard, genuiness, and empathy. As therapists we strive to build a real trusting relationship with our clients where they can enter our offices and reveal their core inner being free from worries of judgment or condemnation. This is much different than their every day relationships between friends and family. \n\nThis can have a powerful effect on people. They can bear all of their glories and follies to us, their most hidden thoughts and feelings, the names of their demons and the wounds on their life and receive acceptance and understanding in return. This is the hinge on which everything we do turns, and the feeling that someone out there will listen to you and walk with you through your struggles is immensely relieving.\n\nTherapy helps because someone truly cares and will not abandon you or dismiss your suffering as less than it is.\n\nThat being said, there are specific therapeutic techniques for certain issues. For Anxiety/Trauma/Phobias there is a wealth of evidence to support exposure, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and mindfulness can help a person overcome their appprehensions. For depression, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Interpersonal Therapy can help pull them out of the abyss. \n\nTo dig into the why and how of these types of treatments would be an exhaustive effort. If you'd like even more specific examples then feel free to ask and I'll answer honestly as to the why and how certain treatments are effective. \n\nEdit: To specify, I won't give links to citations but I will credit relevant researchers that may be.of interest to particular disorders. Our knowledge is constantly evolving and our theories are consistently tested. Answers I give are NOT set in stone \"this is how it is\", it's more of \"current research supports such and such idea.\"",
"Quite often it doesn't help. Mental health issues are incredibly wide ranging and no one treatment will work for all. We are still a long way off from having effective treatments for the vast majority of patients. That being said, therapy can be useful for a lot of people who probably don't even need it in a medical sense. For people who are 'on the edge' it can bring clarity of thought and help put things into better perspective. If you are feeling 98% depressed it can prevent you getting to the fatal 100% but it is exceedingly rare to get it down to 0%. Getting it to a manageable level is the limit of our knowledge this far. Anti-depressants are similar in that they help manage the issue rather than eradicate it in *most* cases. However, there are potential side effects that theroay doesn't have and can push you from 98% to 100% in some instances so you need to be very aware of this if you start taking them.",
"It often helps to talk about your problems openly.\n\nBut sometimes you don't have anyone to do that with, because you're afraid that the people close to you would be hurt by what you have to say, or that they would lose respect for you, or judge you. Or they might be directly involved and therefore not impartial.\n\nA therapist is sworn to protect your privacy, and it's their job to help you. Plus they have years of training in recognizing various psychological issues and how to best deal with them.",
"There are as many explanations for how therapy works as there are therapies. However [they do all help](_URL_0_) just under 80% of the time, which makes it a hugely productive option to try if you can afford it. This is completely counter-intuitive and therefore highly controversial, even though decades of research has failed to yield a clear winner.",
"Aside from all the lengthy explanations from people who are more expert than me, talking therapy is good.\n\nIf you internalise a problem (keep it to yourself) you will repeat and repeat the same thing over and over again in your head, just going in circles. If you verbalise (talk about) a problem then you will, over time and with a good listener, start to use different words and will slowly break down the problem by 'forgetting' some parts. All that will be left will be the most important, then you can tackle them and deal with them.\n\nA trained therapist won't give you your answers, but will respond to what you say in a way that will help you work out what you can do to make things better, and it can be life-changing.\n\nA good friend can be a good therapist too, as long as they don't encourage you to enlarge your problem and make things worse. There's little point in hearing somebody say, \"Oh that's bad\" or, \"Aren't they horrible\" because it just makes you feel more self-pity. Another thing you don't want is for a person to seem to push you down a route that would be alien to you - you don't want 'their' way of resolving an issue, you need to work out your own way of resolving an issue, otherwise you'll be unhappy with the outcome."
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3gnb65 | why don't car manufacturers make exact replicas for sale of their vintage 1950-1960 cars? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gnb65/eli5_why_dont_car_manufacturers_make_exact/ | {
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"Because compared to today's cars, those cars were inefficient, lacked power, and unsafe. All by a pretty wide margin",
"Several reason, as a car enthusiast my biggest concern is it would diminish the value and rarity of existing cars. From the manufacturers perspective, anything older than a decade will not meet current safety standards and would have to be redesigned from the ground up, like the new Camaro, Mustang and Challenger."
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5zd83t | why do mexicans cross the border illegally? | This is a serious question. I do not understand what makes getting into the U.S. so difficult.
Is there not a way for them to obtain legal documents before coming to the U.S. or even upon entering? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zd83t/eli5_why_do_mexicans_cross_the_border_illegally/ | {
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" > I do not understand what makes getting into the U.S. so difficult.\n\nI'm not sure if you mean in a physical or legal sense. Physically, the US is not especially difficult to get into. Legally, however, there's more-or-less no way for most foreigners to legally immigrate here. \n\n > Is there not a way for them to obtain legal documents before coming to the U.S. or even upon entering?\n\nFor the most part, no. If you are not an American citizen, you cannot immigrate to the US unless (1) you have a specific skill and a company that wants to hire you for it, or (2) marry an American, or (3) win the [diversity lottery](_URL_0_). Mexicans, by the way, are not allowed into the diversity lottery. ",
"There are only 3 ways to legally immigrate into the US:\n\n1. Employment. Some employer in the US specifically wants you to come in and work for them. This is usually reserved for technical jobs requiring high levels of education.\n\n2. Family. You have immediate family already in the US you wish to join.\n\n3. Asylum/Refuge. Basically you are being persecuted and have a reasonable fear for your life.\n\nAll of these have numerical caps on them, so only so many people a year can access these routes and it is still a long, drawn out and intensive process.\n\nIf you do not have much of an education with a job offer waiting for you in the US, don't have family here, and aren't a refuge, but you just have a general, all-around shitty life living in a corrupt country, then you *don't* have an option to legally immigrate into the US.\n\nYour only option is to come in illegally to secure you and your family a better life.",
"Because US law is set up such that employers of illegals are rarely if ever fined for their part, but the illegals themselves are deported when caught. So you have jobs on our side that pay below minimum wage, and people on the other side willing to take the risk of deportation in order to take those jobs, and thus the companies are able to offset their costs to the American taxpayer. ",
"Immigration is not a free market. So for a long time, there was a high demand for workers at wages that were attractive to Mexicans that could not come legally. So the market responded in the same way it does when government interferes by creating an illegal source. Lots and lots of them came and settled and worked and had children. Today the math does not work out as well and so there has been a net outflow from this group.\n\nThey were a key component in the black market of labor in the US."
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1imawq | how to read and understand food labels? | Health claims on food packages are confusing, and it's sometimes hard to reconcile the information of the front of the package with what's on the nutrition facts panel on the back of the package. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1imawq/eli5_how_to_read_and_understand_food_labels/ | {
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60ug0x | why do poachers kill rhinos for horns rather than just harmlessly dehorning them? does the market really care how they get their horns? | Edit: a little more in depth. I get that it's easier to kill etc. etc. But poachers are players in a relatively large industry. I'm sure some are smart and realizing their source of income is dwindling. What is stopping them from just starting "illegal farms" where they just sell horns that have non-violently removed. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60ug0x/eli5_why_do_poachers_kill_rhinos_for_horns_rather/ | {
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"It's likely to be easier to kill the rhinos rather than to subdue then and remove their horns.",
"Rhinos require their horns to mark their territory, fight off predators and rivals, and be respected as mates.\n\nEven IF you managed to surgically amputate a horn with all the blood vessels inside, you're dooming the rhino to a slow death anyways.",
"Rhinos are dangerous animals, and bullets are a cheaper and more available way to \"tranquilize\" them than actual tranquilizers. \n\nIt's also hard to tranquilize an animal without killing it, using drugs. Even researchers, animal control professionals, and veterinarians sometimes accidentally kill animals when attempting to subdue them. \n\nI would take a lot of knowledge, effort, and resources for poachers to tranquilize a rhino. ",
"Tranquilizer guns aren't like in the movies. You don't just take a dart and shoot it at an animal, and it falls asleep, and if it doesn't, you shoot it again. \n\n\nProfessionals have charts and cheat sheets for dosing, and expensive pneumatic guns and fancy drugs that require refrigeration and careful handling. An incorrect dose will either lead to the animal dying, or severe injury when it sleepily thrashes around at what it perceives as a threat. \n\n\nA poor farmer in the bush cannot afford what would probably cost him a years wages or more for a tranquilizer gun, when a homemade or surplus rifle could do the job for $5, and he/she literally doesn't care about the animals welfare. \n\n\n",
"Do you think a rhino is going to be calm while a poacher is cutting off the horn? Think about it: Is it easier to rob a house when the owner is there, or if the owner is on a business trip? It's the same thing. There's less of a chance of the poacher getting hurt and failing his job if the rhino is dead.\n",
"Harmlessly dehorning a Rhino is possible and often used legally to discourage the poaching/killing of rhinos, but requires professional level care and trained practice and lots and lots of time (relatively, a few hours) to do properly. However by law they are not allowed to legally sell these horns. So any legal harvesting or dehorning brings no profit (as on a ethical standpoint, it shouldn't either) but it means that if you DID want to harvest a rhino ethically, you wouldn't be able to do anything with the end product. \n\nPoachers however, have no incentive to hire a trained veterinarian and want to get in there as quickly and fastly as possible to avoid getting caught and harvest the 'whole' horn, vs maybe 70-80% of the horn vs a safe practice. (Just like clipping your toenail, you just can't take the whole thing out if you want it to live. ) when every single ounce of it can be worth hundreds to thousands of dollars, they want every piece they can feasibley take. You can see the corrupt incentive a machete offers when you can shoot down a rhino and hack off half it's head and get out of there in 15 minutes vs being a 'good samaritan poacher' (a paradox in of itself) to spend 3 hours performing surgery on a ill tempered beast, spending money on veterinarian care, etc, and missing out from potential thousands of dollars from the other missing 20-30% of the remaining horn. It's just not in their interest to do so, much like asking a mugger why they don't pay for their victim's health insurance so they can mug them again.\n\nSource: College student, wrote a 18 page thesis on Canned Lion hunting for english and went through about 40 sources on hunting, Rhinos came up in a few of the articles. And on the flip side it's not all black and white and the poachers perspective when you go to Africa, varies wildly. Some actually see us White people as crazy for valuing a animal they see as mundane, (rare perhaps, but mundane nontheless like a shiny white deer or a Illinois Shaped cornflake )for millions of dollars and yet their schools and food as worthless. Revenge killing of lions for hunting their lifestock is also a frequent but unmentioned problem that hurts us from reintroducing the species 'back into the wild.' There are a lot of underlying factors at play and interactions that you wouldn't expect to see from the hunting and conservation dynamic that you just wouldn't expect. ",
"They also kill them to raise the value of horns. A dead rhino will not reproduce... And the less rhinos, the most valuable are the horns. Basic supply and demand. \nThose paying local poachers from accross the globe are stockpiling on horns, and simply cannot wait until the day no thinos are left!"
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6rdtmn | what dangers could artificially reflecting sunlight as a preventative measure to global warming have? | I read an article a few years ago about releasing chemicals to reflect sunlight and reduce the global temperature that discussed the risks involved but I was wondering what would the likely results be and if this is still being considered. [Article](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6rdtmn/eli5_what_dangers_could_artificially_reflecting/ | {
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"You ever hear about the old woman who swallowed a fly? It is kind of like that.\n\nReflecting sunlight at a large scale will result in large scale climate change. Some of it might be good, like lowering the average global temperatures. Less sunlight means less evaporation which means less rain. In saving the coast, you could very well turn your food producing plains into desert.\n\nThat's just one example of the sort of unintended consequence you might get by effecting such a large change."
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1qv9o7 | the difference between how music was generated on old game consoles and new ones. | I have a really vague understanding of this but I need it made clearer.
On a retro console like an NES or Atari 2600, the game cartridge would be so small that it would impossible to store audio even if it were very compressed. So my understanding is... the cartridge contains midi data and the sounds are played and generated by chips on board the console?
I have seen electronic artists actually wire up old Gameboys to get sounds from them. Are the sound chips effectively digital synthesizers?
then on newer consoles like the N64 it sounds like samples are being used, where are these stored? Is there a sound set then that every game soundtrack was limited to? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qv9o7/eli5_the_difference_between_how_music_was/ | {
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" > ELI5: the difference between how music was generated on old game consoles and new ones.\n\nEarly video game systems used digital synthesizers on a chip, but the type of synthesizer usually depended on the system and its chip. For example, the NES soundchip generated approximations of pulse/square wavesforms and sawtooth waveforms using digital techniques. Composers were afforded some ability to change the amplitude and shape of these waveforms, and were able to sequence them to produce music. The Commodore 64 was able to generate approximations of various waveforms, but had the added benefit of a basic analogue filter to smooth out the resulting sound. The Sega Genesis, and some early arcade games and computer sound cards, used a synthesis technique called frequency modulation, where a sine wave is used to modulate another sine wave to produce complex timbres. Typically these soundchips were able to synthesize and sequence several different sounds simultaneously in order to produce the sense of multiple \"instruments\". Bear in mind the bitrate of the waveforms being produced by these synthesizers was typically low, resulting in a harsher sound.\n\nDuring the early 1990s sampling technology become more accessible to microchip developers. For example, the SNES and Amiga computers were fitted with microchips which behaved like basic samplers, which allowed for the sequencing and pitch-shifting of small samples of digitally recorded audio. Usually these samples were individual notes from an instrument, and when several were played back at once in a musical sequence a full and varied musical composition was possible. Most PS1 and N64 games utilized sampling technology as well, although there are exceptions. \n\nMusic generated through either one of these means is typically called a \"chiptune\" by fans and musicians. Etymologically the word developed in relation to music made with \"tracker\" software on Amiga computers specifically, but it has since gained a wider meaning.\n\nNewer video game consoles don't *generate* music at all. Rather, they have a chip for the *playback* of the digital audio recording of an entire songs, not unlike playing an MP3 or WAV file in WinAmp.\n\n > On a retro console like an NES or Atari 2600, the game cartridge would be so small that it would impossible to store audio even if it were very compressed. So my understanding is... the cartridge contains midi data and the sounds are played and generated by chips on board the console?\n\nThe cartridges *don't* contain MIDI data, but rather a unique communication protocol used to control the console's digital synthesizers. Usually the protocol was developed by the game developer, rather than the console manufacturer. By comparison MIDI contains far more information (and thuse would take up more space on a ROM chip) than these unique communication protocols usually would.\n\n > I have seen electronic artists actually wire up old Gameboys to get sounds from them. Are the sound chips effectively digital synthesizers?\n\nYes, but it's worth mentioning very few artists develop their own tools. For example, GameBoy musicians usually use [Little Sound DJ](_URL_0_) or a similar homebrew project. These types of tools are made possible by an incredibly *loosely-related* hacking community that is also responsible for ROM translations, ROM hacks and even video game piracy.\n\n > then on newer consoles like the N64 it sounds like samples are being used, where are these stored? Is there a sound set then that every game soundtrack was limited to?\n\nIndeed, *most* N64 games utilize an onboard sampler chip. Unfortunately very little is understood about the N64's sampling technology, unlike the SNES or PS1 sampler chips which are very thoroughly understood, but the data for N64 music is known to be held within the N64 ROM/cartridge. Playback of sound-rips from these ROMs is possible, but creating new music for playback on these consoles is met with varying degrees of success.\n\nAnd now for my obligatory plug: I run a small subreddit dedicated to electronic music and instruments at /r/MusicGear I think you'll find some of the information in our online directory of resource -- the menu on the right-hand side of each page -- useful, particularly some of the \"trackers\" under the software directory. And I think you'll enjoy some of our submissions as well ;)\n"
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36wcuv | how can the greek government have spent so much that they are still broke? what was all this money spent on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36wcuv/eli5_how_can_the_greek_government_have_spent_so/ | {
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"In a single word: corruption. Not only the politicians (almost all of them), also the population. Since the Ottoman times, the Greek culture holds the idea that the government is an enemy and everything should be done to avoid giving money to it. So tax evasion is rampant and socially acceptable, in all layers of the society. It's helped by corrupt officials who cover others who cover others etc.\n\nFamily member wanted to get documents and permits in order for a house (actual house didn't match the permit). Nobody there (including the mayor) understood that he would do something that cost money just to be legal.\n\nThere's a society problem and it will take at least one generation to get fixed.",
"Greece isn't exactly broke.\n\nImagine you have income of 48k a year and a 50k loan. If that loan was evenly spread out, say you'd have to pay 500 dollars a month, every month until it's paid off. 4000 -500 =3500 a month to pay for stuff. That's pretty reasonable. So you get a house, a car, put your kids to school, pay for medical expenses etc. And you have expenses of 3500 dollars a month. \n\nNow lets say you have income of 48k a year, a 50k loan, and you have this one particular month that you have to pay back 2000 dollars. It's all net part of the same money, so every month you're only paying 485 dollars rather than 500... but this one particular month you need 2000 dollars. That difference, 15 bucks a month, would take you 11 years to save up to the 2000 dollars (or about 8 years for the difference, of 1500 dollars). All of your expenses, of 3500 dollars a month are the same in both scenarios.\n\nThe latter is essentially the situation greece is in. On average they are paying back the loan, and their income is much lower than it could be, so in the long run paying back the loan assuming nothing else goes wrong shouldn't be impossible. But the way the loan agreements were structured they have a particularly bad month they have to make a big payment in. And they have no way to save money, because basically every penny they have is trying to keep the government it has going, and to keep all the unemployed people from having huge problems, and even if they couldn't save money, this one particularly lump payment is too early and they can't do it. But no one else will lend them money. \n\n\nAlso, a huge amount of the 'bailout' they got was either to cover banks, or it was just refinancing existing debt, and then a bunch was going to keeping the country functioning while it was imploding. Greece went from an unemployment rate of ~7% (it had fluttered around 10% for a decade) to 27% in about 2 years. That's huge. The economy shrank, all of those people needed to collect unemployment benefits, now they need welfare basically to survive, and where is the money coming from the pay for it? If you make 50k a year, borrow 100k, and then get 20% of your job cut, you go from 50K - > 40k, you may borrow money while you are transitioning from a bigger house to smaller etc, and suddenly you've gone from 200% of your income in debt to 300%, even though you haven't borrowed much more money (say an extra 20k). (That's to be illustrative, the greek situation is less severe and more complex than that, obviously). \n\n\n",
"_URL_0_\n\nthe basic gist told with charts!",
"Taxes and the fair use/distribution of them make governments work. If there aren't enough taxes, then bills pile up. Then, even if you cut use/distribution of taxes, you still have to pay bills. There are too many bills and not enough taxes/actual payment of taxes (explained in all the /r/askX -ish answers), so Greece is still broke.",
"Here is a good video that sums up a lot of what people have said.\n\n_URL_0_"
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euvpps | how are cpus and gpus different in build? what tasks are handled by the gpu instead of cpu and what about the architecture makes it more suited to those tasks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/euvpps/eli5_how_are_cpus_and_gpus_different_in_build/ | {
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"CPUs use a few fast cores and are much better at complex linear tasks and GPUs use many weak cores and are better at parallel tasks. To use an analogy, the CPU does the hard math problems and the GPU does many, many easy problems all at once. Together they can tackle any test quickly and efficiently.",
"GPUs are good at solving a lot of simple problems at once. A good example is graphics.... I need to take every pixel (and there's a million of them!), and multiply each of them by .5. Anything you can convert into adding/multiplying large groups of numbers together, it can do really fast.... which is frequently needed to render graphics. But they can't do all operations. They are very specialized to working with big lists of numbers. Working with a large list of numbers is all it can really do, and it can only do a handful of operations to them. But if the operation isn't supported, you're basically totally out of luck. Luckily the things it can do are common ones. These operations share some commonality with artificial intelligence and physics simulation as well. But it doesn't do well with directions with a bunch of decisions. GPUs want to work on a whole list of things at once.\n\nCPUs are good at doing a bunch of different types of tasks quickly. It's a jack of all trades. It can work with big lists of numbers... but it's slower at it. But it can do all sorts of things that the GPU can't. CPUs are good at following directions that have a bunch of decisions. Everything from making the keyboard work with the computer to talking to the internet requires a lot of decision making. With this ability to make a bunch of decisions, you can come up with some kind of solution to any problem.",
"Further to the other answers, [this Mythbusters/NVIDIA video](_URL_0_) gives a good ELI5",
"A typical CPU these days will have something like 8 cores/16 threads meaning that it can do up to 16 things at once. Each core is very powerful and designed to be general-purpose so they can do a wide range of things. The things that are best done on CPU are tasks that are serial meaning that the previous step needs to be finished because the result of it is used in the next one.\n\nA typical GPU may have something like 2304 stream processors, meaning that it can do up to 2304 things at once, but what each stream processor can do is much more limited. What a GPU is most suited for is doing math on a big grid of numbers. With a CPU, it'd have to calculate those numbers 16 at a time (actually, less than that because the CPU has to do other things) but with a GPU, you can do math on those numbers 2304 at a time.\n\nBut it turns out that graphics are pretty much nothing more than a big grid of numbers representing the pixels. And a lot of scientific calculation involves doing math on huge grids of numbers.",
"A CPU has a few cores clocked very high. The Ryzen R7 3700X is a pretty mainstream CPU and has 8 cores.\n\nA GPU these days has a few thousand cores clocked low. A Radeon 5700 XT has 2560 cores. That's 320 times the cores of one of the most popular desktop CPUs.\n\nThis difference in clock speed is down to many things but mostly power consumption and heat. Double something's clock speed and its power usage *more* than doubles because physics. (This is why downclocking a video card just a little bit can save a lot of power for a small loss in performance.)\n\nIn addition to the core count, the underlying architecture of a GPU and CPU is different. Keep in mind, a GPU is basically a mini computer on a card. It has its own CPU, which we refer to as a GPU, and its own RAM.\n\n* GPUs are very efficient at one particular problem: multiply-add. This is *very* common in 3D rendering. They can take three sets of 4 numbers, multiply the first two together then add the result to the third. CPUs are capable of this too but it's almost cute given the difference in core count.\n* The bigger difference comes in how a video card can use its local memory vs a CPU using system memory. System RAM traditionally (DDR4, these days) is built to be accessed in lots and lots of small chunks. One number here, four numbers there, two numbers yonder. It is low latency but relatively low bandwidth (not a lot of data at once but a very small delay). A GPU's RAM (GDDR6, most recently) is high latency but much higher bandwidth (a shitload of data but often a large delay).\n\nThis difference in architecture means that the two can serve polar opposite functions. A CPU can process a long string of calculations with data coming from all over RAM very quickly, but don't ask it to do too much at one time. A GPU can process a shitload of calculations all at the same time but don't ask it to access lots of different bits of RAM.\n\nAnd finally, one of the shitty parts about how computers are built is that the CPU controls data going in and out of the GPU. This communication can be slow as shit. See: the purpose of DirectX12/Vulkan over DirectX11/OpenGL.",
"A CPU can do a few things quickly, and a GPU can do a lot of things slowly.\n\nImagine you have to get from New York to California and back as fast as you can. You can take any car you want, but only you are allowed to drive. You'd get the fastest sports car you could, and drive it as fast as you can. But if you had to take 30 people, you'd want to take one trip with a bus instead of 30 trips with the sports car.\n\nCPU and GPU is the same idea. When you make a picture for a game or video, each pixel can be done without worrying about the other pixels - so you have a few million pieces of math that have to be done, it would be better to do them slowly but in big batches than quickly but one at a time.\n\n(ELI25 notes)\nThere's also some fundamental differences in the memory model and instruction sets between CPUs and GPUs. GPUs are designed to perform operations important to graphics programming quickly - for example, trigonometric functions that take many cycles on a CPU typically complete in few (usually only a single) GPU cycles. GPUs also have many areas of memory with different sharing characteristics, while CPUs generally just have the RAM and varying levels of cache.",
"Adding onto others, think of a CPU as a pocket knife, good and useful for anything that needs a knife. Now, think of a GPU as a surgeon's stencil, useful for one specific task but not good for anything else. When you are doing brain surgery, you could use a regular pocket knife, but it would be better to use a stencil instead.\n\nThe same thing applies to the CPU's and the GPU's functions. The GPU has many weak cores (processing units) that allow it to process graphics very quickly, but not much else outside of that. A CPU, however, has fewer cores but, since they are more powerful, it can do a variety of tasks, albeit slower than the GPU.",
"CPU \"waste\" silicon trying to predict the future (branch prediction), to remember the past (cache) and to have it's different cores try to agree with each other (coherency protocols).\n\nGPU is the dumb but effective approach: every body does the exact same thing, on data that are right next to each others. They can't do anything else, they can't wait, they don't \"think\", they don't talk to their neighbors, they just do.",
"CPU are general purpose calculator. It is excellent at nothing, but also bad at nothing.\n\nGPU are specialised calculator. It is excellent at graphic stuff, and bad as a general purpose calculator.\n\nThe reason is simple: graphic is a set of instructions that repeat itself alot, so it is worth to combine many standard instructions into one single one and super optimise that function. Since this function will be used only in this context, they can sacrifice the flexibility of it for the gain of speed.\n\nAs a wrong example, it's like if you had to calculate the volume of a polygon. The CPU would do it the hard way, like you would do it by hand. But the GPU would have a \"gimme the 3d coordonates and I will tell you the volume\" function. So the GPU you throw in the 3d points, it use it's super optimised function (maybe even get help from some look up tables), and return the result in a fraction of the time it would normally take for a CPU.\n\nAlso, a CPU will have a few cores, while a GPU now have often several thousands of cores. They are slower, so you have to split the problem in many small pieces. Which is fine for a 3d image: it's full of polygon, just send a few thousands at a time to be processed. A cpu may do each faster, but can't compete at all with the thousands of the other.\n\nAnother thing that a GPU is good at: sorting matrix. Feed it a list, here come a sorted one. A CPU do not have such function. Reason being, a GPU deal with that. Alot.\n\nBut... Thousands of slow cores... It also mean that each result take more time to come out. For a single, simple task, the CPU will most likelly do it faster: it's single core performance is higher for general purpose use. And sometime by a big margin! However, if you have thousands of repetitive tasks that can be done in parallel, then the GPU will probably beat it.",
"Imagine a CPU like a sports car moving at 100kph. It holds 2 people and gets them to point B very very quickly.\n\nNow imagine a GPU like a big ass bus moving at 10 kph. It can hold 50 people. But gets them to point B very slowly.\n\nBasically, a CPU does a few things fast. And a GPU can do multiple things at the cost of speed.",
"In addition to what others have said, CPUs are good at things like:\n\n-\tCompare the coordinates of the bullet object and the opponent object.\n-\tIf they are the same, then:\n * Read the score stored at a certain location in memory.\n * Add 10 to it.\n * Write the number back to the memory location where the score is stored.\n * Look up the memory location where the start of the “show opponent dying animation” routine is stored.\n * Remember what part of the program we’re currently at.\n * Temporarily go to the “dying animation” part of the program we found earlier.\n\nAnd so on, and so on, and so on. CPUs are really, *really* good at doing relatively complicated steps like each of the above. But because each step might have lots of nitty gritty details, they take a lot of work for the CPU to actually do them. (Read about [instruction pipelining](_URL_0_) if you want to go down the rabbit hole of how complicated a modern CPU actually is behind the scenes).\n\nGPUs can’t do anything nearly that complicated. Their “programs” are more like:\n\n-\tFind the chunk of memory starting at a particular location.\n-\tAdd 3 to the first 1,000 numbers you find there.\n\nOr:\n\n-\tHere’s a list of 10,000,000 decimal number, like 2.3 and 4.7. Add each pair of numbers and divide them by 2, and put the results in another list. Oh, and if it lets you go a little faster to pretend that 2.3 is really 2.9999999987, go for it: raw speed is more important than perfect math here.\n\nThey can’t do things like make complicated decisions or jump around to just another part of their programming. They don’t have the circuitry to do that stuff. But those simple little instructions like I described? They’re smoking fast at those things, and at doing *a whole awful lot* of those simple little instructions at the same time. A CPU can do all the same things a GPU can, but it doesn’t have the circuitry for “do this one thing a gazillion times” kind of operations.\n\nOr TL;DR:\n\n-\tA CPU is like having a mathematician sitting at her desk solving hard problems.\n-\tA GPU is like having a thousand kindergartners counting to 10 on their fingers, but all at the same time.",
"My favorite description was that a CPU is like having someone with a PhD per core. A gpu is like having an army of millions of kindergarteners. Want to do complex math on a lot of data? Hand it to the 8 PhDs. Want to fill in a bunch of tiny spots with a different color? Pitch it to the kindergarteners.\n\nEdit: haha, glad you all enjoyed this description as much as I did.",
"During the 80's and 90's, computers were commercialized and slowly made their way into people's homes and got used more and more in businesses. The internet started out, the first online businesses sprouted up.\n\nThat meant the chip manufacturers were very busy developing the next generations of CPUs. At first, that meant increasing the *clock speed*: the number of instructions a CPU can handle per second. Around 2004, they ran into a problem though: once they got to around 4 GHz (4 billion instructions per second), they started having a very hard time to get their CPUs working reliably when increasing the speed even more. So they had to find other ways of getting more performance out of the computers they were making.\nThey briefly experimented with installing 2 CPUs in 1 computer, but that also had all sorts of trouble, mostly related to syncing data between the two. The alternative they came up with, was to integrate 2 CPUs *on the same chip*. That's what we call a core today.\n\nNow, what is the difference between CPUs and GPUs? A CPU is a chip that can handle all sorts of different tasks: it can do math, it can read and write to/from your hard disk, it can handle data from the internet, it can process the input from your mouse and keyboard, etc. It does a lot of stuff. That also means it's some really complex machinery, which constrains the number of cores you can fit on a single chip. You could in theory make the chips bigger, but that means all the signals have to travel farther, getting you back into that data syncing problem. Power efficiency is also a big factor. This all means that you usually see CPUs with 2, 4 or 8 cores these days.\n\nGPUs on the other hand have 1 specific goal: drawing graphics. You give them some *textures*, the actual images you want to draw, and the positions and shapes you want them drawn in, and the GPU will do all the math required to figure out the color for each pixel on the screen. That math is not very hard, but you need to do it for millions of pixels, ideally 60 times per seconds. That's why your CPU struggles with this task: it just can't handle that number of instructions. A GPU on the other hand, often contains 100s or 1000s of cores, allowing it to perform an incredible amount of math every second. These cores are much simpler than those in a CPU because they only have to do 1 thing.",
"The basic unit of each is called a \"datapath\". Given an instruction, a datapath will load data from memory, do a bit of math on it, write it back to memory. In both, the datapath can run multiple instructions in parallel, but in slight different ways. In a CPU, the goal is to optimize through put, to have the most instructions in a sequence completed. Imagine it a CPU trying to do multiple steps in a recipe at once to get it done as fast as possible. In a GPU, the datapath runs the same instruction over multiple sets of data at once. This lets it do complex mathematical operations, such as matrix multiplication, for large sets really quickly. Since most 3d-graphics and machine learning problems transform into a giant number of matrix multiplications, GPU tend to get used for these. CPU can do one specific thing that GPU's are not good at: branching. When there is a choice that has to be made, the CPU decides which path to take.",
"Studying to be a Computer Scientist here, and I have experience using OpenGL and Vulkan. CPUs have very powerful cores that can do a lot of complex tasks, while GPUs contain many small cores called shader cores. These cores can only perform simple instructions, and usually work together with other cores to get work done. For every vertex in a 3D model and for every pixel on the screen (plus some other fun stuff like Tesselation and Rasterization), these little cores run shader programs to process and evaluate end results. This is called SIMT (Same Instruction Multiple Thread) execution, which is better for handling large amounts of tiny tasks at once than having one giant core. This is why CPUs have like 6 to 12 cores these days, and GPUs have like 128 in low end units to over 4,096 in enthusiast units.",
"Think of it like different weapons.\n\nThe CPU is kind of like a Javelin missile, super sophisticated and able to put a lot of firepower on a target. \n\nThe GPU is like a platoon of soldiers each with an m16. Several troops capable of taking on a multitude of targets at a time.\n\nIf you're up against a tank, you're really going to want to have that Javelin missile. The M16 is not an effective weapon against the armor of a tank. \n\nIf you're up against a large group of soldiers coming in from multiple directions, the Javelin missile will be ineffectual for the challenge. However a platoon with M16s will be able to confront the opposing force on multiple fronts.",
"So a GPU is for graphics, so we could say its a worker specialised in making drawings, but not just one, its 3000 workers that are only drawing lines working really fast, while the CPU does everything else, thats like 10 diferent workers that are really strong and know how to do anything you ask them even if its really hard"
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24my76 | why does the captain needs to be the last one to leave the boat when it sinks? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24my76/eli5_why_does_the_captain_needs_to_be_the_last/ | {
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"A captain doesn't always *need*, but often should be last off. The captain is in command, and supposedly the most capable person on the ship. The crew and passengers trust the captain to make good decisions and keep them safe. In an emergency, it's the captain who should know best how to save the people who trust him. To literally ditch them in the water is a huge betrayal and deriliction of duty.",
"When you were a kid, do you think that if the house caught fire, your dad would be the first one out? Or would he try to make sure that everyone else was safe first?\n\nOn a ship, the buck stops with the captain. He (or she) has absolute control over the entire ship, and therefore absolute responsibility for everyone on board. ",
"The captain has a duty to protect the passengers and their property aboard his vessel. \n\nWhile there is no rule or law which states he has to be the last one off the ship, it is generally accepted that he should not leave a sinking ship until he is certain everyone aboard is safe.\n\nEdit: word",
"At least as far as the US Coast Guard is concerned, you as a captain should give your life up before your passengers. The reality of the situation is that you should never leave your ship or boat when it's sinking until it becomes more dangerous to stay on it than to be in the water. The captain should be making radio calls, gathering vital supplies such as the 406 EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon), hitting the Man Overboard button on the GPS to put in a marker on the GPS, talking to other vessels about being rescued, and supervising the deployment of the life rafts or IBAs (inflatable buoyant apparatus I believe). The captain and at least part of the crew should also be the last off the vessel in order to ensure that all the passengers made it off safely. \n\nSource: I'm a USCG licensed 100 ton master working for a whale watching company in Alaska"
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7nqkcf | why the water level in the toilet bowl is lower during a storm. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7nqkcf/eli5_why_the_water_level_in_the_toilet_bowl_is/ | {
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"We pirates know a thing or two about storms! Tha wind creates a low pressure area round yer plumbin' vent pipe, suckin' yon water down toward tha deep.\n\n_URL_0_"
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ccorda | how does salt help thaw stuff? | Hi.
I understand water with salt has a higher freezing point, but when we throw salt on roads or meat to help thaw it we are not putting the salt "into" the water, that is, the water there is still water without salt, and should therefore have the same freezing point it had without the salt. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ccorda/eli5_how_does_salt_help_thaw_stuff/ | {
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"So when salt is on the road in the winter time, and snow that falls touched the salt and mixes with it.\n\nSalt lowers the freezing point to a lower point so that it won’t freeze.\n\nSo I’m assuming the same thing might happen with meet.\n\nIt doesn’t cause the meat to warm up faster, it just lowers the freezing point of the part of the meat that the salt is touching.",
"To understand *why* salt and water work like this, we have to look at their molecules!\n\nWater is very strange stuff. Watermolecules consist of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. Because of how they're stuck together, a single water molecule has a slightly positive (+) side and a negative (-) side. You can see this [here](_URL_1_).\n\n\\+ sides of one molecule are attracted to - sides of another molecule, kind of like with magnets. The 'sticking together' of water molecules is called hydrogen bonds, as pictured [here](_URL_0_). In that picture you can see the red oxygen atoms 'sticking' to a white hydrogen atom of another molecule. This is kind of complicated, but in the end you just have to know that water molecules stick together.\n\nThis happens when water is liquid, but also happens when water freezes. Ice becomes more rigid this way.\n\nWhen salt comes into contact with ice, it dissolves just like in liquid water. Dissolving means that the salt particles* will move in between water particles. This makes it harder for the water to stick together and because of this, water that should normally be solid can become a liquid.\n\nBut that's not the only thing that happens! For some complicated reason this whole process requires energy, meaning that the ice/salt mix will actually become colder!\n\nYou can test this at home. Get a glass full of ice cubes, add a bit of water and mix salt into it. You'll feel the glass get colder. Be careful to not freeze your hands!\n\n\\* For people who want to know more about salt: in chemistry, the word salt is used as a term for certain compounds. The salt we eat (or pour onto the roads) is sodium chloride, or NaCl. When NaCl dissolves in water it will fall apart into a Na+ ion and a Cl- ion. These ions will 'sit' in between water molecules."
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fmdhgf | why does paracetamol not irritate the stomach but ibuprofen, aspirin and other nsaids do? | does it have anything to do with anti-inflammatory vs inflammatory | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fmdhgf/eli5_why_does_paracetamol_not_irritate_the/ | {
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"Not exactly.\n\nBoth drugs inhibit 'chains' of chemical signals, which work like dominos falling. If you remove a domino, then all the dominos after it won't fall.\n\nHowever, NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofen, inhibit two very similar chains, because the 'dominos' look very similar to each other (if you want to read more, these 'dominos' are enzymes called Cyclo-oxygenase 1 & 2, or COX-1 and COX-2). These enzymes are both very similar, but act in different areas.\n\nWe can think of them a little like this: COX-1 is a 'housekeeping' enzyme. It makes sure things are neat and tidy. It's always working, and it never really ramps up or ramps down its activity. It just keeps everything in order. Part of that involves producing enough mucous to keep the stomach protected from its own acid, sort of like cleaning your bathroom involves scrubbing the toilet (plus other things).\n\nCOX-2, on the other hand, is the 'inflammation' enzyme. It's the one that gets turned on when things get bad. So while normal bathroom cleaning might involve mopping the floor, this 'emergency' enzyme deals with things like the washing machine flooding, where a normal mop isn't enough, you have to throw down towels to soak up all the water, get buckets, call a plumber, etc.\n\nSo both NSAIDs and paracetamol shut off COX-2 (reducing inflammation, and therefore pain, swelling, etc). However, NSAIDs also shut off COX-1 (reducing the protective stomach mucous), which leads to their ability to irritate the stomach.\n\nInteresting, they developed an NSAID that only affected COX-2, and it worked wonders. You could reduce inflammation without the nasty stomach side effects. Unfortunately, for reasons we don't fully understand, it also caused a lot more heart attacks.\n\nWe don't have a really good understanding of the finer details of how Paracetamol works, so a lot of what I've said here is simplified. But for a 'quick look', then you can assume that Paracetamol preferentially affects COX-2 only!"
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35ihnw | conservative government 'scrapping the human rights act'. what does it mean? | In simple terms for simple people, what are the implications and effects of this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35ihnw/eli5_conservative_government_scrapping_the_human/ | {
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"The Human Rights Act makes the European Convention on Human Rights part of UK law. The government proposes to repeal it and replace it with a \"British Bill of Rights\". It's unclear how this will be different in terms of the rights it protects, but it will make the Supreme Court the final authority in human rights matters rather than the European Court of Human Rights. The government will tell you that they're doing it so that they can deport terrorists.",
"Depends what they want to replace it with exactly, they aren't scrapping it and just having nothing. I believe the main reason they want to change it is to enable the prosecution/deportation of terrorists whom previously couldn't be sent away on human rights grounds. There could be more but as far as i know they haven't been specific yet."
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7jl14o | how do game developers link between graphics and code? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jl14o/eli5_how_do_game_developers_link_between_graphics/ | {
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"what are you asking? how does code draw graphics? by calculating with numbers and logic which pixels at which coordinates needs to be lit at what intensities and colors. \n\nwant to draw a line from coordinate 132,314 to 234,574 ? well then you need to light up all the pixels that are in the path. want to make it a smooth looking line instead of a jagged line? then you need to calculate the antialias intensities for the neighboring pixels next to your line so it fades smoothly. ",
"This is a massively complex question for which any answer suitable for ELI5 isn't really going to do justice to the substance of the subject matter.\n\nThink of the graphics engine in a game as a machine that builds Lego sets on demand. When given the instructions to build a set, it will throw out the set it just built and build a new set from scratch, which it can do dozens of times per second. In order to do this, the machine has access to a massive, well-organized Lego collection. This collection has an infinite *number* of blocks, but a defined, finite number of *kinds* of blocks. In other words, you only have so many different kinds of blocks, but you have as many of each of those kinds as you need. \n\nThe way this metaphor works is that the frames displayed on your screen are \"Lego sets,\" and the \"Lego blocks\" are the game's \"art assets\", i.e., files saved on your hard drive that can be invoked on an as-needed basis. As the game displays frames (i.e., builds new Lego sets), it's programmed to invoke specific art assets under specific conditions and with specific parameters (i.e., pick the right blocks from the collection). One of the big tricks is changing those conditions and parameters as your perspective changes, whether that's simply moving your most or walking around the map. But that programming will basically tell the graphics engine what art assets to invoke and under what terms they should be handled (i.e., write instructions for new Lego sets on the fly). \n\nAny explanation much more technical than that is going to involve too much detail for ELI5. "
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6s5jnl | my doctor said to eat less carbs and sugar, and to eat more fruit. isn't fruit basically all carbs and sugar? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s5jnl/eli5_my_doctor_said_to_eat_less_carbs_and_sugar/ | {
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"Your doctor means processed sugar and carbs.\n\n\nFruit is also a significant source of fiber which helps regulate the uptake of sugar from foods. AND fruits have many other vitamins and minerals in them you need. ",
"for starters sugar is a carb.\n\nwith that said, ignoring artificial sweeteners, there are only 2 \"sugars\" fructose and glucose. The same molecules are in fruits as is in that big bag of granulated sugar. different ratios of fructose and glucose, but even then, they all generally hover around 50/50. \n\nBoth sugars are generally the same thing to your body. they process a bit differently, but its not important to a healthy person.\n\nSo yes, they are the same sugar.\n\nWith that said, fruits tend to have some fiber, which slows their digestion, they also have some vitamins and a bunch of water. So by volume, much less sugar.\n\nsweets tend to either be candy sugar, or mixed up with flour for some more carb goodness, highly concentrated, no vitamins, and surrounded by more things that arent beneficial.\n\nas always, the ultimate answer is \"moderation\".",
"Your doctor is dumbing the advices down for you. The sugar in a chocolate and the sugar in an apple is very similar. However an apple does contain more vitamins, minerals, protein and other nutrition that chocolate does not contain. So by eating fruits instead of sweets you are eating more healthy. Most people mistakingly does not categorize fruits as carbohydrates and your doctor would therefore use the term to describe sweets and other carbohydrate rich food sources except fruit and vegetables.",
"His tiny bit of diabetes training might be part of it too. As fructose is metabolized by the liver, it doesn't spike blood sugar like glucose (refined carbs) and sucrose (sugary drinks and candy). \n\nThe problem is that most Americans consume too much sugar both in sucrose and fructose (sucrose is 50/50 glucose and fructose) soooo their livers are already stressed from all of the fructose bring metabolized from our high sugar diets. \n\nYou are almost better off having SOME refined carbs (glucose chains) than something with sugar as your entire body can metabolize it as opposed to only your liver with the sugar stuff. Much of the immerging science is pointing to insulin resistance as the key to all of our metabolic diseases(diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's) and a fatty liver is the linch pin to insulin resistance So, anything and everything you can do limit the stress on your liver the better. \n\nDramatically reducing sugar intake and/or intermittent fasting will keep your liver healthy and keep your weight low. Also, the fruit we eat now is nothing like the fruit we evolved on. Our fruit is sugar packed in an organic wrapper. If you eat fruit, eat the whole thing as the fiber will slow the absorption of the sugar and give your liver some time to break it down."
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an6456 | - what is the story with this spongebob/maroon 5 controversy/joke/outrage/scandal/ordeal/blunder? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/an6456/eli5_what_is_the_story_with_this_spongebobmaroon/ | {
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"Okay. So one of the most beloved Spongebob Squarepants episodes involves the cast having to perform a song at a football game (obviously intended to be the Super Bowl) where despite having been screw ups for the entire episode, they put on an amazing performance.\n\nRecently, there was word that there was going to be some Spongebob Squarepants involvement with this year's Super Bowl halftime show, headlined by Maroon 5. Many people expected that this would entail Maroon 5 doing a cover of \"Sweet Victory\" the song performed in that episode. The actual involvement was just a short clip of Spongebob characters introducing the real performers, which disappointed the people who had hoped for there to be some substantial attempt at doing a tribute to that episode of Spongebob, especially as the series' creator died recently."
]
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||
4f715z | how do people spend $300k+ on a dinner when individual donation to a campaign are suppose to max out at $2.7k? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f715z/eli5_how_do_people_spend_300k_on_a_dinner_when/ | {
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"That's the limit for a candidate. These dinners are usually party functions raising soft money that isn't subject to that dollar limit. ",
"Even though super PACs and candidates are not allowed to coordinate activities, the FEC has apparently decided that it's totally legal for candidates to appear as \"special guests\" at super PAC fundraisers. ",
"The first 2.7k that the attendee paid goes to Clinton's campaign. The rest of the money goes to the DNC and various Democratic state parties to help elect Democratic congressmen. "
]
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3saxen | what are the yale students upset about? i read the e-mail, but still can't understand why they are mad. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3saxen/eli5what_are_the_yale_students_upset_about_i_read/ | {
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"Facists at facist training camp. I guess it could be worse they could be making demands to hire more people based on epidermis.",
"I believe this is the jist of what happened: The university sent out an email to all students saying \"be mindful of others' feelings when deciding on a costume to wear for halloween.\" Basically please don't wear a racist costume. A professor wrote a response email to the first email to all students that said \"people should be able to wear whatever they want because freedom of speech/expression is a civil right.\" A group of students on campus took offense to idea that a professor is advocating racist costumes. The videos show students who are \"pleading their case\" to the husband of the professor who wrote the email (he is also a Yale professor). They wanted his wife (the professor who wrote the email) to resign.\n\nI think it's the funniest thing ever. In one of the videos, the professor is explaining how he will always stand up for freedom of speech and a whiny ass student goes \"even when it offends me?!\"...... You can't make this stuff up!"
]
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4umcp8 | the ratings of engine oil, i.e. 5w10, 5w30, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4umcp8/eli5_the_ratings_of_engine_oil_ie_5w10_5w30_etc/ | {
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"These oils with 2 numbers, like 5W-30 are called \"multiweight\" oils and protect the engine under a wide range of operating temperatures. \n\nThis rating indicates the engine oil thickness when cold (the first number) and when hot, at an engine's normal operating temperature (the second number). The higher the number, the thicker the oil. \n\nThin oil flows better, but does not protect the engine as well as thick oil, under heavy loads. \n\nSo we want an oil that is thin when cold, so it flows into all the tight spots in an engine on a cold day start up, to lubricate the engine better. \n\nBut we also want an oil that behaves like a thicker oil when its hot, to protect the oil under heavy operating loads. \n\nThese multi-weight oils provide such a wide range of operation. Engines are usually designed to use a specific thickness of oil. So look to the owners manual to see the type of oil suitable for your car. \n\n",
"It's a measure of viscosity.\nThe first number is when its not warmed up. The second number is the viscosity of the equivalent oil heated up.\n\nEg. A 20W/50 is like a 20W mono grade when your engine is cold but like a 50W mono grade when warmed up. It's still thinner when warm, but not as thin as a mono grade 20w would be.\n\nIt works by little polymers that are curled up when cold and untwist when heated making the oil less thin",
"The two numbers refer to the viscosity rating of the oil at various temperatures. Contrary to popular belief the W doesn't stand for Weight, it stands for Winter.\n\nViscosity is the measure of a fluids resistance to flow. \nViscosity Rating is the measure of a fluids resistance to flow across varying temperatures. \n\nThe lower the number the colder temperatures an oil can be used while not being a total gel, whereas a higher number will be more like molasses at a colder temperature and not be very efficient at lubricating until it warms up. \n\nA really good video that explains the concept of varying oils is \n_URL_0_\n\n2:30 is a good visual of the viscosity of oil. ",
"It's kinematic viscosity (as opposed to dynamic viscosity - not sure why they favoured one over the other). The W is used to denote 'winter' or cold start viscosity. I just ripped this straight from Wiki:\n\nThe Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has established a numerical code system for grading motor oils according to their viscosity characteristics. SAE viscosity gradings include the following, from low to high viscosity: 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 or 60. The numbers 0, 5, 10, 15 and 25 are suffixed with the letter W, designating they are \"winter\" (not \"weight\") or cold-start viscosity, at lower temperature. The number 20 comes with or without a W, depending on whether it is being used to denote a cold or hot viscosity grade. The document SAE J300 defines the viscometrics related to these grades.\n\nKinematic viscosity is graded by measuring the time it takes for a standard amount of oil to flow through a standard orifice, at standard temperatures. The longer it takes, the higher the viscosity and thus higher SAE code."
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2j9tsf | why do nascar races need 500 laps to award a winner? why not just 100... | To me, the first 400 laps seem almost like a formality.... And all the action/jockeying happens at the end. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j9tsf/eli5why_do_nascar_races_need_500_laps_to_award_a/ | {
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"Part of the competition is endurance and resource management.\n\nYou want to go fast, but you also want to conserve your tires, brakes, and fuel. 100 miles isn't enough for that to be part of the strategy.\n\nThings open up at the end, because they know they have enough to make it to the finish without worrying about it."
]
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6m6xuu | how do game developer fix video game performance(fps) on games that runs poorly | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6m6xuu/eli5how_do_game_developer_fix_video_game/ | {
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"Off the top of my head, i could say that they could make the game use more resources(it was using 6 cpu cores, now it's using 8) and/or it could make the game not so demanding, not render things that don't need to be rendered (geometry the player will never see), tone down foliage, along with some more complex stuff that sort of go over my head, they might do bug fixes where certain things are happening that don't make sense maybe the game is running the equation 2+2=4 a trillion times a second when they don't need it, so they go in and make sure that doesn't happen",
"They optimize the code to make it more efficient. For each frame to be drawn to the screen a certain amount of work needs to be done. You can reduce the amount of work to be done to achieve the same result or optimize how you are doing the work to run faster by writing better code. Think of an assembly line of workers producing something in a factory, if they are not producing enough items per hour then changes in how the assembly line operates can be made to speed things up. Replace \"items per hour\" with \"frames per second\" and you have the same kind of thing. There is always ways to make code more efficient however they are not always found the first time the code is written and often developers go back and spend time optimizing after the game is finished."
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2e3b2j | what happens to vehicles not picked up from impounds? | I know they're normally auctioned if they're abandoned, but are there exceptions? I'm asking because I saw a motorcycle that's been sitting there for a while, and just needs a bit of work. If I pay the impound fees is it possible to get for myself or is auction the inevitable destination? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e3b2j/eli5_what_happens_to_vehicles_not_picked_up_from/ | {
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"I believe it has to go to auction. That way there is no allegation of corruption if you buddy (who is a cop) sells you the project bike for $1 or something.",
"Some are auctioned as you said, others are held as evidence for awhile, and others just sit and rot. Not all in pounds are held forever - seizures are. \n\nThat's how it is here anyway. You can inquire with your local law enforcement impound and/or property section, if they exist. Otherwise a call to a precinct could get you started and they'll lead you in the right direction."
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26eu2x | who lends governments money? do governments apply for grants form large businesses or from other countries? | Is part of the English Government's budget set aside to lend the Canadian government? I saw [this topic, about how can every government be in debt](_URL_0_), and I understand how its possible, I'm just curious about how it occurs. When a governments budgets goes over one year, do they have to apply last minute for a loan? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26eu2x/eli5_who_lends_governments_money_do_governments/ | {
"a_id": [
"chqcqyd"
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"They borrow from their citizens and other governments.\n\nThis is usually done through the issuance of something like a \"treasury bond\". Citizens, Businesses and other governments all buy these bonds which is effectively a loan to the selling government.\n\nAlso, don't forget that governments have the power to print their own money so they can always make more money to buy others debt or just pay debts themselves."
]
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jttrk/eli5how_is_it_possible_that_almost_every_country/"
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|
g3ueic | what’s the difference between a cochlear implant and a hearing aid? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g3ueic/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_cochlear/ | {
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"Answer: A hearing aid is like a little megaphone that goes into your ear, it picks up sound, amplifies it, and plays it directly into the eardrum. A cochlear implant bypasses the ear altogether and directly stimulates the nervous system, it’s essentially a prosthetic ear."
]
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||
8afege | what is the difference between electric engineer and mechanical engineer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8afege/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_electric/ | {
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"Mechanical engineers design machinery, including machinery that produces power (generators, turbines, etc.). Electrical engineers design circuitry, including electronics and power transmission systems.",
"Electrical engineers primarily deal with electric circuits, designing circuits with resistors, capacitors, diodes, transformers, mosfets, etc. to make electronics work.\n\nMechanical engineers primarily deal with the design of physical things, drafting and designing just about everything you see on a store shelf.\n\nThey often work together, the electrical engineer designing the power flow and circuitry so stuff happens when you plug it in and the mechanical engineer might make the motor and the all workings to make it do something."
]
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2pe8nj | how did chickens, a seemingly silly and defenseless animal, survive before becoming domesticated? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pe8nj/eli5how_did_chickens_a_seemingly_silly_and/ | {
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"Roosters are aggressive and have spurs on their leg. Also pre domesticated chickens were less dopey ",
"They didn't become silly and defenseless until we bred the survival instincts out of them...\n\nThey used to be able to fly...",
"Look up \"red junglefowl\"; they're the birds that are thought to be pre-domestication \"chickens\".",
"Obviously you have never been chased into the woods by an angry rooster, nasty little creatures, I shudder to think if there was a whole herd of them...",
"Domesticated cattle could be described as \"silly and defenseless\" but they're still around, and their wild ancestor the European auroch (unfortunately) is not. Survival isn’t just about being the fastest, smartest, or most dangerous.",
"Chickens can eat anything and reproduce quickly, which can be more important than being big and tough.\n\nAlso, wild chickens are not nearly as slow and stupid as domesticated ones.",
"You should try raising the little monsters. They are horrible.",
"Even domesticated chickens can be wildly aggressive. Have you ever seen two roosters try to gain dominance over a dozen hens? They will literally tear each other to pieces and then eat the dead. You must be a citiot who's never seen farm animals. ",
"I watched my chicken try to save us from a brown bear in Anchorage. I had goats, and bears would come around. The chicken rushed the bear and the bear swatted the chicken into the woods. The Bears paw was bigger than the chicken. The chicken was stunned and needed to be carried home,mouth lived several more years until fucking Ravens ate all three of them. I loved my chickens.",
"That's the whole point of domestication. You don't just grab wild animals and keep them in a pen. Domestication happens when humans have selectively bred the animals for enough generations that they differ significantly from the wild population.\n\nIn the case of chickens they were selectively bred to be more muscular and to lay eggs more frequently. But when humans are protecting a captive population, and the animals don't have to worry about keeping themselves safe from predators, there's no evolutionary advantage to being smart. So the dumb ones reproduce successfully too, and the domestic population will gradually become dumber than the wild population. ",
"look up cock fighting, chickens are not that defenseless.\n\nthat being said, we have bred them to be more docile and easily manipulated and, most importantly, to have lot's of breast meat.\n\n",
"The same way pigs, cows, dogs and so many other domesticated animals did by being mean motherfuckers. We made them docile and utterly dependant through thousands of years of selective breeding. The mistake you've made is assuming we didn't drastically change them.",
"Even domestic chickens will fuck you up. You seen those claws?"
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35mu07 | are we more closely related to somebody with the same last name, rather than to someone with a different last name? | Title. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35mu07/eli5_are_we_more_closely_related_to_somebody_with/ | {
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"If they share your last name because you are blood relatives, then yes.\n\nBut if your name is something very common, like \"Smith\", then sharing a last name is not an indication of actual shared ancestry.\n\nOn average, if I had to place a bet, I would not consider shared last name a very good indicator of actual relation (more people fall into the second category than the first).",
"Not necessarily. \n\n(Note: the following applies only to people of European ancestry and African-Americans. These are just two examples of how names =/= ancestry.)\n\nMany surnames in many European languages came from trades, occupations, or something similar - examples include Baker, Bauer (farmer in German), or the ever-popular Smith. When European languages tended towards titles becoming surnames, it would not be uncommon for many people, of little or no relation to each other, to have the same surname. \n\nAs another example, after the emancipation of African slaves in the United States, many slaves either adopted the names of their former masters or took a common surname upon themselves. (This is why many African-Americans today have surnames such as Davis and Washington, instead of names more closely tied to their African heritages.) Naturally, this led to many non-related people with the same or similar last names."
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4xu0pu | why do dimmer switches buzz? | The more dim (less light), the louder the buzz, and the buzz comes from the switch. What causes this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xu0pu/eli5_why_do_dimmer_switches_buzz/ | {
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"the current is 60 cycles per second.\n\nthe wires in the coil actually vibrate at this speed and also at 120 cycles per second and various harmonics."
]
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1erlgi | how does a program perform a hash on a password? | I'm trying to keep the title short, but what I'm really trying to ask if how can a program perform a hash such as md5 on a password if it is supposedly a "one-way function"? Wouldn't there be a some sort of "md5" function stored somewhere where people can look up, thus, figuring out how the "md5" algorithm function works? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1erlgi/eli5_how_does_a_program_perform_a_hash_on_a/ | {
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" > Wouldn't there be a some sort of \"md5\" function stored somewhere where people can look up, thus, figuring out how the \"md5\" algorithm function works?\n\nYes. How the MD5 algorithm works is public knowledge. The wikipedia page explains how it works. It's considered a one-way function because, even if you know how it works, it is not possible to reverse it without time-consuming, brute-force computation. It effectively \"mixes\" numbers in a way that is not easily reversible.",
"A one-way hash like MD5 is like a recipe for a baking a cake. Your \"password\" is your ingredients. Every time you use flower, sugar, eggs and butter, a cake comes out. If you use the exact same ingredients and follow the exact same instructions, you get exactly the same cake. The computer knows the password is correct because it compares the taste of each cake that was created from the recipe. If they taste the same, the same ingredients (or password in our case) was used. But if you add tuna to your ingredient list, something totally different (and gross) comes out. But it will be the same gross cake-thing every time. One-way hashes work well for security reasons because it's very very very hard to turn a cake _back_ into it's original ingredients."
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29bufj | what causes the side effects of antibiotics, and why do they put "take with our without food" on the label when i fell like i'm going to throw up whenever i take them without food? | Every time I take them, horrible things happen in the bathroom. Probiotics seem to help some, but not enough to be a normal functioning human being. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29bufj/eli5_what_causes_the_side_effects_of_antibiotics/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"You have bacteria in your gut that help you absorb nutrients. These good bacteria are also killed when you take broad spectrum antibiotics."
]
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|
26uc9h | why are alcoholics generally expected to stop their addiction cold turkey but other drug addicts are weaned off of theirs with other drugs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26uc9h/eli5why_are_alcoholics_generally_expected_to_stop/ | {
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"text": [
"Mainly because other drugs have those substitutes to be weaned off to.\n\nNot to mention, most other drug addicts do quit cold turkey, they go to a facility, or stay with friends and family, and suffer through the withdrawals, it's an incredible minority that uses things like methadone.",
"Stopping cold turkey for a severe alcoholic can be deadly, so your initial statement is ill advised",
"And I am not mocking you at all, but point being, if someone just \"drinks a bit too much\", yes , cold turkey is fine, but if you have ever seen a full blown alcoholic go through DT's it's f'ing horrific",
"Severe alcohol addition is weaned using benzodiazepines, which reduce the likelihood of fatal withdrawal, as OB-14 mentioned. \"Cold turkey\" is extremely dangerous for really heavy drinkers. It's not medically advised at all. I think your confusion may stem from the fact that alcohol *itself* isn't the substance used in the detox process. Hope that helps. :)",
"Most people don't understand just how dangerous giving up alcohol can be for severe alcoholics. They don't think that alcohol is a 'real drug'. They don't understand addiction in general, thinking that it's just a lack of willpower preventing people from quitting.\n\nI mean, why couldn't you give up chocolate pudding cold turkey?"
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2pk1ng | how and when does a plane begin to descent for landing and how do pilots land in the middle of the runway? | I get how a plane takes off and how it moves from point to point - but how does a plane land? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pk1ng/eli5_how_and_when_does_a_plane_begin_to_descent/ | {
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"When really depends on the type aircraft and your altitude, but you begin by scrubbing off speed which makes your altitude drop since your wings are producing less lift, when you get close enough to the runway, you drop your flaps to increase the drag produced which can increase the amount of lift, but that is overcome by the rapid reduction in speed and engine power output. On very large aircraft you also deploy spoilers which are special flaps on top of the wing which drastically change the shape of the wings so they increase drag and decrease lift by a lot.\n\nLanding in the middle of the runway is done visually, or by a special system called [instrument landing system](_URL_0_). It is a system of 2 sets of radios, one radio tells the pilot the direction of the runway by sending two radio frequencies in two different directions at the end of the runway. One sends the radio waves slightly to the left and one sends them slightly to the right, the runway is in the middle. The other set of radios sends one radio signal pointed slightly up and the other close to the horizon, the ideal descent path is between those two signals.\n\nA computer calculates these signals and places cues on the HUD to tell the pilot which way he needs to steer and if he's too high or too low."
]
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b1e8jl | am & fm frequencies. | What is the difference?
On FM you can only go from station 88 to 108
On AM you can only go from station 530 to 1710
Why is it that cars can only intercept those frequencies?
Edit) please also help me understand ham radio. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b1e8jl/eli5_am_fm_frequencies/ | {
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"text": [
"AM & FM aren't actually to do with the frequencies but the methods of transmission, though the different methods use different frequency bands due to how they work and for administration of band allocations. AM stands for amplitude modulation, and is generally in the MW radio band, while FM is frequency modulation and uses the VHF band, hence the discontinuity between AM & FM station numbers. Other radio bands exist (such as LW, SW, UHF etc) but are used for different purposes or are historic. A nice picture of the difference between AM & FM can be found on Wikipedia ([_URL_0_](_URL_1_)).",
"There is two things going on here. First is the frequencies and the second is the modulation. The frequency spectrum have no ends. You can have radio signals all the way from 0Hz to 300GHz. Above that it is called infrared light and the spectrum just continues at higher and higher frequencies. For AM broadcasting there are three main bands. They are in the areas called Long Wave, Medium Wave and High Frequency (Short Wave). The ones you refer to are the MW band, 530kHz to 1710kHz. Old radios had problems with higher frequencies as they could not make small precision components. The problem with Long Wave is that a radio station needs 6kHz bandwidth to transfer human voices and as the scales are logarithmic there is not room for many stations there. And also the antennas needs to be enormous. Short Wave radio is popular due to its ability to skip off the ionosphere which means it can be heard all over the world. This is however an issue for local broadcast stations as they would need a license to broadcast all over the world. So Medium Wave is still in use for local broadcast stations.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nFM is a more modern technology as it uses a better modulation technique. However it needs about 12kHz bandwidth for voice and for broadcast uses a 100kHz bandwidth to get better quality audio including stereo. So you can not use FM in the traditional AM broadcast bands. So the allocation used is in the Very High Frequency region at between 88MHz and 108MHz. This does require much smaller components in the radios which is also convenient for the broadcasters as they need much smaller antennas. However the signal is only going at line of sight with a few exceptions. So you need to be able to at least almost see the broadcast antenna to get a signal. This is fine for cities and suburbs but not for rural areas. So MW is still used in rural areas. Note that VHF is not synonymous with FM. The airplanes use AM radios at slightly higher frequencies then the FM broadcast band but your FM radio is totally different so it can not receive those signals and your AM radio filters out all the high frequency signals to get a better signal for itself. Similarly you can get \"toy\" radios that uses FM at Ultra High Frequencies of about 630MHz.",
"The FCC controls which parts of the spectrum can be used. When radio was getting started, those are the parts of the spectrum it decided to allocate to AM and FM radio.\n\nThere are some technical details as to why certain parts of the frequency spectrum are better or worse for certain applications. The composition of the atmosphere determines how signals with bounce and propagate, for example. The frequency of a signal also impacts its ability to penetrate solid materials or go long distances.\n\nHowever, ultimately it just boils down to a government bureaucrat telling us what frequencies are and are not permissible to use.",
"Other than FM and AM being modulation techniques (how to put the sound information on the carrier wave), the reason cars receive only frequencies in those two bands is because of regulations that prevent commercial radio transmissions from being sent on other frequencies. So the car's radio is only built to receive in those two bands and not others.",
"AM is \"Amplitude Modulation\". The radio receiver is tuned to pick up signals operating at a specific frequency and the signal itself comes from the *strength* of that signal going up and down. There are issues inherent to this: frequency bandwidth (what frequencies of Sound can be sent through) is very limited. IIRC, AM is limited to a frequency range of 400Hz - 3200Hz. This is why AM radio has a very distinctive sound to it. AM is also limited to mono.\n\nFM is \"Frequency Modulation\". The radio is tuned to roughly the frequency requested and the signal is created by *slight changes in the frequency* (I.E., if the station is at 92.5MHz, the signal sent from the station will that frequency plus or minus 100Hz or so). The upside to this is that FM can transmit stereo sound and has a MUCH more accurate frequency range for sound (up to 17,000Hz, IIRC). The downside is that the transmitting range is MUCH shorter than AM (on a clear night, AM signals can travel over *50 miles*).",
"Ham radio operator here. There is a lot of good information about the differences in Frequency Modulation and Amplitude Modulation. But the question was, why is FM 88 to 108 and AM 530 to 1710. \n\nThe FCC in the USA (more globally, the ITU in the United Nations) designates the frequencies to be used for specific purposes. Almost every wireless device is designated a specific frequency or range of frequencies to use. \n\nAM broadcast radio is designated 540 KHz to 1600 KHz (1.6 MHz) \nFM broadcast radio is designated 88,000 KHz (88 MHz) to 108,000 KHz (108 MHz)\n\nThe numbers on the radio dial are just the frequency in KHz for AM and in MHz for FM. Your radio can only dial to these frequencies because it was only designed to pick up those frequencies. \n\nAnd yes, there are other frequencies, but they are used for other things. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM\\_broadcasting",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_broadcasting"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
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|
9ssc3s | why when suffering from a virus do you wake up half way through the night covered in sweat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ssc3s/eli5_why_when_suffering_from_a_virus_do_you_wake/ | {
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"text": [
"Fever is a way for your body to fight off viruses and other infections. Most bacteria and viruses don't do too well outside of certain narrow parameters, i.e. too hot, too cold, too dry etc..\n\nSometimes, if the fever is not too high or lasts too long, it's better to let these things run its course. But if you're sick, you should DEFINITELY see your Doctor.",
"The sweating is because your body is ramping up it's temperature to kill viruses and infections, and will happen if you're awake or not. \n \n\nAs for why you wake up, there's a litany of reasons. Simple discomfort from the fever could be enough. \n\nFever dreams are some of the craziest highs I've ever had, and can be jarring enough to wake you up. \n\nYour body may also be signaling a change in state. Imminent vomiting, spike or break in fever, seizures incoming, or maybe it's your last few moments alive. "
]
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[],
[]
] |
||
8luxwg | is there a benefit to fingers of individual length, rather than a thumb and four of equal length? | My only guess is that maybe it allows for the fingers to naturally grip a curved object, like a tree branch? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8luxwg/eli5_is_there_a_benefit_to_fingers_of_individual/ | {
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"text": [
"It lets us make a perfect fist. It also helps, as you guessed, with grabbing some kinds of objects.\n\n_URL_0_",
"To add to what u/concise_pirate said: hold your hand like you're holding a baseball. Notice that in that position the tips of your fingers are all pretty much in line with one another. So yes, it does make holding curved objects easier."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://gizmodo.com/why-aren-t-human-fingers-all-the-same-length-1718976848"
],
[]
] |
|
458r6f | why dj khaled is so talked on the internet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/458r6f/eli5_why_dj_khaled_is_so_talked_on_the_internet/ | {
"a_id": [
"czw18a8"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Well currently his popularity exploded a bit due to his snapchat which I think is quite funny and entertaining. He also says several phrases that are quite funny such as \"bless up\" \"we the best\"\nand many more.\n\nOther than that he's an over rated dj in the hip hop community."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
20g05c | the riemann zeta function | I'm reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson and the Riemann zeta function is mentioned multiple times.
Though I've looked up it's definition, I'm not understanding a) it's significance and maybe more importantly b) it's real world practicality. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20g05c/eli5the_riemann_zeta_function/ | {
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The Riemann Zeta Function (RZF from now on) is one of the most important functions in advanced mathematics. It is found in many fields, ranging from analysis, to number theory, to physics, and on. Its definition is thus: the sum of the reciprocal of the natural numbers, each of which is raised to some power s, where s is a complex number. That s is a complex number is very important and is why the RZF is so powerful. (Note, a complex number is one of the form a+ib where a and b are real numbers and i is the imaginary unit which is the square root of -1).\n\nFor some background, finding ways to sum infinite series is very important in mathematics. Zeno's paradoxes were based on the naive idea that any infinite sum must be infinite. With the advent of calculus and analysis, we discovered that infinite sums can be finite. One of the most famous infinite sums in the basel problem, which is 1/1^2 +1/2^2 + 1/3^2 ... or, in terms of the RZF, s=2. For many years, it was proven that this sum was convergent, but no one could find the sum. Leonard Euler, a famous mathematician, was able to find the sum using fancy arithmetic, which happened to be (1/6)(pi^2). This is important because it gave us a new way to approximate pi. \n\nBack to the RZF. Prior to Riemann's work, people only really considered values of the RZF with inputs as natural numbers (1,2,3,...). Riemann noted that we should be able to expand this to any real number greater than 1 (RZF(1) is divergent always). He later expanded his definition: let the input to the RZF be a complex number. Because the RZF was convergent for any real number > 1, so was it convergent for any complex number with real part greater than 1. This was an amazing result because in complex analysis, there is a method called analytic continuation. Using this method, Riemann was able to define his function for any complex number in the complex plane (except 1; in math-speak, this is called a singularity or pole at 1). \n\nThis is amazing because now we can sum clearly divergent series. For example, imagine RZF(-1). Using the definition, this would be 1/1^-1 + 1/2^-1... which is 1+2+3+... Could the sum of the natural numbers really have a sum? Yes, the RZF produces the result -1/12 for this sum, which makes absolutely no sense when initially considering it. However, this result actually appears often in Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory, and without it, much of modern physics would not work. \n\nFinally, we must consider the Riemann Hypothesis. By its functional (not series) definition, the RZF has trivial zeroes at all negative, even numbers with no complex part; however, there exist other zeroes, which we know must be in a place called the critical strip. This strip is all inputs that have real part between 0 and 1 and with the imaginary part having any value. The Riemann Hypothesis, however, makes a stronger statement; that is, that all non-trivial zeroes of the RZF takes form (1/2)+ib where b is any real number. This says, instead of a critical strip, we have a critical line, which is the vertical line going through 1/2. As of now, this is the most famous, unsolved problem in mathematics. If it were solved, it would solve many other unsolved problems that depend on it and, almost more importantly, would tell us a great deal about the distribution of prime numbers. If you were to prove or disprove this conjecture, then you would be awarded $1,000,000 and would probably be the most famous mathematician alive."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
d02aqg | what happens if you cook rotting meat and would it become edible? | From my understanding, bacteria break down the meat and release toxins, which when ingested can cause food poisoning etc. would cooking destroy those toxins? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d02aqg/eli5_what_happens_if_you_cook_rotting_meat_and/ | {
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"ez5d1cw",
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"text": [
"Some toxins can be destroyed by heat, but others are heat-stable and will survive cooking. I do not recommend trying to cook rotten anything.",
"Some toxins, maybe. For most though, the temperature you’d need to get them at to destroy them is around the same temperature where meat turns into charcoal and becomes completely inedible.\n\nSo not cooking so much as incinerating, basically.",
"Cooking meat will kill the microorganisms that are producing the toxins, so they can't make any more. Many toxins themselves are stable chemicals that heat won't destroy before the food becomes ashes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4j0lwh | difference between storage on a server and storage on the cloud | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j0lwh/eli5_difference_between_storage_on_a_server_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"d32mlgt",
"d32mrk3",
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],
"score": [
4,
4,
2
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"text": [
"Where the server is and who controls it.\n\nWith traditional on-prem server storage, a company or individual will have a server set up in one place that they control for file storage.\n\nWith cloud storage, a company or individual will contract with another company to store information on their servers. These servers are often in multiple large data centers all over the world.",
"Are you keeping your money in your safe at home or in a bank? The safe at home is your server and the cloud is a bank.",
"At the end of the day the really isn't one. When you store data 'in the cloud' it *is* being stored on a server (or multiple servers) somewhere. Using 'the cloud' is simply utilizing larger, better IT infrastructure that would be illogical for an individual to buy just for themselves. \n\nFor example, let's say you have two homes, a cabin and a house in the suburbs. You could disconnect from your electric utility, buy a generator and your own fuel and use it to power your suburban home and your cabin. A small generator is less efficient and hence more expensive than a large turbine in a power plant so you'll be paying more per kw/hr because you obviously wouldn't (couldn't) buy an entire power plant. Also, in order to get the electricity to your cabin, you'd need to run your own power lines however many miles away it was or buy another generator. Finally, if anything breaks down it's up to you to fix it. Your alternative, however, would be pay your existing electrical utility company to use their more sophisticated, efficient and reliable infrastructure that they have in place and access the grid from both homes. This sort of models the pro-cloud argument but there are, of course, differing opinions. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5qeb7c | would it be possible to change the earths orbit with a big enough thruster? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qeb7c/eli5would_it_be_possible_to_change_the_earths/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcykay2"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The Earth weight 6 x 10^24 Kg. That is **too big** to move.\n\nIf you want to make a 5% increase in the radius of the orbit, you have to add a lot of energy, about 1.5 x 10^32 Joules. That's about 10 days' worth of the sun's total energy output. To put that energy into a force, you'd need to fire part of the Earth's mass toward the Sun at relativistic velocity. It looks like you need 1-2% of Earth's mass (about the mass of the Moon). Certainly digging a Moon's worth of rock up will have bad environmental effects, not to mention the relativistic particle beam."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
c34moc | can we use science to create a “poopless” food? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c34moc/eli5_can_we_use_science_to_create_a_poopless_food/ | {
"a_id": [
"eromn99",
"eron4wx"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"No. A significant amount of the waste you expel comes from processes in the body such as the death of blood cells which give poop it's characteristic brown color. No amount of nutritional tailoring is going to stop the death and discarding of body cells and metabolic waste.",
"Feces is compared of many parts. A large portion of feces, besides solid waste products from our own body, that's going to happen no matter what you eat.\n\nAnother large component is actually the bacteria that thrived off the food. And this is necessary as they break down things like cellulose for us, so it needs to be in our system, but can't stock around in such great numbers between meals."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
9zou58 | which biological/physical characteristics affect reaction time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9zou58/eli5_which_biologicalphysical_characteristics/ | {
"a_id": [
"eab2yiv",
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"score": [
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Age\n\nGenetics (natural talent or ability) \n\nExperience (practice makes perfect)\n\nAGE =D\n\nAlso Health (eyes, hands, muscle reaction)",
"The speed of the action potential traveling along the neuron plays a big role in reaction time. \n\nSome reactions are faster than others, because the neural circuit is significantly shorter. For example, if you burn your hand, the neural circuit that makes you react by instinctively pulling your hand away, starts in your hand, goes up your arm, but doesn't go to the brain, it just loops around the spinal ganglia and comes back to innervate the muscles in your arm.\n\nReaction speeds will be slower if the action potential has to travel farther, and if the neural circuit feeds into the brain (because the reaction requires some amount of information processing in the brain), it will take even longer. \n\nA tangential fun fact; metal circuits carry electrons a million times faster than biological neurons can carry action potentials, so if you theoretically had a true AI with a Human level consciousness, except with a brain made out of metal circuits instead of biological circuits, they would be able to think and process information, and thus learn and react, a million times faster than Humans. This single AI living and thinking for a single human lifetime (~75 years) would be able to do the computational work of more than a million humans (because it's a million times faster, but it also doesn't need to rest, sleep, or engage in leisure activities and entertainment). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3s2pr3 | why is the end of wwi (remembrance day) still a big deal in the u.k., but less commemorated in the u.s. (veterans day)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s2pr3/eli5why_is_the_end_of_wwi_remembrance_day_still_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwtk44o"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Also the US lost 116,000 and the British Empire lost nearly 1 million dead or MIA. So it hit England and the then current constituent parts of the Empire much harder then the US. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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