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3dkueh | how a trial is made fair when a criminal case gets broad media attention. how is it possible to pick an impartial jury in cases like the boston marathon bombing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dkueh/eli5_how_a_trial_is_made_fair_when_a_criminal/ | {
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"It's very very hard, and its one of the reasons that high profile trials take so long. During jury selection, the defense is looking for people that don't really pay any attention to current events, or at least remember very little about it.",
"In the US there is jury sequestering. A sequestered jury is essentially cut off from most TV and internet, and they are put up in a hotel for the trial. The judge essentially orders the jury to remain in isolation for the trial. Its rarely used, but used for media circus trials (like Aaron Hernandez) and often used in mob trials for juror safety. \n\nAs for picking the jurors to begin with, the lawyers sift through the jury pool until they find people who are out of touch, or those who they feel can make an impartial decision. The George Zimmerman case had a good example of a jury who acted impartially, even though some of them felt he was guilty they all knew they didn't have the standard of proof that he did. ",
"Not everyone is emotional or a justice seeker. If I was a juror on a high profile case where it was pretty clear the guy did it (Aurora shooter, Boston Bomber) I would have no trouble voting to acquit if it was clear the government didn't do its job proving the case.\n\nAs we saw with OJ and Casey Anthony, jurors will adhere to the law and not knee-jerk vote guilty when the government doesn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt.",
"They don't have to be perfectly impartial, they just have to be impartial *enough* for both the prosecution and the defence to feel they have a fair chance.\n\nThe Boston jury had to be \"death-qualified\", by the way, as in, not opposed to the death penalty in a general sense—able to apply it where the law allows."
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3kii7t | what are we trying to accomplish by coughing? | I understand sometimes we are coughing because we have something caught in our throat, or make we are coughing up phlegm. A lot of times, we have "dry coughs". What exactly are these? Why does our own body make us cough seemingly pointlessly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kii7t/eli5_what_are_we_trying_to_accomplish_by_coughing/ | {
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"Coughing is always for the purpose of removing foreign or harmful material, by dislodging and then expelling it. Usually our bodies have already encased the material in phlegm or mucus, but sometimes the body hasn't had time to complete the process and attempts to eject it sooner. Basically, every time the body is saying \"There's something wrong, get rid of it\". It can be anything from small bits of food, to viruses and diseases, to liquid accidentally inhaled."
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1kjxyb | how would the world re-populate if humanity was reduced to one man and one woman? | Obviously I know how it would be done physically, but how would all of the inbreeding affect the gene pool and would it set back the human species? Would evolution eventually correct it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kjxyb/eli5how_would_the_world_repopulate_if_humanity/ | {
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"It would be quite impossible due to genetic defects from inbreeding. They'd all be dead within the fifth generation. Evolution would not correct it because there is nowhere near time, nor progeny(offspring) for natural selection to work."
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4ie3n1 | why do historians know so many intimate details about the greeks and the romans compared to virtually every other ancient civilization? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ie3n1/eli5why_do_historians_know_so_many_intimate/ | {
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"The simplest explanation...they built up empires strong enough to so spread out and conquer, left written records and artificacts that survived or have been copied through out history, and left crap all over the place that is still standing. They were advanced cultures in etheir day.",
"Probably extensive record keeping. A lot of conquering civilizations destroyed cultural stuff/information of the conquered civilizations if they had it. ",
"For several reasons: \n\n- They recorded alot of stuff\n- They were large and impacted alot of other cultures in a big way\n- They made alot of long lasting items and stuctures\n- They were prolific, so records, artifacts and buildings were left everywhere\n- The roman empire still had remenants remaining in the middle ages and so alot of there history (and by extension the greeks) was preserved to the modern day"
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2tq73d | why does israel keep providing hamas/palestinians with supplies? | _URL_0_
_URL_1_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tq73d/eli5_why_does_israel_keep_providing/ | {
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"Israel as per international law is considered an occupying power. There are laws it has to abide by which Israel mostly refuses to and even when they do it's publicized in the form of 'aid' . Israel does the bare minimum to keep international outrage at bay. When you think about it... Israel Controls everything Palestinian. Air, waters, land, borders and also blockades Gaza so Gaza is virtually dependent on this 'aid'. It's not aid when you don't have a choice. "
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"http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Humanitarian/Pages/Israeli-humanitarian-aid-continues-10-Jul-2014.aspx",
"http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190486"
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zouve | the popularity of tumblr | I remember BT mentioning Tumblr like a year or two ago and I thought nothing of it. Nowadays it seems to be THE blogging platform for younger people.
Is it really this generations' LiveJournal? What is it that makes Tumblr that special? And do people actually make friends from it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zouve/eli5_the_popularity_of_tumblr/ | {
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"I used to go on it. \n\nIt is basically grouped like subreddits in a way.\nYou have your Harry Potter fans, your anorexics, your hipsters, your foodporn, your funny pictures, your quotes - anything.\n\nYou either post your own pictures/movies/texts or 'reblog' something someone else posted.\n\nI personally made friends in the recovering anorexic world, but I can only speak for me. People follow you and your posts, and can message you if they want. ",
"Based on my experiences a few years back.\n\n1. It's ***incredibly*** simple to get a tumblog up and running like you want it to. I've never heard of anyone having a hard time with tumblr.\n2. The community runs the gammut from (12-21 yo girl) meme blogs, to high-brow link aggregators, to essayists. Whatever you want, you can find (though the memes will be the easiest things to spot).\n3. The admins really took the whole non-interference thing seriously (at least for a while), a lot like reddit.\n4. It's a flexible platform - just as there are all sorts of communities, you really can use the site in a lot of ways. A lot of kids at my highschool even used it like a \"super-secret BFF social network\" (I think that's a direct quote).\n5. The way you interact with it by default is really... slick? Iirc comments are turned off by default, and the section they get stuck in is practically unusable for conversation. The site really just pushes you to mindlessly scroll down on your dashboard for long periods of time. Ever been on reddit and got into an in-depth contentious discussion, at the end of which you just felt like taking a break? You're not going to have that happen on tumblr.\n6. It has a certain \"underground\" vibe. Major media doesn't bring it up a whole lot, which gives it a certain nerd-cred appeal."
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2d039v | how are lottery ticket vending machines legal if they can't id you? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d039v/eli5_how_are_lottery_ticket_vending_machines/ | {
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"You have to be 18 to claim the prize.",
"Most have a means of checking your drivers license. This is actually annoying when you go to college where the machines won't always take your FL drivers license in NC (as a personal example).",
"Because you can't claim the prize that you receive without a valid form of identifying that you are over 18. \n\nWell...no, that's not exactly correct. As long as the prize isn't more than 100.00, I've never really had anyone check."
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etxwyu | why are flashback memories in movies and tv shows tinted in a warm, orang-ish color? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/etxwyu/eli5_why_are_flashback_memories_in_movies_and_tv/ | {
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"Well, they aren't orange in every movie, but i know the thing you're talking about. \n\n\nThe use of colors in movies is actually a really interesting psychological trick (I don't know if \"trick\" is the right word but I'm not good at words today). Color is a really effective way to subtly shape peoples' emotions, among other things. Color can communicate a mood, it can communicate danger, it can communicate a time or place, it's so fascinating. \n\n\nFor example, if you've seen The Matrix, you might have noticed that all the scenes where you're in the Matrix have kind of a cool, greenish tone, and in all the \"real world\" scenes, colors are much more natural and warm looking. This helps the viewers really \"feel\" the film, and understand that the Matrix world is cold, unnatural, artificial, while the real world is warm, natural, and real. \n\n\nSo when a film has a flashback scene, they want the viewer to be able to really see, feel, and understanding that they are watching something happening somewhere else, somewhere that is completely different from where the rest of the story is happening, and changing the overall color scheme of the scene can help communicate that. \n\n\nColor is so important that we can often tell what a scene is about, in general, without being specifically told. For example, when everything in a scene looks super red, that usually communicates something like intense emotional or sexual passion, or violent rage. Blue tones tend to communicate coldness, or sadness, or emotional emptiness. Pink tones tend to communicate fun, innocence, something non-serious and non-dangerous. \n\n\nThis video does a nice job of showing how colors can be used in film: [_URL_2_](_URL_1_) \n\n\nAnd this one shows how colors and action can combine to create different moods/emotional reactions: [_URL_3_](_URL_0_)",
"It's definitely not always orange, but some directors will mess around with the hue of flashback scenes so that the time differentiation is very obvious. \n\nThere are a lot of funky coloring methods that can be used to emphasize the change in scenery. For example, Breaking Bad used to have all of the scenes in Mexico as an orangey hue to differentiate from Albuquerque. I imagine a lot of TV shows and movies do similar effects to flashback scenes.",
"Well I'm no expert but I would imagine that making it visually distinctive is a advantage to make sure the viewer recognise that this takes place in a different time (the past)\n\nRegarding that particular color filter. That sepia filter gives of a \"old\" vibe I guess because it reminds us of old things like old photos or old paper"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAW09Jy48bM&feature=emb\\_title",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMJGgUvOcL8&feature=emb\\_title"
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3vjx64 | how do the planets in our solar system stay distant from eachother if the reason they're in the solar system is by the suns gravitational pull? | Shouldn't they just all pull each other in and form a clusterfuck of a planet or something along the lines? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vjx64/eli5_how_do_the_planets_in_our_solar_system_stay/ | {
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"They're not free to fall inwards because they are in orbit.\n\nImagine you throw a ball. It lands some way away. Ignoring atmosphere dragging at it, the harder you throw it, the further it goes, yes?\n\nNow imagine throwing it so hard that it goes half way round the world before landing? With me so far? Now imagine throwing it so it comes all the way round and hits you on the back of the head. Because there's no atmosphere to pull at it, it's travelling at the same speed as when you threw it - so provided you duck, there's no difference between the first trip round the world and the next and the next and the next. Provided no one stands up, it'll carry on going round the world, falling yes, but falling at the same speed as the ground is curving away.\n\nThe planets are doing that - they're falling round the sun, but going sideways as well, so much sideways that they end up back where they started from a year later (in the case of the Earth) a couple of years for Mars and so on.",
"They're all moving sideways. Sideways motion of the planet, plus centerward pull of the Sun's gravity, equals circular motion. Like if you hold a flagpole in one hand and try to walk, the flagpole (really your arm) pulls you around in a circle.\n\nBut gravity gets weaker with distance. Twice as far? Gravity is four times weaker. Three times as far? Nine times weaker.\n\nThe planets are FAR from each other. Millions of miles at the closest. They'd have to be HUGE to affect each other at those distances. The ones that are closer are too small. The ones that are bigger are farther apart.\n\nSo how does the Sun hold them at those distances? By being huge. \n\nWe have a lot of trouble visualizing just how big the Sun is because it doesn't look so big in the sky. But if you took all of the planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and Kuiper Belt Objects in the Solar System and put them together, they would be about 1/1000 the mass of the Sun. It's ginormous.\n\nBy the way, everything USED to pull together. Back when the Solar System was young, it was just a giant cloud of gas and dust. All that stuff clumped up because of gravity to become protoplanets. Before we had all the stable orbits we have now, these things crashed into each other. One of them, called Theia, crashed into Earth and was destroyed. It tilted our axis 23.5 degrees, which is why we have seasons. It also threw craploads of rock into space, where they recombined to form our moon. A similar crash knocked Uranus on its side.\n\nYou also might think, \"but Jupiter is the biggest, and it's fairly close to the asteroid belt. Why doesn't its gravity affect that?\" It does! That's why a planet didn't form there: because Jupiter's gravity keeps swirling the mix and preventing them from forming too large. It also STEALS asteroids and keeps them as moons. It also had a moody period a while back called the Bombardment when its gravity flung asteroids all around the Solar System, sending them crashing into...well, everything. Ever notice how the moon is so cratered? Thanks a lot, Jupiter.\n\nThe Earth also got beat up by this process, but erosion from wind and waves erase most of the craters in Earth. Besides, the subduction of tectonic plates sinking back into the mantle and the creation of new plates (like at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge) means most of the Earth's crust is made of young rocks that hold no scars of that earlier Bombardment. We do, however, have lots of Rare Earth Metals brouht to us by asteroids during that time.\n\nSorry for the wall of text and tangents; I'm doing a 20 minute show about this topic several times a week and the ideas are sort of inextricably linked in my mind.\n\nTL; DR: planets are too far apart to affect each other much, but the Sun is big enough to affect all of them, even at those distances. Things USED to crash together a lot, but the Solar System has calmed down a lot since then."
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3xvihj | how can a machine like a coffee maker heat up a room temperature liquid so quickly but a chilling effect can't be done as rapidly? | For instance, with beer. As far as I know, to old tried-and-true method of water, ice, and salt are the best option you have. Am I wrong? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xvihj/eli5_how_can_a_machine_like_a_coffee_maker_heat/ | {
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"Cold and heat aren't really the same thing. Coldness is just the absence of energy; the more thermal energy you add to something, the more it heats up. Generating thermal energy is pretty easy, by lighting a fire, or using resistance to convert electricity to heat, or a microwave, etc.\n\nTaking away energy is a lot harder. You can only draw heat into something colder. The greater the difference, the faster it will cool down. Unfortunately most cool things available in the household aren't *that* cold, a few degrees below freezing at best. That means there's a limit to how quickly the energy will transfer, whereas with heat, you can just pile on more and more energy, as fast as you can generate it.",
"So the best way to heat up a liquid is to expose it to something that's already really hot. Heat energy will then transfer from that hot object to the liquid, and Viola! your coffee is hot.This also works in the opposite way, if you expose your liquid to something very cold, then the heat energy transfers from the liquid to the cold object. \n\nThe issue is that the technology to make an object nice and hot is much much simpler than the technology needed to make an object very cold. To generate heat very quickly, you can basically just run electricity through some high resistance metal wiring, and a bunch of heat gets produced. A great example of this is an old fashioned incandescent light bulb. Turn the power on, and you've got a bunch of heat almost instantly. Cheap, easy, and it doesn't require much space or moving parts. \n\nCooling technology generally works via compression and expansion of specialized fluids, plus a system to transfer the removed heat away and send it somewhere else. If you look at the back of your fridge or a water cooler, you'll see all the required stuff. It takes up a decent amount of space, has non-trivial costs to build, and is more complicated and prone to breaking. \n\nAll of these factors make it ill-suited for a small consumer appliance like a coffee maker. "
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4e932e | why do colleges and even high schools emphasize plagiarism so much | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e932e/eli5_why_do_colleges_and_even_high_schools/ | {
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"The issue with plagiarism isn't that you're getting your ideas from elsewhere, it's that you're taking credit for those ideas and passing them off as your own (even if in some sense, they were). Sourcing other people's work in the text is the important part, not abstaining from doing extraneous research.",
"School is not just an elaborate ritual that must be accomplished before you can be given The Diploma Of Power. You're actually supposed to learn things - including how to learn things on your own.\n\nThe point of a research paper is to go out and learn something, and then prove that you learned it so the teacher can grade it. If you're plagiarizing, you *aren't proving you learned it.*",
"First, whenever you write, you should write as if it were being published. Even if you are only giving it to your instructor, you never know if he/she will ask you to submit it to a student review or a conference.\n\nSecond, your instructor knows that you did research. They know that a lot of the ideas are not your own. The point of citing sources is so that they know whose they are. If you are writing about the role of race in 1950's Mississippi, and your main source was written by the Supreme Poobah of the Ku Klux Klan, you will draw very specific conclusions which are colored by the bias of your source.\n\nThird, what the hell kind of research papers are you writing wherein you are not encouraged to provide your own analysis? That is the whole point of a research paper. You present your research and then you provide your analysis of it. The advice I always got was that for every sentence you take from a source, you should have three which are your own analysis."
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jq5uo | how do i gain muscle mass? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jq5uo/eli5_how_do_i_gain_muscle_mass/ | {
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"Lift weights, eat a LOT (of healthy food). ",
"When you lift weights, your body adapts to the physical stress you put on your body by growing. In order to grow, you need to eat more calories than you burn to build this muscle. A general rule of thumb is to eat 40 percent of your calories from protein, 40 percent from carbs and 20 percent from fats. \n\nYou should follow a consistent, progressive weight lifting program such as Strong Lifts or Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 that targets the biggest muscles in the body to ensure you grow nice and strong at a steady pace \n ",
"eat eat eat eat eat and lift weights",
"Building muscle is NOT only about lifting weights and eating a lot.\n\nBuilding muscle is ALL about progression. You need food for progression, not for building muscle. Progression is limited by your body's adaptability - eating more will not cause you adapt faster. You just need to eat *enough* to adapt, which is slightly more than you would need to just *recover* from the workouts (get back to baseline). 200-300 calories extra per day. A potato and a chicken breast. \n\nThe body's adaptability is highly individual - but that's what leads to muscles, nothing else. Some people think it's your effort, but that's just a lie pushed by the supplement industry.\n\nYou can kill yourself in the weight room and eat like a pig, and never progress at a rate that matches your efforts (or weight gain). You're limited by your natural maximum rate of progression. If you have naturally low adaptability (meaning your body is only okay adding a little bit of muscle per workout), then killing yourself will only make your body recover and rebuild all the damaged muscles, and add that standard amount on top of it. You can't run away from that standard amount. It's determined by your hormone levels. Doing heavy lifts does increase your testosterone, but no one has ever proved that all that definitively (your body has very strong regulation systems that monitor hormone levels, it won't go above its accepted range naturally) i.e. Make effort when you lift, but do it so that you can still progress - you might have to actually hold back some days, because, with experience, you will learn to separate good stress from bad stress. Killing yourself is always bad stress. You should feel kinda good. Tired but good.\n\nThere is also a gene that controls how much muscle your body is okay with (both growth rate and total extra mass). \n\nNow, let me say a few things about progression.\n\nThere are many different kinds of ways you can progress in a weight room. \n\nYou can lift more weight with the same rep scheme.\nYou can do more reps *per set* with the same weight.\nYou can do more sets, with same weight and same reps.\nYou can do the same exact workout in less time.\nYou can lift more weight, per week.\nEtc. Etc.\n\nThe point is, do your workout. Next time come back and beat your numbers. In my opinion, focus on other progressions than weight. Weight-only progression mindset leads to stagnation. Think about it. If you add even 1lb to your working weight each week, that would work out to be 500 lbs in ten years. No one has even lifted 500lb in all lifts, even for one repetition (if you're talking bodybuilding lifts), much less for several. And all the fitness experts recommend you raise your weight by 5lbs each week. That's just asinine. Plenty of people work out for 10+ years. No one gets that strong. It's because getting stronger (in low repetitions like Strong Lifts etc.) for muscle size is a lie.\nThose people have just picked their thing to preach, and they don't want to tell you what I've just told you - no point in reading their blogs, no point buying their supplements - your body has a natural progression/growth rate, that's very slow (sorry). Work out for 10 years, you will grow the **same amount** of muscles, regardless if you kill yourself all that time, or just do *enough* but not too much. Everyone in the industry wants you to blame yourself for lack of effort, or lack of good program, or lack of nutrition, and look to them for advice. They make money that way, and they can't tell you what I just told you, since I don't give a fuck.\n\nGo for other progressions, don't chase weight. Right now, for example, my favorite progression is this: Pick 1 exercise per muscle group, and do it twice a week. Start with a weight that you can do for 50 reps across 5 sets, and bring that weight up to 100 reps across 5 sets, no time limit on rest periods. That should keep you busy for a while. And it will be **anything but easy**\n\nYou can do anything, as long as it's a measurable progression. Choose the progression type your body responds best to (mine is endurance progression. Adding weight stalls me, adding sets also stalls me, for some reason.)\n\nMy god, that was a huge rant...",
"All of the above is correct, but every response so far neglects to mention the importance of sleep. \n\n*Get plenty of it.*",
"Subscribe to [/r/Fitness](_URL_0_) and have a look at the sidebar and FAQ. They've been written to answer just about every question beginners have. Muscle and strength building isn't complicated but there is more to it than what can or should be answered here. You won't encounter any *essential* concepts that there need to be simplified as much as ELI5 does.\n\nSome of the information given in this thread just wouldn't fly in /r/Fitness so there's no need to for us to get in an internet duel over it here. Ask over there then have fun with lifting.",
"Lift weights, eat a LOT (of healthy food). ",
"When you lift weights, your body adapts to the physical stress you put on your body by growing. In order to grow, you need to eat more calories than you burn to build this muscle. A general rule of thumb is to eat 40 percent of your calories from protein, 40 percent from carbs and 20 percent from fats. \n\nYou should follow a consistent, progressive weight lifting program such as Strong Lifts or Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 that targets the biggest muscles in the body to ensure you grow nice and strong at a steady pace \n ",
"eat eat eat eat eat and lift weights",
"Building muscle is NOT only about lifting weights and eating a lot.\n\nBuilding muscle is ALL about progression. You need food for progression, not for building muscle. Progression is limited by your body's adaptability - eating more will not cause you adapt faster. You just need to eat *enough* to adapt, which is slightly more than you would need to just *recover* from the workouts (get back to baseline). 200-300 calories extra per day. A potato and a chicken breast. \n\nThe body's adaptability is highly individual - but that's what leads to muscles, nothing else. Some people think it's your effort, but that's just a lie pushed by the supplement industry.\n\nYou can kill yourself in the weight room and eat like a pig, and never progress at a rate that matches your efforts (or weight gain). You're limited by your natural maximum rate of progression. If you have naturally low adaptability (meaning your body is only okay adding a little bit of muscle per workout), then killing yourself will only make your body recover and rebuild all the damaged muscles, and add that standard amount on top of it. You can't run away from that standard amount. It's determined by your hormone levels. Doing heavy lifts does increase your testosterone, but no one has ever proved that all that definitively (your body has very strong regulation systems that monitor hormone levels, it won't go above its accepted range naturally) i.e. Make effort when you lift, but do it so that you can still progress - you might have to actually hold back some days, because, with experience, you will learn to separate good stress from bad stress. Killing yourself is always bad stress. You should feel kinda good. Tired but good.\n\nThere is also a gene that controls how much muscle your body is okay with (both growth rate and total extra mass). \n\nNow, let me say a few things about progression.\n\nThere are many different kinds of ways you can progress in a weight room. \n\nYou can lift more weight with the same rep scheme.\nYou can do more reps *per set* with the same weight.\nYou can do more sets, with same weight and same reps.\nYou can do the same exact workout in less time.\nYou can lift more weight, per week.\nEtc. Etc.\n\nThe point is, do your workout. Next time come back and beat your numbers. In my opinion, focus on other progressions than weight. Weight-only progression mindset leads to stagnation. Think about it. If you add even 1lb to your working weight each week, that would work out to be 500 lbs in ten years. No one has even lifted 500lb in all lifts, even for one repetition (if you're talking bodybuilding lifts), much less for several. And all the fitness experts recommend you raise your weight by 5lbs each week. That's just asinine. Plenty of people work out for 10+ years. No one gets that strong. It's because getting stronger (in low repetitions like Strong Lifts etc.) for muscle size is a lie.\nThose people have just picked their thing to preach, and they don't want to tell you what I've just told you - no point in reading their blogs, no point buying their supplements - your body has a natural progression/growth rate, that's very slow (sorry). Work out for 10 years, you will grow the **same amount** of muscles, regardless if you kill yourself all that time, or just do *enough* but not too much. Everyone in the industry wants you to blame yourself for lack of effort, or lack of good program, or lack of nutrition, and look to them for advice. They make money that way, and they can't tell you what I just told you, since I don't give a fuck.\n\nGo for other progressions, don't chase weight. Right now, for example, my favorite progression is this: Pick 1 exercise per muscle group, and do it twice a week. Start with a weight that you can do for 50 reps across 5 sets, and bring that weight up to 100 reps across 5 sets, no time limit on rest periods. That should keep you busy for a while. And it will be **anything but easy**\n\nYou can do anything, as long as it's a measurable progression. Choose the progression type your body responds best to (mine is endurance progression. Adding weight stalls me, adding sets also stalls me, for some reason.)\n\nMy god, that was a huge rant...",
"All of the above is correct, but every response so far neglects to mention the importance of sleep. \n\n*Get plenty of it.*",
"Subscribe to [/r/Fitness](_URL_0_) and have a look at the sidebar and FAQ. They've been written to answer just about every question beginners have. Muscle and strength building isn't complicated but there is more to it than what can or should be answered here. You won't encounter any *essential* concepts that there need to be simplified as much as ELI5 does.\n\nSome of the information given in this thread just wouldn't fly in /r/Fitness so there's no need to for us to get in an internet duel over it here. Ask over there then have fun with lifting."
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274tu4 | does time past slower or faster on other planets? | I heard that gravity and velocity can affect the speed of time (I'm not exactly sure how and why) So does that mean that time is passing slower or faster on other planets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/274tu4/eli5does_time_past_slower_or_faster_on_other/ | {
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"Time passes slower inside a gravity well (looking at it from the outside), so if a planet has higher gravity (like Jupiter), it will pass slower there. This is true in an absolute sense: to someone looking from Jupiter, it would look like the rest of the universe was moving slightly faster.\n\nTime also passes slower in moving reference frames, so to us it would appear that time is passing slower on all other planets. However, this is relative: to someone on another planet it would look like *we* were moving slower.\n\nNote that we're talking about very small differences, here. Like seconds per century or something. You'd need an atomic clock to actually measure a difference."
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3pqjq1 | when i'm feeling depressed, why do most attempts to "cheer me up" just make me more depressed? | Even ideas that I would otherwise find helpful can feel like reasons to compound my hopelessness. What's making my brain interpret then in that way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pqjq1/eli5_when_im_feeling_depressed_why_do_most/ | {
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"I've noticed that when people would give me the usual spiel about \"having so much to live for\", I'd hate it because it just seems so cliche to say that. Especially when it's someone with a normal life...",
"Not sure how to word this, but I know this exact feeling. The reason you feel more depressed is probably because they know you're depressed and are saying things to try to make you feel better, so you feel worse because you can't feel better \n\nI tried, but I seriously cannot explain this feeling in words, sorry",
"\"Look! I can see the bright side, can't you?\" ^:) ^^:) ^^^:)\n\n",
"Sometimes the thing that makes people feel better is just knowing they feel understood (please notice how many qualifying statements I made in there).\n\nSometimes what benefits people most is just knowing that somebody understands them, nothing more, nothing less. For somebody to try to \"cheer somebody up\", it implies that the person wants the depressed person to be different in some way... and this could be a good thing, but other times it just feels like, \"why don't you accept me as a person for being upset?\"\n\nRather, if somebody tells you how upset they are and depressed they are... just hearing somebody tell you how it makes sense that they are upset and whatnot can be a burden lifted from that person's shoulder... for once *somebody* gets that it just plain sucks and you just want somebody to understand that it sucks and it is good to know that somebody got it.\n\nAs an aside, if you find people always trying to solve your problems or people always trying to \"make it better\" to really get to you... try to find a Client Centered therapist or Humanistic therapist... they tend to specialize in just simply understanding and being empathic towards whatever somebody is experiencing, no matter how \"weird\" or \"abnormal\" the feelings might be."
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4t4bdm | how is the amount of food stamps allocated to each person calculated? | I ran into some money troubles recently, and applied for food stamps. Yesterday, I got a letter saying I would get food stamps. Food stamps, in the amount of $56 a month.
Fifty-six American dollars a *month*?
Now, I'll take whatever help that I can get, I'm just confused as how this is seen as helpful.
Any answers to the question is appreciated. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4t4bdm/eli5_how_is_the_amount_of_food_stamps_allocated/ | {
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"it depends on size of household and how much income you make. you can look at the list here. _URL_0_\n\nmax for one person is 194. since you are getting 56. it seems 138 is 30% of your net monthly income. do you net more than 460 a month? \n",
"Food stamps are the SUPPLEMENTAL Nutrition Assistance Program). They're not supposed to totally pay for all of your food, just the food you can't pay for yourself. If I remember correctly, the program is based on the idea that roughly 30% of your income should pay for food. \n\nSo If you have income, your benefit is reduced to by about 30% of that income. What's left between that and the USDA thrifty plan (_URL_0_) for your household is what you get in food stamps.\n\n\n\n\n",
"$56 a month can get you a fairly hefty portion of muesli, a metric fuckton of pasta, canned diced tomatoes, and tomato paste, plenty of flour. It might only last you 3 or 4 pizzas, but i think SNAP is best used to encourage people to spend the money on staples, which $56 a month absolutely would cover for most people.\n\nIf it's a question of adjusting to a much *lower* standard of living than you previously were, take a step back, boil everything down to the bare essentials in terms of your budgeting, and then build on that to a sustainable level."
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2fdwrx | why did dark-on-light win out over white-on-dark for default color schemes? | Way back in the day, it was always bright text on a dark screen and that's just how it was going to be. Eventually the paradigm shifted and I guess we decided to emulate print which was usually a light page with black ink for the text. With a brief googling, it looks like even the experts are still divided over which is better. Anyone care to take a stab at explaining why one won out over the other, is there a good reason or sheer inertia? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fdwrx/eli5_why_did_darkonlight_win_out_over_whiteondark/ | {
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"I'm going to guess 'print media' is a huge part...\n\nI much prefer white-on-dark, though. I stare at code for hours and hours, and just can't stand light backgrounds...\n",
"I use night mode on RES and was really confused for a second"
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e5kuq4 | what are we trying to learn from particle accelerators/colliders? | I assume it has a lot to do with the Big Bang Theory and the creation of the universe. If that's the case and we accidentally find the right combination and collide the proper particles couldn't we, in theory, create a new universe? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e5kuq4/eli5_what_are_we_trying_to_learn_from_particle/ | {
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"It’s only indirectly related to the Big Bang.\nWe learn about the properties of fundamental particles, it’s just that some of these particles would also have been created very soon after the Big Bang.\nWe can study these particles because the energy in a particle accelerator is converted into mass, which manifests as a random selection of fundamental particles.\n\nNo it won’t create new universes, unless you’re using the energy equivalence of the mass of a universe, in which case creating a universe probably won’t be your prior concern.",
"It helps to understand the process of what these machines are doing to understand what it is we're learning from them.\n\nParticles possessing mass cannot go as fast as the speed of light. Period. I assume you know this and I'm being pedantic. But the important point is you can still push on those particles and accelerate them, indefinitely. Instead of getting faster, though, they get more massive. They get not bigger, but heavier. What this means is that energy you imparted in the particle by pushing on it is collected in the particle. They become extremely energetic.\n\nAnd let us not forget that energy cannot be created or destroyed, just converted from one form to another. How this applies to particles is that they are themselves made up of energy, that energy just so happens to be in some stable configuration that looks like solid matter. Neat.\n\nThis all touches on field theory, which suggests the universe is composed of overlapping fields of energy. These fields interact with each other either directly or indirectly. If you can concentrate enough energy in one field, it'll pop a particle into existence. By observing that particle, we can deduce properties of the field it's made from and gain a better understanding of how reality works. These fields also explain Brownian motion and energy in a vacuum - if you freeze something to absolute zero, that is to say you've removed all energy from a particle, it still drifts and moves, due to the latent energy in the underlying field; it's not concentrated enough to make a particle, but it's there and interacting with us.\n\nThe problem is the fields that interact indirectly. We can poke a neutron, but we can't poke the Higgs field, not directly. What we need to do is concentrate enough energy in one place so that it spills over into the Higgs field, enough to make a particle pop into existence, if just for a moment. So we build bigger and more powerful and more efficient particle accelerators, and we spin neutrons to incredible speeds, and in opposite directions, so when we smash them together, we concentrate their energy into one place, and the annihilation from the collision spills that energy out across the fields, and all sorts of particles pop into existence momentarily, until the energy dissipates.\n\nThe detectors in these particle accelerators are multiple stories tall, and completely surround the collision sites. Typically they're made of plates or tiles, stacked in layer after layer. Scintillation plastic is some material that when it absorbs energy from particles passing through it, it gives off light. I can't imagine the millions of tiles they use, each with a fiber optic wire going to it's own receiver, in racks and racks of receivers, detecting a few photons that are emitted from the plastic. Absolutely monumental amounts of data come from these sensors, tracking high energy particles whizzing through the layers, capturing the event, the trajectory, the speed. How these particles move, and how they decay into other particles, tells us a lot about what they were and how they work.\n\nSo much of this was measured experimentally and deduced over centuries of scientific progress, but especially so in the last couple hundred years.\n\nAnd in time we will build these machines ever bigger. The next generation of accelerators, though, should be more efficient. Currently we use radio waves to provide the push, the next ones will use plasma, which conducts electricity and has an electromagnetic field, to provide the push. Instead of a channel made out of metal, it'll be a channel carved out of the plasma with a laser pulse. The particles will travel in the wake of that plow, and those tight tolerances will make the whole system way more powerful and efficient. The most powerful particle accelerator is said to be a wake field accelerator currently sitting on some lab bench somewhere. We'll use existing accelerators to get particles up to speed, and then blast them through a wake field at the end for that final mega push into it's collision target. Eventually we'll build accelerators out in space when it can't be done on Earth anymore. And beyond that, we'll have to come up with some new physics.\n\nThe pursuit of knowledge is a pure one. There's no reason to do it other than to know, but the fallout from that knowledge has advanced our civilization. The internet was invented in order to facilitate the planning, organization, construction, and sharing of physics experiments and knowledge. The knowledge gleaned from these experiments have given us nuclear energy, nuclear medicine - MRI, for example, and ever better products and processes. We know more about photosynthesis and weather and batteries and god knows what else than we've ever would have otherwise. The willful engineering of a designed solution to the problems we face come out of the insights we glean from experimentation."
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c8sr9v | what are the fundamental differences between face lotion, body lotion, foot cream, daily moisturizer, night cream, etc.?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c8sr9v/eli5_what_are_the_fundamental_differences_between/ | {
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"Worked as a cosmetics chemist for 2 years after school. It varies depending on the function of the lotion/cream. If its a general moisturizer very little difference, maybe a slightly different ratio for the thickener to decrease tackiness for something facial rather than something advertised for the body. However if it's something like an acne cream or sunscreen the \"active ingredient\" would have a significantly different ratio. For example a common active in acme creams is salicylic acid. Ones targeted for the body might have 10-25% more of the acid than facial ones.",
"There's a diference in the texture depending on your skin needs. Your feet needs more thick moisturizer because the skin is very dry and it gets stiff and callosity. \nThe skin in your face is more sensitive and can be better to use a gel texture or a very light one. For me the pH also matters. Even the skin arround your eyes is different.\nNight cream exist to try to add more benefits to the skin but are incompatible with the day (sun, oily, etc).",
"Another cosmetic chemist here: all the products mentioned are moisturizing agents. The difference between lotion and cream is (almost always) only thickness. \nPremium products marketed like the aforementioned face, foot and daily/nightly use products (sometimes) contain more premium ingredients that help with exfoliating, cleaning and moisturizing.\nAnd basic cosmetic chemistry: soaps convert fats/oils into products that will wash away with water. Conditioners contain charged 'untangling' groups that straighten hair on a molecular level.",
"10 years aesthetician specialized in skin care here.\n\nNight cream - usually high in collagen which is a repairing/healing protein. Your skin and body in general both repairs itself at night while you sleep so you get better results from collagen based products.\n\nDay cream - usually focuses more on prevention and protection from environmental factors. It will create a barrier that prevents a good amount of the suns free radicals and pollution from entering your skin.\n\nFace lotion/toner/mist - has 3 different names but generally the same thing, ment to be used for a quick hydration if you dont have time for a proper skin routine or great after a workout.\n\nBody lotion - basically the same as the face lotion unless you meant body cream.\n\nFoot cream - tends to be thicker, like a vaseline texture to penetrate deeper into the skin. Hands and feet are the only place on your body that has 5 layers of skin instead of 4 in the epidermis which is why you dont see pores on your palms or bottom of your feet. That extra layer is a moisture barrier ment to keep water in but also makes it harder for products to go in so its a thick cream.\n\n\nAll of this is great for your skin, but what companys dont tell you is that EXFOLIANTS are the most important. You have a bunch of dead skin blocking the creams from entering.\n\nImagine a brick wall (dead skin), there are cracks in the wall so of course youl get abit of creams to go through and youl feel hydrated. Now imagine getting rid of that brick wall, none of your creams will be wasted for maximum hydration.\n\nAdd on to this if you'd like.",
"Cream for your face is generally lighter weight than cream for your body as the skin on your face is thinner than other areas, itwill often be made with more expensive ingredients which are specifically meant to target the signs of ageing. Night cream will often be a little bit heavier than a day cream and, unlike a day cream it won't have any SPF in it. The thicker consistency is to give your skin more hydration over night and then you cleanse your skin in the morning and apply your lighter day cream with sun protection. By keeping daily face cream relatively light weight it means you're less likely to look greasy in the day time.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nFoot creams will often have particularly strong perfumes, which could irritate the skin on your face or hands, either to obscure smelly feet or for a therapeutic benefit, such as peppermint oil to help soothe aching feet. Hand cream will often have ingredients which are intended to act as a moisture barrier, heavier waxier ingredients, which are intended to act as a barrier since you use your hands for daily tasks such as dishes etc which can strip the natural oils from your skin.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nlotions are usually a more liquid-y texture than creams, so they're very light weight and absorb more quickly with less residue, but creams are thicker and provide a more intense moisturisation. As long as there's no strong perfumes, which might irritate your more sensitive facial skin, you can really use any gentle moisturiser any where, but ones for the face are often formulated with more expensive chemical ingredients specifically aimed at maintaining youthful looking skin (some even contain real gold etc), so it would be prohibitively expensive to moisturise your whole body in face cream.",
"As far as lotion vs cream, both are water based moisturizer with cream containing more of the moisturizing oils than the lotions do, at the cost of being thicker. In fact lotions are pretty pointless as far as protecting your skin unless you apply several times a day, like after you wash your hands.\n\nBeyond that, you have oil based products like vasoline which are great as a skin protectant but are too greasy to be considered a moisturizer by most. There are some products out there that are called creamy oils or emulsions, which are oil based products with enough water mixed in to mimic a creamy, though somewhat tacky, cream. People with eczema use emulsion type moisturizers, as the higher oil content makes it a more effective moisturizer.\n\nAs far as the special categories of moisturizers, night creams are thicker and sometimes have exfoliants, face creams are designed to not clog pores and sometimes have spf protection in them.",
"Well, the skin on our bodies is all sorts of different textures, has different sensitivities to oils depending on the area, and varying absorption rate.\n\n**face lotion: Varying formulations depending on your skin type and desired effect.**\n\nIf you want anti-aging it may have retinol in it, if you want to lessen sunspots and darkened skin you'll go for a brightening formulation. It would be silly to use a face cream all over your body because they're generally $$$ due to the active ingredients. Furthermore, our face is a more delicate ecosystem than the rest of our body and more susceptible to acne. Some of us have oily skin so they go for a gel-based lotion while others have drier skin and thus take a cream based lotion.\n\n**body lotion:**\n\nTypically richer cream but nonetheless people have different tastes in regards to smells, absorbancy, and texture it leaves on the skin. Will often have a soothing ingredient to help with mild excema.\n\n**foot cream:**\n\ntypically rich af to deal with that ultra dry and calloused skin and the daily beating our feet take. Will also sometimes have mint oil in it. It's refreshing but would be inappropriate in a face cream as it would irritate the eyes. Would be appropriate to use on knees an elbows as well as they're typically much drier.\n\n**Daily moisturizer VS night cream:**\n\nLighter to accommodate for oil build up that happens from being active through the day, often has spf, formulated to be a good base for makeup. Also typically dry-down faster so you can go about your day without looking shiny af.\n\nVS\n\noften richer, has more active ingredients for overnight repair, sometimes has ingredients that make the skin more photosensitive so are therefore better kept out of the sun.",
"Been working in spas for over a decade: type of ingredients. \n\nIn most \"professional\" lines facial moisturizers will have less fragrances, oils and other filler ingredients (added to make product spread further and keep costs lower in body lotions) because those ingredients tend to be irritants and comedogenic (means they clog pores, that's why you often see \"non-comedogenic\" on the labels for spf lotions, facial moisturizers and makeup). Face skin tends to be more sensitive so reactions to those common additives and fillers are more common and more noticeable.\n\nHand creams (at least good ones) tend to be richer in thick non-oil moisturizing ingredients (hydrates but doesnt make your hands greasy) with more fragrance.\n\nFoot creams are similar to hand creams (thicker in consistency with more fragrance) but more oils because your foot skin is usually much thicker. Peppermint and lemon oils are popular for the \"cooling\" and \"refreshing\" effect.\n\n\"Daily moisturizer\" just means \"should be ok to use every day\" as opposed to a \"treatment lotion\" that has ingredients that shouldn't necessarily be used every day without adverse effects. The easiest example is a lotion with exfoliating acids or an acne spot treatment lotion (can cause redness and dryness if used all over the face and/or every day). Also a good marketing tool to remind you to use every day (read: use more of and buy sooner, but if you like it you do you).\n\nNight cream \"should\" be a lotion with more concentrated active ingredients that you may not want to use during the day - for example if your skin is very dry but you need/want to wear makeup to work then you would use your night cream to boost that moisture so you dont have to worry about the extra oils in it causing your makeup to basically melt off (plus its better to use while your skin can breath anyway). Some less reputable brands just say \"night cream\" and \"day cream\" to get you to buy two products instead of one.\n\nTo the person in the comments who asked about conditions versus \"deep\" conditioners - IN THEORY the difference should be that the deep conditioners have more concentrated ingredients and a thicker consistency so that it doesnt rinse off as easily and isnt as water activated (stays on longer to distribute said ingredients on the hair follicle/scalp). Often with cheaper brands it's just slightly less water and more thick filler ingredients and twice the cost.",
"Lotions are quicker like splashing water on your skin. Creams are more like slow absorbing water. Specifically designed lotions are really the same with different perfumes.",
"[Lotion's water based. You apply it liberally all over your body, but cream is oil based. You gotta be careful with cream: a little dab'll do ya.](_URL_0_)",
"Usually facial lotions will be noncomedogenic. This means they are specifically formulated to not block pores. Doesn’t mean they won’t though, but they are less likely to increase chance of acne breakout or singular pimples.",
"The label...\n\nTBH this is up to the manufacturer.\n\nHowever some manufacturers might make facial products less intense. For instance a foot balm might have say mint oil or something, you don't really want that in your eyes. \n\nBut realistically, what makes them different if they are at all, is what the manufacturer states.",
"Face lotion can get in your eyes without making you go blind.\n\nNight creams generally react badly with the sun, or make your skin more susceptible to UV damage.",
"Generally, the amount of fat or oil. A lotion is the least greasy (least amount of lipid content, most amount of water). So this can be used in many circumstances but will rub off fairly easily so may need to be applied multiple times. A cream has more lipid content therefore more staying power and an ointment has the most lipid out of the three. Ointments are good if you need them to stay in a certain area and not run off quickly. The higher fat content also helps absorption. The downside is users tend to dislike the greasiness. In terms of other ingredients: cosmetics will contain various vitamins and preservatives. Pharmaceuticals contain preservatives, active ingredients such as antibiotics and steroids. There is likely stabilising agents and various other ingredients to help with longevity of the product and to improve uptake of the active ingredients. Source: I'm a pharmacist.",
"Guys, answers from chemists or which are science-based are better than the answers given by estheticians in this thread.\n\nJust a few takes:\n\n- Retinol is almost useless, it's irritating, in very low concentration in most product (and 90% of the time it's not retinol but a variant). Retinol needs to be transformed by your skin to work. Prescription retinoic acid is what will work best, don't spend your money on retinol.\n\n- \"Comedogenic\": this term is whack and is not regulated. Few have tested comedogenicity of ingredients, so take these talks with a grain of salt. However, a few ingredients which are popular for clogging pores: coconut oil, some fatty alcohols.\n\n- Prescription will always surpass whatever cosmetic product you are given (except exfoliants, since they're not prescription but still very efficient)\n\nEDIT: since a nice bloke gave me silver, I'll add more:\n\n- If you cleanse your face at least once a day, you've done 60% of the work to have better skin\n\n- Don't believe this \"natural\" fad, natural doesn't mean much anyway. Stay away from professionals who are in this \"natural\" trend. (Iso)tretinoin is synthetically made and is the best way to treat acne for example. \n\n- Creams with collagen don't do shit. Creams with niacinamide/ascorbic acid (and its variants)/azelaic acid... do. Do your research to know what best active ingredient would work for *your* problem.\n\n- Since an \"esthetician\" talked about \"fillers\"... This doesn't mean shit either. Every ingredient has a purpose. I suppose she was talking about silicones. Silicones give nice texture, spreadability, and are nice occlusives compared to paraffine and they don't \"clog pores\" as much. It's still nice to limit their use though, since there are suspicions that they are not nice to the environment. There are many fine ingredients you can avoid because they're not nice to the environment: palm oil-based and petrol-based ingredients for instance, mica (child slavery), too.\n\n- Don't believe what you read on Google when search an ingredient. Most of the time it's people who say to avoid this or this ingredient when it's perfectly fine, like parabens, phenoxyethanol. Of course, avoid them if you're allergic.",
"As I understand it, the science is that any standard budget cream or lotion can help to moisturise your skin if it's dry. The rest is just marketing BS, basically. You can't look younger or reduce wrinkles, and there's no point spending more that a fiver every couple of years. CMV?",
"Hi, fellow normal human being here for 26 years since the day i was born, fundamental difference between face lotion, body lotion, foot cream, daily moisturizer, night cream etc is nothing. Used all of this products. The only thing these products do is make my skin sticky. Thanks. \n\nWhat happened after i started using these products: skin got sticky\n\nWhat happened after i stopped: skin stopped being sticky.\n\nHow i feel about these things: stop wasting money, eat healthy food and max just use sun screen protection.",
"I'm a 2 years happily married with 2 kids. The differences are mainly the thickness and lubrication aspects of each. Like if I wanted to rub one out in a hurry, say at the toilets at work, I would use a simple face moisturiser as it creates a thin yet highly lubricated surface that dries fast which minimizes clean up. Also it's acoustically discrete incase there is someone in the next cubical. However, if the wife is out with the kids and I have the house to myself, I'm reaching for that factor 69 sun screen. The thick sloppy and resilient layer is best suited for those prolonged sessions where you want to shoot the biggest load possible. It's also great for self penetrative if you are into that because of the thick viscosity, it feels more like somone else is entering you. \n\nTLDR, Its environmental, situational and time dependant.",
"I want to high jack this and ask a related question. \n\nMoisturisers day to not apply to the area surround your eye, which is arguably the area that needs it most. Why shouldn’t moisturiser be applied? \n\nI apply it anyway because, well, I’ve got moisturiser all over my face and the remnants that are left on my fingers from rubbing the rest on seem just enough to do the job. And, you know, I don’t want a baby face with wrinkly ass eyes when I’m older.",
"Skin is hydrated through water, period. Full stop.\n\nEverything else is a medium through which delivery is mediated, which ultimately equals \"marketed\""
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6379du | why does saying or pretending to be confident, happy or relaxed eventually make you feel that way? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6379du/eli5_why_does_saying_or_pretending_to_be/ | {
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"It goes along with the saying “fake it til you make it.” If you tell yourself you're going to act or feel a certain way, eventually it'll happen."
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6p7yi8 | why do people catch a cold being under an ac draft while people living in cold countries don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6p7yi8/eli5_why_do_people_catch_a_cold_being_under_an_ac/ | {
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"The common cold is a virus - you cannot get a cold from being cold. There's the possibility that if you're sitting under a vent that is circulating air around a building that you'd be breathing in germs that someone else had breathed out, but it's by no means a guarantee. You're more likely to catch a cold from a surface like a door handle.",
"Catching a cold isnt a direct consequence of the cold.\nThe cold basicly reduces the filtering power of your nose, making it easier for bacteria to enter your body trough there.\nIn a cold enviorment you also find way less bacteria so this evens out.\n\n\nHowever, in AC draft you weaken your nose, but still have the same amount of bacteria. ",
"also worth pointing out is in the colder times of year you spend more time inside with other people so the germs have more chances to spread."
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1tvap7 | why could we not grasp the concept of an 8 day week? | I want to know why we couldn't create the 8 day week. 5 work days and 3 rest days? I understand this adds days to the year and messes with the timing of seasons and holidays and such and the nature of the roation of our planet, revolution around the sun and all that but this all seems to be based on the religious concept of "God made the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh". Why not continue our 5 day a week work ethic but have an extra weekend day each week?
TL;DR: Why we no have an extra day of rest a week?
EDIT: I currently work 50+ hours a week, and I love my job. I am just wondering how impossible would it be to essentially ADD another day to rest... I'm sure the government wouldn't mind adding another day of work if they could. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tvap7/eli5_why_could_we_not_grasp_the_concept_of_an_8/ | {
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"Sounds great, but the capitalist mode of production demands a high work to rest ratio in order to function. Workers all over the world have fought and died for a more humane workload since the dawn of the industrial revolution."
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5f9u9t | how are 100s to 1000s of surveillance cameras operated by corporations, universities, and the government? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5f9u9t/eli5_how_are_100s_to_1000s_of_surveillance/ | {
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"Usually, hundreds of cameras can be run by one person. Or, hundreds of cameras can be run by ZERO people!\n\nSecurity cameras usually dump their video into some form of automated storage, which retains the past few weeks of content and automatically gets rid of old stuff as new stuff comes in.\n\nIf whatever organization suspects something bad happened (ie evidence of a robbery), they can just copy this data onto some permanent storage and review at their leisure.\n\nThere is no big \"live\" monitoring network with thousands of people actively listening. There doesn't need to be.",
"It all boils down to something simple. Even if you have a thousand cameras, interesting stuff is not happening on all of them at the same time.\n\nYou can do a lot of automated sorting by software before showing footage to an operator.\n\nStart by not showing the cameras where nothing at all is happening (where the image is not changing at all) and concentrate on those where there is actually something going on.\n\nThen, once that is done you can add software that tries to see patterns and things that are not according to the pattern. If a thousand people are walking in the same direction, something is going on with the guy running in the other direction. He might be up to no good and he might have just realised that he forgot his laptop on a public toilet and wants a chance to get it back, and that's why the operator gets his image thrown at them. They get to figure out if he is trouble or if he is just trying to get himself out of having a stern word from his boss.\n\nTeach the system to not care for cars (unless they behave out of pattern) and only look at pedestrians.\n\nOnly look at the part of the screen where no other camera can see.\n\nAnd so on.\n\nTaking this further you can see patterns everywhere and things that stand out in the pattern. This is a multi-million industry where the surveillance authority wants to cut down on manpower that cost money all the time and instead spend a huge chunk of money on software once and instead spend money on more cameras. As a general idea it works pretty well.",
"There are security camera systems designed to monitor large camera systems. In the old days it was fairly complicated to record the output from multiple cameras. Usually involving fairly complex mixing and switch of analog signals.\n\nToday it's incredibly trivial. Large camera installations such at a casino may use cameras that only need Ethernet and will send a stream back to a central server attached to a robust storage system. It's not uncommon for large security systems to have a dedicated SAN, which may get backed up by the corporate tape backup system.",
"Have you ever heard of the [panopticon](_URL_0_)? If not, it's a theoretical prison design where any number of inmates could be observed by a single watchman because the inmates couldn't see the watchman. The idea was inmates would be discouraged from breaking rules or trying to escape, because even though they'd know there is only one watchman, they'd never know if he was watching them or not, so it wasn't worth the risk.\n\nSecurity cameras in places like stores operate on a similar principle. If you're in a store and there's a security camera near you, the chance that someone is watching is watching you and would you see you steal something is low, but it's still possible, and if they *do* see you steal something you're hosed, so it's not worth the risk. \n\ntl;dr In some places security cameras are more of a deterrent than an actual preventative measure."
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4udgxw | what happens when i reply to an email account such as [email protected]? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4udgxw/eli5_what_happens_when_i_reply_to_an_email/ | {
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"The email probably gets thrown away or put somewhere where no human will ever read it. They call it 'donotreply' so that you don't email them there and instead go find an email meant for two way communication. They set their automated systems to go out of that email so that when people get an email from a bot they don't try to talk back to the bot.",
"I don't know if this post is gone or not, but there could be a couple possibilities:\n\n1. The message originated from a server that isn't actually capable of receiving mail. As in, it's probably running Postfix in send-only mode. So, if you try to send a reply, there isn't an MX record (think of it like a record in the phone book. Remember those?) to route your message back to the server and even if there was, the server wouldn't be running software capable of consuming your reply email.\n\n2. The message originated from a non-global distribution group, which isn't capable of receiving mail from outside a domain.\n\nI'm not sure if a five year old would understand that, but those are possible reasons."
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pmo6g | why red bull is bad for your health. or any energy drink for that matter. | Lots of people tell me i'll catch a stroke or something heart related. I figure it to be true since its banned in some places. But what's the deal, for real? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pmo6g/eli5_why_red_bull_is_bad_for_your_health_or_any/ | {
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"It is like drinking a soda with extra stimulant and more vitamins than you need. It has all of the ill effects associated with those things but it isn't as bad as people make it out.",
"Red Bull tends to be banned in bars because of Vodka Redbull mix which results in very hyper very drunk people. Wonderfully life affirming when you're drinking it, not so much the morning after. \n\nAs to the drink itself. It has ingredients that should only be consumed in moderation and which are addictive. The main ones being sugar and caffeine. Unless you're diabetic it's not going to do you any harm consumed in moderation, but since it's addictive some people get through several cans every day and that's where you get problems. ",
"It's because of those energetic ingredients, like caffeine, taurine, guarane etc. Basically, your body is tired, but you pump it up with those ingredients, making it work overtime, overuse its reserves and give it some sugar to keep going. What you get is increased heart rate, feeling all fresh and full of energy, while really you are tired and need to rest. Add alcohol to the mix which will add to this hype, and you start to push the limit. You lose the idea on how really you feel, you overload your heart and other muscles. Drinking it once in a while will not kill you, but doing it constantly will have some bad effects."
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7zhl49 | how do fetuses get rid of waste? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zhl49/eli5_how_do_fetuses_get_rid_of_waste/ | {
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"Through the placenta and the placental chord into the moms systems except for the little bit of bowel matter that becomes the meconium, the first stool usually passed shortly after birth. If the meconium passes while the baby is still in the uterus it can get aspirated by the baby , causing life threatening problems like pneumonia. ",
"The same way they get nutrients. Through the umbilical cord/placenta. Keep in mind they won’t have solid waste while in the womb (feces) because solid waste isn’t generally waste in the metabolic sense, I.e. breakdown products of your body’s daily function (though some blood breakdown products do end up in the feces) but are instead the leftover stuff that your body can’t absorb from your food, plus some water. They do pass anything they’ve swallowed (mucus, amniotic fluid, their own intestinal cells) shortly after birth in what is called the meconium."
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32arww | why liquor bottles need a special pour spout? | Why can't you pour it from the open bottle why do you need that cork with spout? Same with oil and vinegar? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32arww/eli5_why_liquor_bottles_need_a_special_pour_spout/ | {
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"it allows air flow to be consistent so that the liquid doesn't chug. otherwise the air and the liquid would alternate entering and exiting the bottle, creating the chugging. With the cap, this doesn't happen, and pouring is consistent.",
"It's for \"free pour\" counting. My count for an ounce is 4. It makes speed pouring efficient and accurate. Lots of bars, however, won't allow free pouring and make the bartender measure all drinks.",
"Also helps moderate pouring. You don't want a slip of the hand to ruin your drink that called for a shot but you put in 6 ounces accidentally."
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4dj1f0 | why is it so difficult to support crossfire/sli? afr seems like such a simple concept | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dj1f0/eli5_why_is_it_so_difficult_to_support/ | {
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"Various things but predominantly they're discrete cards as much as people like to think of them as linked. For instance, you put something in VRAM on GPU0 it may not be directly accessible to GPU1.\n\nBasically it's hard to keep things synchronized in an optimized fashion for all different applications simultaneously. ",
"Its all basically irrelevant now or will be in the near future as DX12 negates the need for special support"
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32xsb2 | why is "everything but country" such a popular taste in music? nobody says they like "everything but rock". is this just a bias against country, or is it objectively distinct from rock, metal, pop, rap, etc.? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32xsb2/eli5_why_is_everything_but_country_such_a_popular/ | {
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"All those genres are distinctive in their own way, but Country is distinctive in a way that many people don't find appealing, I for one don't like most of it, but some (Beer For My Horses) is great. The social association between country and rednecks/cowboys might be a thing too.",
"Because country music is like Marmite. You either love it or you think it's the worst shit ever invented.",
"I hear \"everything but rap\" as a preference every now and then. It's not unique to country.\n\nCertain genres have a distinct sound to them that carries across the vast majority of their sub-genres and artists. This distinctive sound can lead someone to a snap judgment about a song within the first few seconds of them hearing it, long before they can make a judgment on whether the song is actually good or not.\n\nThink about death metal. There are good death metal bands and bad death metal bands. There are death metal songs that have completely different song structure and musical influences from other death metal songs. But nearly all of them have growled vocals. If you try to play a death metal song for someone, they may hear the growled vocals and immediately say \"sorry, I don't like death metal.\"\n\nIt's the same thing with country. Slide guitars and twangy vocals turn a lot of people away before they even sit down to listen to the songs.",
"I will tell you why I hate country. I do not like the twang. I despise southern accents (which is funny because my parents are from Texas.) I can't take the songs seriously. That also explains why I'm okay with the silly songs - Red Solo Cup, She Thinks my Tractor's Sexy, etc. - but serious songs make me cringe. I don't like most rap either. Again, it's the fun songs I like. Gimme some 80s, classic rock, oldies, or classical music and I'm happy.",
"Because, among other reasons rap and country are more stereotypically about the image and the lifestyle than the music and contain a more spoken word than melodic style that exacerbates the issue.",
"Just as often I hear \"I like everything except country or rap\", which is interesting because if it were a purely racial thing, it's like saying \"I like everything except music that's really really white or really really black.\" and you'd think people with such strong preferences would at least fall on one side or the other.\n\nI think these are just mentioned by people who pretty much just like a mix of generic, familiar pop and rock, and they target Country or Rap specifically because they are the most common distinct crossover genres that end up getting on pop/rock top-40 charts. When you get a little techno or punk in your pop/rock, it's influence is not nearly as noticeable or jarring as twangy guitars or the obligatory rap breakdown. Rap/Country are just \"The things that annoy me most often.\"\n\nIt's really more an issue of perception because these people that like \"Everything but rap or country\" would probably be very confused if you were like \"All right then, let's blast some Polka!\". \n\nI mean really? Literally, EVERYTHING but Rap/Country? So Baroque? Jazz? Post-Folkcore Viking Metal?",
"In my humble opinion its because modern pop country has become one of mankind's most wretched creations. Over done, unoriginal, lacking all soul and meaning, it appeals to dull knuckle dragging vacant minds. I believe any passing alien species who heard it would be within their right to end all human life on this planet on the grounds that we not only created it but allowed and even nurtured its existence. \n\n_URL_0_",
"You also hear \"everything but rap\" quite often.\n\nWhat do rap & country have in common? They're the music of marginalized young men. Rap is urban blacks, country is ~~urban~~rural whites, but they both romanticize the conditions they portray. The music focuses on how 'authentic' the musician is & listening to the music ties the listener to the culture.\n\nRejecting country is like saying \"I'm not white trash\".",
"I'm one of these people, so allow me to give my point of view.\n\nThe subject matter is sickening, songs are generally glorifying doing the trashiest things possible. Half of them are about getting drunk on cheap alcohol, the rest are about cheating on your spouse, fighting, being broke, being dumped, or being run of the mill white trash. \n\nNo other genre glorifies being pathetic, let alone, encourages it.",
"Partly because Country music has strong regional associations. If you didn't grow up in a place where you were exposed to a lot of it, you probably won't develop a taste for it.\n\nHowever, the more important reason is that people who describe their preferences as \"everything but country\" are typically so musically ignorant that Country is the only genre that they're *aware* of that they don't happen to like. These people think Country, Rap, Rock, Indie and EDM are the totality of the musical world. Ask them their opinion on major subgenres, like ambient music, or metal, or prog rock, or neoclassical, or whatever.",
"I think it's typically taken to mean \"everything but popular country\", which I would extend to \"everything but popular music in general\".\n\nI am not a big hip-hop guy, but have certainly heard acts that I like quite a bit. I can't say any rap on the radio fits that bill though.\n\nI love metal. But everything on \"hard rock\" radio is just godawful. \n\nIt's not some sort of hipster-boner for obscurism, either. It's just that a lot of things on the radio sound like most other things on the radio, so... it's boring.",
"Because country is the only genre whose worst music is the only music that gets popular exposure. The stuff they play on the radio is contrived and monolithic. This latter point is true about pop too, but people like its because it's catchy and they can dance to it, so it doesn't matter as much.\n\nIn reality country is a broad and diverse genre, but since most people don't realize this, they're comparing the worst of country to what's at least average for other genres.\n\nEdit: typo",
"Because most people don't want to listen to a person whining about losing their dog, about how their truck broke down and how much they love beer, Jesus and America.",
"I love country. What I do hate is Everything I hear on r & b stations, \"alternative\" stations. Oldies, classic rock, KUT, classic rap and most country is alright",
"For me personally I enjoy music with a lot of passion. It's not that country music doesn't have passion, it's a type of passion I can't quite comprehend. It's unrelatedable to me so I don't feel the passion of it. It all sounds like the same low tone, slow to mid pace songs. Some stands out I like Johnny Cash. I really enjoy rock, alternative, blues, grunge, ska, metal, rap. I dislike country as a whole but I assume that I'm not really in touch with whatever emotion or situation they are trying to convey. ",
"I suspect it's largely due to social position and classism. The same with rap.",
"I've heard that too. I'm someone who has a wide taste of music. Put my music on shuffle and you could go from Metallica to Ray Charles to Skrillex. I think a lot of \"Everything but x\" is popular because people can't relate to it. I admit I don't listen to country that much because it *seems* like its always about: breakups, trucks, and drinking. But I have noticed I don't mind upbeat songs as much - some are even catchy. Personally I'm willing to give a genre a chance rather than just shutting it out altogether. ",
"Here in Holland the most common answer is 'everything but (heavy)Metal/screaming'...",
"I think modern hip hop can be classified as awful as well. No one popular tells universal stories. They just talk about Lambos, mansions, and bling. It's no longer a celebration of life but rather an ego driven spiel about how much they have. It isn't about how they got there, it's about what I have now that I'm here. It's sad and pathetic. ",
"Because country music is the most homogenous, mainstream, and unchanging genre of popular music in America. This is not just an opinion, look at the sheet music. It does suck (mostly).",
"The thing that truly cemented my hatred of country music was \"I Drive Your Truck.\"\n\nIt's about the father of a dead soldier who drives around in his pickup truck. At first I thought it was just standard issue war death porn, but they through in a line about a \"dirty Braves cap on the dash.\" \n\nThe song was inspired by an NPR piece about Jared C. Monti, who posthumously awarded the medal of honor. Jared C. Monti was from Raynham Massachusetts. There is a 0% chance that he had a fucking Braves hat on his dash.\n\nBut country music isn't prepared to admit that New Englanders are Americans too, so they moved the story down south. I have no patience for the people who pretend that the only rural southerners are true Americans. ",
"I used to be in this boat too, but I like it a lot now. The new stuff, the stuff that sounds the same, all of it. This transition happened a year ago when I was driving to Denver in the middle of the night in my truck. I was working construction, and still am, and for the first time I could really relate to the words and sentiments. Sentiments of hardwork, family and pride in doing a good job or doing the right thing; yeah these pop out more to me than other stereotypical themes. \n\nMaybe, like /u/Br0metheus states, it's a regional thing. As for the scientific explanation, hopefully someone else can give a good response which captures social nuance and musical theory, for me I just never related to it when I was fascinated by techno as a teen.",
"Let me tell you about me. I'm a young adult living in the city, raised in the country. The difference is bigger than music. \n\nGrowing up all I listened to was country music. this was not my choice. the only music my parents listens to was country music. I don't know when I listened to my first non country song- I'm sure that I heard don't stop believing or eye of the Tiger or something in a Disney movie but the first song I remember turning on the radio and listening to with my friends was Boulevard of broken dreams by Green Day. it quickly became my favorite song. within about a year I was obsessed with Linkin Park and Green Day. Metallica was next followed by Dream Theater. in my early teens, country music just wasn't cool. Linkin Park introduced me to rap and Greenday introduced me into all sorts of rock, and I found a few songs in just about every genre that I like, and every song I found made me dislike country a little bit more. Maybe it was a rebellion thing. now that I'm older I find that I enjoy some country music. mostly this is the older stuff I would almost call folk music or southern rock. country music today seems to have become something I like to call self aware - they talk about how country they are, and sing about things exclusive to rural life. While a metalhead can appreciate a protest rap song, and hip hop heads are constantly sampling EDM, country seems to have chosen to isolate themselves (occasionally going pop). ",
"It's because most people vastly underestimate how many genres of music there are.\n\nMost people only know a few of the huge genres, and think that means they like all music. The truth is most people (even music lovers) only enjoy a very small fraction of music, at least enough to seek it out. People just say country because they are unaware of all the other genres they don't like.\n\nAlso country is a horrifying bastardization of folk so... that too.",
"I used to say that. \"Everything but country.\" Then rap came along. Then hip-hop. I'm not a fan of those, either. Then I started coming across more and more country songs that I actually liked.\n\nBack when I said that, though, what I was talking about was all the songs that are just soooooooo \"unhappy\". The ones that are mocked with the joke, \"what do you get when you play a country song backwards? ... You get your house back, your dog back, your wife back ...\" Those are the ones I can't stand. \"I lost everything, and life sucks.\"\n\nI DO like fun, upbeat country. Johnny Cash's \"One Piece at a Time\" is a classic. I also like his version of \"The Highwayman\" ... better than the original, actually.\n\nI've also heard songs where I liked the music, but then they started up with those whiny \"life sucks\" lyrics, and I've thought, \"why'd you have to ruin a perfectly good song?\"\n\nSide note: I have Martina McBride's Christmas album, and it's superb.",
"As a cashier at a small resale shop that plays a country radio station all day, I have had the chance to cultivate my distaste for the genre. Usually, the lyrics are quite mind-numbing... I find myself often rolling my eyes or sighing in disgust. I live in Texas, so the southern drawl doesn't bother me as much as the content of the songs. You just can't always sing about whiskey... ",
"Come to Canada where every girl and her dog suddenly thinks they are country. The entire age group of 17-25 year olds honestly believe they are cut out to have their arm elbow deep in a cows ass and drive a big Ford truck. They all live in cities, all listen to strictly pop country, and have never even been tp a farm. It's god damned irritating how it isn't even an interest much less a fashion choice to them now.",
"The thing is, most people who hate country have never heard it, or wouldn't necessarily know it if they did. For example, my sister is a huge, long-term fan of Taylor Swift, but allegedly hates country. She even denies that she is country. Despite her CMA wins.\n\nI had an ex that hated country, too, but loved Shania Twain, Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash.\n\nPeople just don't understand that just because you might hate Willie Nelson or, say, Eminem, that it doesn't mean that you hate the entire genre. I can't stand the post-2000 era of rappers for the most part, but it doesn't mean I hate rap. It just means that I don't like people rapping about pointless shit.\n\nSo, yeah... ignorance is 99% of the problem.",
"It use to be \"everything except rap and country\". I guess it depends on who you speak to.",
"Modern popular country is basically a copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy of \"Friends In Low Places\". It hasn't evolved in any meaningful way in over a quarter of a century. This is evidenced by the fact that old Garth Brooks songs still fit seamlessly in modern country radio rotations, and the only thing that betrays their age is the utterly sterile production and greasy mastering of newer cuts. It's more of a fossilized radio format like \"classic rock\" than a real genre, except at least classic rock radio doesn't pretend that it has anything new for you.\n\nPretty much anyone who flirts with originality gets labeled a \"crossover\" success and shuffled off to the (comparatively) greener pastures of modern pop. Taylor Swift and Shania Twain are the two most obvious examples, but even the inventor of the genre, Garth Brooks, had to adopt a hokey alter-ego when he wanted to crawl out from beneath the execrable demon monolith he birthed all those years ago. \n\nSimilarly, when even the shallow waters of modern rock prove too competitive and creatively demanding for today's songwriters, they beach themselves on the muck-strewn shores of country radio, where there is no shame in cranking out album after platinum selling album of homogeneous slop (think Hootie, the Staind guy, Kid Rock) and no pressure to pretend you're doing otherwise. It's an immaculately tended graveyard for completely unremarkable careers.\n\nI won't get into a discussion about \"real\" country, which can include everyone from country & western singers like Gene Autry to outlaw country like Johnny Cash. That stuff is probably better categorized as singer/songwriter or rock 'n' roll (or even indie rock if you count alt-country as country, which you shouldn't). To the modern listener, \"country\" has pretty unbreakable connotations with glassy-eyed mouth-breathers hooting vacuously over Nutraloaf production about trucks and church and girls in Daisy Dukes.\n\ntl;dr: people hate it because it can't be defended without admitting that you have shitty taste.",
"I find country voices annoying and they all have that country accent which I dislike ",
"I'll give you an answer that a lot of people won't like. It's because they want to feel superior. Country seems like the lowest of the low in terms of musical quality to many people (which in some ways it is currently), and it's associated with a subculture which is viewed negatively by most people. So by saying that they don't like country, they get to distance themselves from the rednecks and feel like they automatically have better taste in music. Country and rap are the most common genes like this because they are the most widespread and negatively viewed stereotypes (thugs/gangsters and rednecks).\n\nAdditionally, the accents are a big turn off for many people which span most of the genre. There are plenty of exaggerated accents which are obnoxious and ruin otherwise decent songs even for me (live in Georgia, have my whole life).\n\nFinally, it is the most stale. It's older than any other currently popular genre (i.e. rock, electronic, rap/hip-hop, etc.), and there is less variation in terms of what gets radio play, so to your average listener, most country they hear will sound the same.\n\nAnyone who uses song structure, bad lyrics, etc. as a reason are full of shit, because those things are the same for most catchy/popular music regardless of genre.",
"Everything but rap and country. \n\nI like yodeling, classic rock, techno, tuvan throat singing, pop, classical, and on and on. I mean that like I enjoy some of it and will give it a chance.\n\nRap. Is. Not. Music. All the hoodrat shit, one pitch or two, near rhymes, different meter and cadence... It's more like crappy poetry with a beat behind it. Instant station change.\n\nCountry is musical and lively and makes a little sense, but to be country you have to sing like a hillbilly, have back up posessed harmonica, and twangy ass guitar. I'm from Indiana and I guess I'm a minority, but unless it's about something ridiculous I feel like every second of country I hear drops my IQ 2 points. Country seems to be pitched to a narrow audience demographic and if it were to disappear I wouldn't cry a single tear about it. That being said, I have found one or two songs I like, but as soon as I can tell it's country I'm gonna change the station. I was subjected to that junk my whole childhood and I'm never ever going back. \n\nAlso everybody who answered this question honestly can have my upvote. Apparently a lot of country lovers in the audience.",
"\"Everything but rap\" is an even more common statement. \"Everything but heavy metal\" is also a common one (and often includes all off-shoot styles). \n\nEveryone has preferences and it is generally easier to communicate what you dislike than the various degrees of tolerate, do not have an opinion, like, and love. ",
"Country is heavily reliant on tradition. A hundred years ago this music may have been new and interesting, but Hank Williams III tries really hard to sound like Hank Williams Jr. who tried really hard to sound like Hank Williams Sr., etc. There isn't much variation in tempo, chords, or instrumentation. There's also the occasional yodeling which sounds like voice-cracking which is frowned upon in most other genres. There's a cultural aspect too: people who are proud to be uneducated, often racist. Other genres tend to be more inclusive. There are exceptions, of course.",
"I think when most people say they don't like country, they are talking about what they hear on your usual \"top 10\" country radio station, which is often not the best sampling of what country music is.\n\nHonestly, if I only had to judge by what gets played on the radio, I probably wouldn't like most genres of music.\n\n",
"Musical taste is a way of signifying which groups you belong to an what your class and values are (whether we mean to or not). People typically try to distance themselves from music perceived as lower-class or belonging to groups they don't respect. Metal, rap, country, music that lower-middle class women like, music that teenage girls like, etc. Weirdly, most people don't actually like classical music, but nobody bothers to say it. \n\nSome people are saying that it's because modern country sucks, but people have been distancing themselves from country for decades. And these same people who dislike modern country often enjoy Matchbox 20, which sounds exactly like modern country. \n\nIt's usually attempt to define yourself and your taste, and not a totally accurate representation of your taste. ",
"When I was young, most people my age said \"anything but opera\". I even did that myself.\n\nI guess the difference is that we were exposed to opera from our parents, rap from our friends. I had no idea what country was.\n\nBTW, I actually like opera-music now, as long as nobody sings. I can tolerate the singing, if they are good. It's the weird voices. It's the same with Bee Gees and boy bands."
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2p5f0b | how does reddit prevent spam so well? | I've only been using reddit for about a year now, but I can't recall once seeing on of those "I make x amount a month at home! Click here!" type posts. I know that reddit has spam filters that help with this, but so do many other sites that still get filled with spam. What makes them so different? And why don't other companies (like youtube, facebook, etc) use the same technologies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p5f0b/eli5how_does_reddit_prevent_spam_so_well/ | {
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"They dont advertise as much as facebook and other sites. Pretty sure it might have to do with the amount of moderators and the simple coding of the site itself.",
"Because there are literally so may reposts that there is no room left for spam "
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2s7s4l | why is it that when something surprising happens, our eyes widen? | I dropped an egg last night and I noticed my itty bitty little asian eyes open just a bit wider...What causes this? are my eyes opening to analyse the situation better or what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s7s4l/eli5why_is_it_that_when_something_surprising/ | {
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"You've got the right idea. Your eyes are trying to take in as much information as possible in order to assess the legitimacy of threat. So your eye lids spread wider... but also your pupils will widen to take in more information and you stop focusing on anything specific for that moment so that any movements will be more obvious."
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5wsofv | what's the benefit of providing education credits and free choice of education for underprivileged children? | I have a hard time understanding how this helps those in need. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wsofv/eli5_whats_the_benefit_of_providing_education/ | {
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"It doesn't. Betsy Devoss is full of it. She's unqualified and frankly unhinged. Just yesterday, she put out a press release claiming that racial segregation gave black children \"more choice\".",
"It's about how we fund schools. We fund schools with property tax, so people in poor neighborhoods get underfunded schools. In theory, if you allow free choice and education credits, underprivileged children can go to better funded schools. It's one proposed/attempted solution to the problem of poor people being relegated to shitty schools.",
"Let's assume that the issue of \"underprivilege\" you're addressing is that the public school the kid would normally go to is really crappy. \n\nThe idea of these programs is to them afford the cost of sending their kids to a private school. They choose a private school that is not crappy, send there kids there instead of the crappy public school, and this helps the kid go to college/get a good job/stay out of trouble, etc.\n\nOf course, this relies on there *being* an available private school that is a better option. Not always the case. It also fails to address transportation and a variety of other factors that may prevent poor people from taking advantage of the better private schools. And it takes money that could be used to improve the crappy public school for everybody, and gives it to an outside institution that only benefits a few people.\nNow, it does burden the crappy public school with one less child to educate so it's not totally ruining the budget. But it can complicate or worsen money issues for public schools as well as make them a lower priority, because it is assumed there are alternatives people can simply use if the public schools are too bad... whether or not that's true. "
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etzqh5 | do presidents, governors and other elected officials get any training after they win an election? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/etzqh5/eli5_do_presidents_governors_and_other_elected/ | {
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"They *should* have a transition team that helps pass down information and lessons learned (tips and strategies) to the new person's staff, since generally a newly elected representative at that level is going to want to appoint new advisors, department heads, etc.\n\nThey also get briefings from different organizations and agencies to get a better idea of what their existing capabilities are for everything from education to homeland security. Though there was an article a while back about how some agencies' briefings were just impossible for one human to digest in the amount of time they were trying to brief (IIRC it was the NSA).",
"This is what 'the Deep State' really is. Another name is \"institutional memory.\" People who work for Dept of State or Defense as 'Under Secretaries' stay on administration after administration.\n\nThe CIA and FBI brief the winning candidate before he takes office.",
"Members of Congress have an [orientation](_URL_0_) session for a few days that covers stuff like how to hire staff, office budgeting, harassment policies, and other nuts and bolts.",
"Candidates for chief executive offices typically run on a set of issues. Generally, they are not aware of the full scope of the duties that they will be responsible for once sworn into office.\n\nIn my experience with state (multiple governors) and local (hundreds of county and city mayors) politicians, the level of understanding of the scope of duties pre- and post-election varies by office holder.\n\nKnowing that some gaps of knowledge will exist for any new office holder, the current government can try to offer briefings for candidates to make them aware of the various duties each may require from the chief executive or his department heads.\n\nFor example, most county mayors that I've interacted with had no idea before winning the election how emergency responses worked. When I was with emergency management for the state, we used to very quickly try to inform new mayors of relevant state laws and their new responsibilities for when a disaster happens in their jurisdiction. It's definitely a when, not an if, in my experience.\n \nI've heard directly from multiple governors, as their terms ended after four or eight years, that they didn't really understand the full scope of all the activities that state government was doing when they took office, but had grown to appreciate how much was being done by the time they left the office.\n\nThe good chief executives do their research during their run and participate in the training from their 'critical' departments, then try to choose cabinets members or department heads with appropriate expertise to manage those departments.",
"As a city council member I had a 8-hour elected official seminar from the State Municipal League, a seminar about ethics and a general meeting with the city lawyer. \n\nThere’s always more to learn but there is a lot of on-the-job training."
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ngyo0 | how the graphics card works, and how the clock frequency and the video ram come into play to how good it is | Like, the only way I'd know whether or not a GPU is good would be if someone did a benchmark on it, and even then I'd need for it to have a comparison. For instance, when I was searching for a Laptop, I wanted a PC with a nice GPU, and when I found one, I easily found a benchmark for it
[I mean a comparison like this](_URL_0_), see how it shows the FPS it'd have for each of the higher end games? Other than that, I have no idea. When trying to look up GPUs for a Desktop, I'm SOL. How does the Clock Frequency come into play, and which is more important, more Video RAM or higher clock frequency? I have no idea HOW I can make a decision off of it except for comparing specs, but sometimes the one with a slower clock speed is better, because it's newer generation, and that kind of confuses me *Or so someone told me*
Also, would it be worth it to upgrade from 1GB Radeon 6770M to 2GB Radeo 6770M? Would that increase performance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ngyo0/eli5_how_the_graphics_card_works_and_how_the/ | {
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"I haven't researched hardware specifics in a long time, but I can tell you what I know from the last time I built a gaming computer. Also, try asking this over at /r/buildapc as well, you may get more informed answers there.\n\nA GPU is a part geared towards doing graphics calculations only. It is composed of essentially the same things as you would find attached to a motherboard already. That is, it has its own processor and its own memory which are arguably the two most important parts of a computer. Doing graphics calculations is a very intensive process, so for high end gaming it is necessary to have what is essentially a separate computer doing all of these calculations. \n\nClock speed is a measure of how many calculations per second the processor can perform. This is important for speed, but it is not everything for a few reasons. Firstly, the drivers that guide the appropriate game code to the right processor (either CPU or GPU) could be written poorly and have an effect on how well the GPU works. Next, the amount of memory the GPU has is important because it has to hold all of these complex calculations somewhere in real time. Your GPU is spending all of its time calculating where every vertex of a player model or the landscape is located on a 3D graph, which is seriously hard work. Then it has to calculate the locations of those vertices for the next frame as well.\n\nHow many vertices are in the average player model? Well, for most modern games its somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000. Thats a lot of numbers to keep in memory for a single player model! If you're playing a game like Resistance or Gears of War you may have upwards of 30 models on the screen at any given time, plus landscape features, plus particle effects so you can see the number of calculations growing exponentially for each individual frame that the GPU will render.\n\nA higher clock speed means that the GPU will be able to calculate these numbers much faster, but they have to be held somewhere before they can be served up to the screen. This is where RAM comes in, as it holds some of the information that the GPU has already calculated so it can put it right on the screen with no delay. The more RAM a card has, the more frames of action it can hold to serve to you quickly.\n\nBenchmarks are really the best way of determining what card is better than another. Different processor architectures do things a little bit differently and can be more effective at some types of operations than others. Also, different types of RAM are faster than others so there is consideration to be made there. In ages gone by there was only single-word SDRAM which was slow compared to todays DDR SDRAM as it could only send one \"word\" of information at a time. The first DDR RAM could send 2 \"words\" at a time, DDR2 can send 4 \"words\" so things have gotten much better there in terms of speed. Since the RAM is able to send move more information around now it is capable of keeping up with the clock speeds of the GPU and doesn't have to hang on to as much information for long periods of time (in terms of the way the computer is working, its still all in the blink of an eye to us).\n\nThere are many things that affect the performance of a GPU, but generally increasing anything will make it better by a little bit. Increasing EVERYTHING will make it better by a lot. Upgrading to the 2GB Radeon 6770M will increase your performance, but only your wallet can decide if the performance upgrade is worth it. The additional GB of RAM will be noticeable in your benchmarks where you look at FPS, but also remember that the human eye is limited in its own power. If your FPS is above 32 - 36, you're already getting more frames every second than your eye can process and you won't see any jitters or jumpy movement unless its latency related on multiplayer. It is certainly fun to try and crank every little bit that you can out of your hardware, I remember trying to get Quake 3 to pass the 200 FPS range a few years ago just for fun. However, you don't need nearly that much to fully appreciate a game.\n\nSorry if I've rambled a bit, its late for me. Good luck in your quest!",
"A graphics card is similar to a miniature computer, containing it's own CPU(GPU), RAM(VRAM) and input/output (connections to other parts). However these parts are all specially designed to process Graphics calculations and are built slightly differently. \n\nAs part of a larger computer the CPU passes any graphics related tasks to the graphics card because it's better at it and so the CPU can focus on other things.\n\nThe Clock speed and RAM capacity in a graphics card also mean similar things as those of a whole computer, increasing the speed of processing and amount of available memory for textures. But in my personal experiences benchmarks are more reliable an indicator due to the stagger number of other factors on performance in modern games.",
"I haven't researched hardware specifics in a long time, but I can tell you what I know from the last time I built a gaming computer. Also, try asking this over at /r/buildapc as well, you may get more informed answers there.\n\nA GPU is a part geared towards doing graphics calculations only. It is composed of essentially the same things as you would find attached to a motherboard already. That is, it has its own processor and its own memory which are arguably the two most important parts of a computer. Doing graphics calculations is a very intensive process, so for high end gaming it is necessary to have what is essentially a separate computer doing all of these calculations. \n\nClock speed is a measure of how many calculations per second the processor can perform. This is important for speed, but it is not everything for a few reasons. Firstly, the drivers that guide the appropriate game code to the right processor (either CPU or GPU) could be written poorly and have an effect on how well the GPU works. Next, the amount of memory the GPU has is important because it has to hold all of these complex calculations somewhere in real time. Your GPU is spending all of its time calculating where every vertex of a player model or the landscape is located on a 3D graph, which is seriously hard work. Then it has to calculate the locations of those vertices for the next frame as well.\n\nHow many vertices are in the average player model? Well, for most modern games its somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000. Thats a lot of numbers to keep in memory for a single player model! If you're playing a game like Resistance or Gears of War you may have upwards of 30 models on the screen at any given time, plus landscape features, plus particle effects so you can see the number of calculations growing exponentially for each individual frame that the GPU will render.\n\nA higher clock speed means that the GPU will be able to calculate these numbers much faster, but they have to be held somewhere before they can be served up to the screen. This is where RAM comes in, as it holds some of the information that the GPU has already calculated so it can put it right on the screen with no delay. The more RAM a card has, the more frames of action it can hold to serve to you quickly.\n\nBenchmarks are really the best way of determining what card is better than another. Different processor architectures do things a little bit differently and can be more effective at some types of operations than others. Also, different types of RAM are faster than others so there is consideration to be made there. In ages gone by there was only single-word SDRAM which was slow compared to todays DDR SDRAM as it could only send one \"word\" of information at a time. The first DDR RAM could send 2 \"words\" at a time, DDR2 can send 4 \"words\" so things have gotten much better there in terms of speed. Since the RAM is able to send move more information around now it is capable of keeping up with the clock speeds of the GPU and doesn't have to hang on to as much information for long periods of time (in terms of the way the computer is working, its still all in the blink of an eye to us).\n\nThere are many things that affect the performance of a GPU, but generally increasing anything will make it better by a little bit. Increasing EVERYTHING will make it better by a lot. Upgrading to the 2GB Radeon 6770M will increase your performance, but only your wallet can decide if the performance upgrade is worth it. The additional GB of RAM will be noticeable in your benchmarks where you look at FPS, but also remember that the human eye is limited in its own power. If your FPS is above 32 - 36, you're already getting more frames every second than your eye can process and you won't see any jitters or jumpy movement unless its latency related on multiplayer. It is certainly fun to try and crank every little bit that you can out of your hardware, I remember trying to get Quake 3 to pass the 200 FPS range a few years ago just for fun. However, you don't need nearly that much to fully appreciate a game.\n\nSorry if I've rambled a bit, its late for me. Good luck in your quest!",
"A graphics card is similar to a miniature computer, containing it's own CPU(GPU), RAM(VRAM) and input/output (connections to other parts). However these parts are all specially designed to process Graphics calculations and are built slightly differently. \n\nAs part of a larger computer the CPU passes any graphics related tasks to the graphics card because it's better at it and so the CPU can focus on other things.\n\nThe Clock speed and RAM capacity in a graphics card also mean similar things as those of a whole computer, increasing the speed of processing and amount of available memory for textures. But in my personal experiences benchmarks are more reliable an indicator due to the stagger number of other factors on performance in modern games."
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4rurv1 | how can an officer prove there was intent to break the law when giving a ticket? | Could one reasonably fight something like a speeding ticket with the argument "I wasn't aware I was speeding." or "I wasn't aware what the speed limit was." How would you prove there was an intention to break the law in that instance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rurv1/eli5_how_can_an_officer_prove_there_was_intent_to/ | {
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"Ignorance of the law or of the situation does not absolve responsibility. Nor does intent.",
"Some laws, like murder, require intent to be proven in a court of law. \n\nOther laws, like speed limits, do not require intent, only proof that the infraction occurred.\n\nThese requirements are generally established in the law itself at the time of writing, and can vary from state to state. Speeding might require intent in my state, but not in yours.",
"Cop here:\n\nIn order to charge someone with a crime (or infraction), a police officer only needs *probable cause*.\n\nThis basically means the officer needs to reasonably belive a crime was probably committed by the suspect.\n\nThe standard is much lower than \"Beyond a Reasonable Doubt\" that is needed to convict someone.\n\nIf a police officer clocks you at 65mph in a 50mph zone- He has reasonable suspicion to pull you over, and probable cause to write you a ticket.\n\nThe *Court* then decides if you are actually guilty. You can argue you didn't know you were speeding, but as others have said- intent isn't necessary to prove in certain crimes.",
"Intention to break the law has no bearing at all on many laws. Intent is only required for very specific laws and in some cases lack of intent just means the charge is different, not that you are innocent (ie murder vs manslaughter).\n\nGenerally speaking ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. In the case you've described cities/countries specifically post signs at regular intervals of what the speed limit is in order to eliminate the defense that you weren't aware of what the speed limit was.\n\nIf you weren't aware it's because you weren't paying attention and not paying attention isn't a defense.\n",
"Hi, lawyer here. I'm going to change your traffic ticket example because traffic infractions don't require intent or any mental state. Let's say you were accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy some soup. You could argue that you had no idea the bill was fake--you got it from the ATM and it looked real. If the law about counterfeiting requires intent, then you're off the hook if the jury believes you. \n\nNow, if you were caught using fake bills at dozens of locations over a 5 year period, then it's going to be difficult to explain to the jury that you didn't intend to use a counterfeit bill. The prosecutor can prove in court that you knowingly and intentionally were passing fake bills all over town as part of a scheme. \n\nWhat if the law about counterfeiting punishes people if they are just really dumb and should have known a crappy looking bill looked fake? In other words imagine the law punishes recklessness, which is less than intentional wrongdoing. Even if you weren't a criminal counterfeit mastermind, the court could still find you guilty if you should have realized the bill was fake. It's up to the jury to decide that.\n\nNone of this has anything to do with knowledge of the law about counterfeiting. Only whether you knew the bill was real or not when you spent it.\n\nCops don't prove anything, they just arrest you. "
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23uup7 | the development of language in human evolution | Edit: would just like to add, I know in general there is no unanimous answer and that it has been regarded as "the hardest question in science".
I guess what I'm looking for is a simple enough timeline of events, a mixture of all theories summarised and events which occurred that possibly aided the development of language. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23uup7/eli5_the_development_of_language_in_human/ | {
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"The answer is no one knows. The problem is that, unlike writing, there's no evidence left behind of when people learnt to speak or how.\n\nThere are many theories. The academic study of this subject really dates back to 1861, when Max Müller proposed 5 different theories. Since then, many other academics have debated the subject, new theories have been added, and Müller's theories - although still very much considered no less likely than any others - have been refined. But we're no closer to knowing the truth.\n\nHere's the [Wikipedia page](_URL_0_) on the subject if you want to know more about the theories."
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5puo3c | using electrolysis to remove rust, how does this work? | So about a month ago my dad ran across a YouTube video of someone explaining how to remove rust off of old motorcycle parts and they were using a method called electrolysis. I have built my own tank and I am absolutely amazed at the results! So tell it to me like I'm 5, how does this work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5puo3c/eli5_using_electrolysis_to_remove_rust_how_does/ | {
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"The parts you free from rust exchange ions with the other electrode you are using to get rid of the oxygen that forms the Iron oxide (rust). If you want it in more details \"like i'm 5\" won't quite work because the chemistry behind it is somewhat more complex. In essence you create an ion that oxygen likes more than iron to steal oxygen from the rust, reducing it back to iron.",
"What's essentially happening is that you're dissolving the rust off your object into water, and placing a different object in the water that the rust sticks to. Once stuck, the rust stays on the different object and prefers (is more chemically attracted) to be there more than in the water or on your object. So over time, all the rust ends up on the other object, with very little in the water and none on your object. ",
"You can also do this process in reverse and plate things in a different metal. For example a spoon attached to - cathode and a piece of gold attached to + anode. The spoon wil get coated in gold.\n\nThe eletricity creates metal ions since they are opposite charges they attract. it pulls the metal through the conductive water."
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2ycdhl | what makes coffee a neutral smell? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ycdhl/eli5_what_makes_coffee_a_neutral_smell/ | {
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"I don't think it is. I know quite a few people who think coffee smells bad.",
"It isn't, coffee is strong & distinct.\n\nif you're smelling wine or perfume, you want to \"clear\" your sense of smell by smelling something else.\n\nIf you were testing the smell of coffee you wouldn't sniff coffee in between."
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zcm4f | why don't jehova's witnesses take blood? | A guy at my door tried to explain it one time but he didn't make any sense to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zcm4f/why_dont_jehovas_witnesses_take_blood/ | {
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"They believe that the verse in the Bible telling you not to consume blood applies to getting transfusions as well."
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43m0rg | how can white be described as the absence of color? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43m0rg/eli5_how_can_white_be_described_as_the_absence_of/ | {
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"White is the presence of all colors, where black is the absence of all colors, so to answer your question it can't. ",
"White light is all colours.\n\nA white solid is no colour, and therefore reflects all colours and therefore it would be considered colorless. \n\nThis is because of how light and matter react. When you see a colour, you are seeing that wavelength of light. If matter is a particular colour, then it absorbs that wavelength meaning that the shirt you see as red is actually every colour except red. It's just that all other colours are being absorbed and only red light is being bounced off of it.",
"When people talk about color, they can be referring to two different things. They can be talking about electromagnetic frequencies or they can be talking about pigments.\n\nIn terms of EM frequencies, black is the absence of color and white is the presence of all colors. That's why white light can be refracted into the spectrum.\n\nBut in terms of pigmentation, white is the absence of pigment. Animals with little or no pigment in their skin are albino or white. A sheet of white paper is considered colorless until some paint or other medium containing pigments is applied. "
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2acrvm | why do i enjoy small amounts of pain, especially from poking at my gums or biting my inner mouth areas? | I find myself, almost daily, poking my gums with a toothpick or other objects with a pointy edge. Often I'll poke until my gums bleed because I enjoy the sensation, even though it causes pain. There are times when I'll bite the inside of my mouth below my lip or on my cheeks because of a similar pleasure/pain sensation.
I've spoken to others who also feel the same way and cause themselves the same pain. I would love for someone to explain why I enjoy this type of self-harm? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2acrvm/eli5_why_do_i_enjoy_small_amounts_of_pain/ | {
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"Endorphins are released every time we are injured. Endorphins act as natural painkillers similar to morphine. \n\nThis is evolutionarily advantageous because when we get injured, we don't want to be wallowing in pain in a situation where we may get even more injuries. The endorphins allow us to temporarily ignore the pain so we can get ourselves out of the dangerous situation.\n\nI think you just got used to enjoying the small rush of endorphins that occur when you injure yourself. Make sure to control yourself so that it doesn't become an addiction and clean off your wounds so they don't get infected.",
"Can you think of something less maladaptive than making your gums bleed? Exercise maybe? Exercise also releases endorphins."
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bbvt5o | why is there no way to get feedback about why you didn’t get the job? | I wish there was some way to get feedback after job interviews about why one was not chosen.
Why can’t we live in world where it would be ok for hiring people to say candidate was unqualified or candidate was qualified but only one person seemed to gel with our team in just the right way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bbvt5o/eli5_why_is_there_no_way_to_get_feedback_about/ | {
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"I regularly conduct interviews in the engineering / environmental / science area and would always be happy to provide feedback.\n\nAsking for feedback shows a great attitude. Also candidates fail to accept roles all the time - this will put you forward in the decision makers mind for second round offers. Otherwise it might just mean your cv is held for future roles rather than just being discarded after the candidate is found.\n\nTry getting in touch with the interviewer directly rather than HR.\n\nGood luck!",
" > Why is there no way to get feedback about why you didn’t get the job?\n\nThere is no tangible benefit for a business to provide such feedback, and potentially there is liability if their feedback reveals or implies some sort of legal violation. So in general it simply isn't going to be available. Often there may not really be any tangible or reasonable criteria behind why one candidate was chosen over the others, just that the hiring manager picked one of the qualified candidates based on their personal hunch.\n\n > Why can’t we live in world where...\n\nWhen you start asking this you just need to drop the train of thought. We don't live in worlds we don't live in.",
"You know the people who interviewed you. It's okay to call them and ask them for an explanation, after assuring that the call is for self-improvement only and not for harassing.",
"It is entirely acceptable to ask for feedback, and some employers will happily provide it. \n\nHowever, some will not. Here are some common reasons:\n\n* They're just too busy. They don't have the time or the energy to give feedback to every single person.\n* They want to avoid arguments. Or they don't want to deliver bad news. (Eg. 'You smelled like alcohol and sadness.')\n* They don't want to be accused of some kind of misconduct, so they think it is better to just keep their mouths shut.",
"Employers don't want to accept the risk. I worked somewhere where a guy applied, got a trial day and ended up refusing to do duties which involved working with anything dirty for example. It was a repairs department so he'd be handling dirty stuff every day so they said this isn't working and let him go.\n\nWhen he asked for feedback, they explained that he wasn't able to carry out the necessary duties for the job and he tried to sue and claim they were discriminating against him because he had OCD. The company is opening themselves up to unnecessary risk without any benefit for themselves so they mostly won't bother."
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794erc | why do doctors use analog scales (like manual adjusting) and blood pressure cuffs vs. digital, perhaps more precise ways of measuring? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/794erc/eli5_why_do_doctors_use_analog_scales_like_manual/ | {
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"They already own the scales and they are pretty accurate. The cuff applies pressure to your arm and they are trained to listen to your pulse through the stethoscope to determine the systolic and dialastolic pressures as they allow the pressure slowly out of the cuff. Both analog devices operate without the need for batteries as well making them valuable tools in places or situations without electricity. Computer BP machines are expensive and can be innacurate if you move about during a reading. You see them most in hospital rooms where doctors order frequent BP measurements, a nurse isnt always available, especially in post operative care as a drop in BP may indicate a suchere problem or internal bleeding. ",
"Analog scales are cheaper and tend to last longer than their digital counterparts, despite not being as accurate. Furthermore, most analog scales can be calibrated over-time whereas calibrating digital scales is only available on more expensive models that allow for it, not to mention if one of the sensors breaks down or there's a software error or some unplugged wire on the display, it's almost unheard of to have someone fix it and most people would rather buy a new one. \n\nAnother reason for choosing analog over digital in general is that pinpoint precision as well as the additional features digital scales might come with (supposedly having ability to measure BMI, fat percentage, bone density and so forth) are not a priority during a standard checkup. The error between what you measure with analogue and what you measure with digital is within a sensible margin doctors usually account for when determining whether you have low (or high) blood pressure and so forth, among other more relevant factors such as stress, age, gender, age, other medicine you might be taking and so forth. "
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1klq18 | how accelerometers work | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1klq18/eli5how_accelerometers_work/ | {
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"There are many different ways to make an accelerometer! Some accelerometers use the piezoelectric effect - they contain microscopic crystal structures that get stressed by accelerative forces, which causes a voltage to be generated. Another way to do it is by sensing changes in capacitance. If you have two microstructures next to each other, they have a certain capacitance between them. If an accelerative force moves one of the structures, then the capacitance will change. Add some circuitry to convert from capacitance to voltage, and you will get an accelerometer. There are even more methods, including use of the piezoresistive effect, hot air bubbles, and light. ",
"The simple physical design is a weight on a spring and the weight reacts to the direction of acceleration. When the weight reacts it creates electriclal variations that can be calibrated to the measured acceleration values.",
"Bill Hammack, The Enginer Guy, has already done just this: _URL_0_.",
"The average accelerometer looks like thor's hammer(of course it is all minaturized). A huge weight at one end (the head of the hammer) with a handle. Usually both are made of silicon. \n\nBasically, when the hammer is held by the handle and subjected to acceleration, there are some changes - the handle bends and the head moves a little bit. These can be measured and calibrated to measure acceleration. \n\nThe measurement is done using effects such as piezoelectric (used to measure stress in the handle) or capacitive (used to measure the change in distance between the hammer head and another surface). \n\n",
"There are many different versions and designs, but accelerometers have existed for centuries. From something that shifts back and forth in a clock tower to something you'd see in your cell phone, we've come a long way. However, the concept was discovered using a pendulum. When a sufficiently large pendulum is hung from a sufficiently high and rigid place, we can actually measure the fluctuations in the movement of the earth. A museum near my home town has a four story pendulum which swings back and forth and is used for elementary school demonstrations of astronomical concepts. As the earth spins, it fails to affect the movement of the pendulum and the pendulum's motion continues in a straight line. Because of this, the pendulum will actually spin on its axis and rotate with almost perfect regularity. Realizing this, the museum has it rigged up as an old-era accelerometer measuring the acceleration (or lack thereof) of the rotation of the earth versus the force of the earth's gravity on the pendulum and put 24 upside-down golf tees every few degrees around the clock (one for each hour) and the pendulum knocks each one down exactly an hour apart literally like clockwork. We've added magnets and electricity to miniaturize them, but electromagnetic forces act in the same way as gravity regardless of the scale of the accelerometer - we just use those magnets to mimic the effects of gravity in a cell phone or airplane. The concept remains the same. An electromagnetic force pushes a pendulum toward the drop line below its axis - the point it would rest at if unaccelerated and not in motion. Your cell phone measures the distance its pendulum shifts, tells that to the computer chip in the phone, and your phone can effectively give an electronic display based on the direction of the force acting on it. \n\nEDIT: Just remembered the French guy's name. It was Léon Foucault, a french physicist who used accelerometry to develop the pendulum demonstration around 1849. It was used as a clock shortly thereafter. ",
"Now the OP has an idea how an accelerometer measures the [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) acting on it, I'm sure he is interested in how this is used to measure pitch and yaw. I want to write up a quicky on how a 3 axes accelerometer uses inverse trig functions to find the angle, but i need to run to work... mabie on my lunch break. "
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3fja6w | are tesla electric cars actually more environmentally friendly when the battery disposal is taken into account? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fja6w/eli5_are_tesla_electric_cars_actually_more/ | {
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"If you would throw away the battery afterwards probably not, but Tesla plans on collecting and recycling them.",
"Tesla has a trade in program to keep batteries from being thrown away. Luckily the battery weighs 1,200 pounds and is as long and as wide as the car, so anybody that wants to get rid of it is going to go through Tesla to get it replaced or to trade it in to get a new car. You could remove the battery yourself, but it's weight and size means you can't really do much with it. Even if you open it up and remove the individual cells, now you have thousands of individual battery cells to deal with.",
"Another thing to consider is that in terms of energy use per mile, electric cars are more efficient even from small things like not having to idle in traffic. "
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dj8eku | why do poured liquids seem to be narrower at the bottom then the top? | Sorry if this has been asked before, but why does a liquid stream seem to narrow when poured? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dj8eku/eli5_why_do_poured_liquids_seem_to_be_narrower_at/ | {
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"The liquid is pushed wide by passing over the lip of the container, but in free fall the surface tension can pull it into the smallest surface area configuration, a cylinder and then separate drops. That narrows the stream.",
"Think of it like this: The liquid is always pouring at the same rate, but the longer it's in the air the faster it must be moving due to gravity. This means that the same amount of water (in liters per second) is flowing ten inches below the spout versus five inches. That water, however, is moving faster. This means that the water must be getting stretched out as it speeds up on the way down, and this makes the stream thinner."
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1optzh | things i should know about when owning a credit card. | Stuff like APR, any vocabulary associated with the credit card and etc.
I have a Bank of America Credit Card if anyone is wondering. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1optzh/eli5_things_i_should_know_about_when_owning_a/ | {
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"First and foremost: Understand how they change interest. Most credit cards have a grace period after each purchase to pay it off without incurring interest charges. It's usually in the neighborhood of 25 days. This is from the date of *purchase* not your billing day. If you buy something on September 1st, get a bill on September 20th, and pay it on the 26th, you're going to get charged based on your APR is on the purchase (and for the entire time, just just since the end of the grace period).\n\nAPR is a bit complicated, but it basically determines how much you'll pay in interest on a purchase once the grace period expires. It's not a straight-up charge, but instead they determine a daily rate based on your annual rate and charge interest per day. The easiest way to visualize it and get an idea is to play around with a few numbers and see how it ends up. There's a calculator [here](_URL_0_) (Put 0 for extra cost).\n\nIf you're new to credit, you'll probably get an APR in the 15% range. 9% is incredibly good for new credit folks and with perfect credit and payment history you can usually snag APRs as low as 3% or so. Once you mess up though (late payment, returned check) it usually get jacked up to the 30% range.\n\nAs far as using it wisely and staying away from interest: Don't spend any money you won't have in the next 30 days to pay it off. If you want to do something like buy something more expensive now instead of saving up, use a calculator (like the one above) to figure out exactly how much you'll be paying before you decide if it's worth it. I've lived paycheck-to-paycheck before and used credit cards to \"float\" payments until my next paycheck if they were due before. \n\nAlso, don't keep your card near the max. Pay it off as soon as you can because it's nice to have an emergency cushion and it beats trying to borrow money from friends/family or getting one of those satanic payday loans.",
"There's only one thing you need to know about: pay it off IN FULL at the end of EVERY MONTH.\n",
"Get a secured credit card first, so it will become engrained in your habit that you don't use the credit card unless you have the money to purchase things. \n\nOnce you build up your credit, then check out what annual fees are and what the monthly interest rate is on that card. Get a card with no annual fees. Find a card that gives you points for purchases. Do not purchase anything unless your next paycheck can pay it off in full. ",
"If you cannot pay off your credit card balance in full each period, then you are doing it wrong.",
"A lot of these explanations are bad or plain wrong, so I figured I'd chime in. I actually work for a major bank, but in full disclosure my background (education) isn't finance/business.\n\nThe first thing you should know is that every credit card is different and with it comes different terms... There are certain things that apply to all credit cards (usually things legislated i.e. [2009 CARD Act](_URL_0_).) One example, credit card due dates have to be the same day every month (i.e the 18th) and the bank cannot change a due date without permission from the customer. The important point to note though is read *your* Terms and Conditions to know what applies.\n\nSo, basically the way it works is you you swipe your card to make a purchase, that \"transaction\"(purchase/credit) is \"pending\"(waiting to be posted) on your account. When it's pending that means that the merchant has \"authorized\"(been given permission to charge) a transaction your account. Pending transactions are not a part of your \"balance\" (the amount of money total that you owe) on the account) yet, but it will come out of your \"available credit\"(what's left you can spend). Once a merchant knows the amount they're going to charge you, they'll \"post\" (finalize) the transaction on your account and it will be added to the balance that you owe. Sometimes a merchant will authorize a different amount than they intend to charge (gas stations might authorize 1.00 to make sure the card is valid before you pump gas, restaurants will authorize the price of the meal then post for the price + tip, or hotels or rental cards might authorize $200 for a deposit then release it after you return the car or check out.\n\nYour card has a credit limit. The credit limit is the amount of money that the bank trusts that you will be able to pay back to them. This is usually based on your credit history, but a secured card is a credit card where you basically pay a deposit to get a higher limit than you normally would. If you ever decided to not pay a secured card they would just keep your deposit. Some cards will let you charge more than your limit and some will \"decline\" (not authorize) a transaction if it would ever put you overlimit. Some cards charge fees for going over your limit and others don't care as long as you pay it below the limit before your next statement closes.\n\nA statement is a list of transactions that you made during your \"cycle\"(time between one statement and the next). A statement closes on the same day every month. When a statement closes, all the transactions for the month are tallied up and included in your \"new balance\"(statement balance). It's basically a snapshot up to 11:59:59PM on the day it closes. (Note: Not midnight. Midnight is the 00:00:00 and technically morning the next day). Keep in mind only transactions that are posted are included (which means it's possible to make a transaction the day before your statement closes and not have it included because it's still pending).\n\nAfter the statement closes you have a \"25 day interest free period\". Now it might not be the same amount of days each month because your due date has to be the same day each month and some months have less days (so it might be 26, 27, etc). You have from the time your statement closes until that due date to pay your statement balance in full to avoid interest. There is no \"grace period\", your due date is your due date. If you don't pay the statement balance before your due date, you will see interest on your next statement for those days that the balance was on the card. (From the time that first statement closed, until the next once closes). This is what is called carrying a balance.\n\nWhen you carry a balance interest accrues (builds up) on the balance daily. You won't see the interest accruing daily, because it's actually calculated when the statement closes. So after you carry a a balance, even if you pay the balance that's on the card in full, there's still interest that hasn't been calculated yet, that will be on your next statement (this is called residual interest). The only way to get back to the interest free period is to pay the account in full again. As soon as you do, no more interest will accrue, but there's already interest that you haven't paid yet that'll pop up on your next statement. Keep in mind that when you're carrying a balance, *every single transaction* that you make is accruing interest from the day it posts until the statement closes (this means that the $5 McDonalds meal that you just bought is already costing you more than that starting the next day). \n\nIf you do carry a balance, and can't pay the full amount (this is a bad idea btw), there's a minimum payment you can pay. As long as you pay your minimum payment each month you'll not get a late fee. Minimum payments are usually either (2% of the statement balance or 1% of the statement balance + interest). They legally have to be high enough that they will *eventually* pay down your debt, but usually would take you many many years and tons of interest if you just pay it. If you can't pay your balance each month, you at least want to pay more than your minimum. Paying a minimum is basically deciding to let the bank milk you as long as possible.\n\nYour APR is your \"annual percentage rate\"... it's the amount of interest that you would pay in a year if it was calculated yearly (it's not). Generally credit card interest is calculated daily, so you can divide your APR by 365 to see what your daily percentage is (for instance 18.99% is 0.05202% daily. To calculate a rough estimate of interest you would pay in a month you just multiply the balance by the amount of days in the cycle times the daily rate (yes, I know that interest compounds, but we're not going to address that since this is ELI5). Keep in mind that APRs are percentages, so you have to divide by 100 to make them decimal. ($1000 carried for 31 day cycle at 18.99%v, ((18.99/365/100) x 31 x 1000)). Keep in mind interest is calculated separately for each balance or transaction and then added together into the interest charge you see on your bill (so a transaction on the account for 15 days, you'd substitute 15 days in the calculation).\n\nDifferent types of transactions can have different APRs. For instance a cash advance (getting money from an ATM, a teller, poker chips, Western Union, Moneygram, etc) is usually a much higher APR and usually have additional fees (usually like 3% to 5% of the amount of cash with a $10 minimum). Cash advances are a bad idea because they are a higher APR and also, cash advances do not have an interest free period, that means that it accrues interest from the day you do it, even if you've never carried a balance. Keep in mind also if you have any other balance carried on the account, because payments are applied towards statement balances first, you can't simply take a cash advance and pay it three days later. Once a statement closes that includes it, you can apply a payment towards it, so if you do a cash advance you're usually stuck with it until the statement closes again.\n\nA balance transfer is paying another credit card using your credit card but usually on a promotion. For instance you might apply for a credit card that offers 0% APR for 18 months if you transfer a balance. That new card would pay your old credit card and the balance would be moved to the new card. A lot of people who carry balances move those balances around back and forth between cards to try to avoid interest. This is a losing proposition for most people, because eventually banks stop offering to allow you to transfer balances if you keep transferring it before the promotion ends (the bank isn't making money on you) and your stuck with a balance at a higher APR that's accruing interest that you're not used to paying.\n\n*Anyway, it's 5am and my wife asked me what I was doing and I told her \"someone is wrong on the internet\", but she didn't get the joke... I probably should go to bed though... I hope it helped. Wish I could write more because there's a ton more things you should know. Any questions I'll definitely try to answer them if you comment on this though.*"
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13iy41 | how is 67 trillion dollars in "shadow banking" a real thing? is this real money? how does this affect the world? | [Here is a link](_URL_0_) to a Reuters article about what I'm talking about.
Really I don't get this.
And fundamentally, what is shadow banking? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13iy41/eli5_how_is_67_trillion_dollars_in_shadow_banking/ | {
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"Its value not actual money.\nAll the money in the world amounts to around 60 Trillion US dollars.\nBut that is just money, not taxable value.\nThings like real estate is an example of value that is taxed with no actual money attached. If you inherit a mansion worth 20 million dollars, you probably can't afford the estate tax on that mansion since its calculated off the 20 million, which doesn't actually exist, its just land and wood, but technically you now have 20 million dollars in a way. So you gotta sell, most likely.\n\nAbout Shadow banking.\nSo the total value of Derivative trading around the world is probably north of 800 Trillion US dollars.\nNobody knows because the majority of it is never declared to any government.\nThat's why its called shadow banking.\nTrying to explain it as simply as I can goes something like this:\nThe essence of a Derivative trade is two people making a contract, at set point in time that contract expires and someone owes someone money, or someone just lost a lot of money.\nFor example: \nIf you wanted to buy a million dollars in google stock, currently trading at 669.97 USD that would give you roughly 1500 stocks. Then you would sit on that, for say a year, and hope to make a profit.\nBut then I come, and I say \"wait wait wait, don't buy the stock right now, buy it from me in one week, and I will sell you 2000 shares for 500 each\".\nThat's a good deal for you, and we make a binding contract forcing me to sell you those stocks on one week no matter what the price actually is.\nSo if the price happens to fall below 500, I win money, if not you win money. \nA simple derivative trade, since the value of the transaction is derivated of the value of the google stock. (since I can sell this transaction to someone else)\n\nSo what does that mean from a big perspective? Where is all this money?\n\nWell its in contracts that have still not expired, when they expire they are traded into money, and this money is then used to make or pay for more contracts.\nIf all the contracts expired at the same time the world economy would crash instantly. What happened in 2008 was roughly 10 trillion dollars worth of Credit default swaps all tanked at the same time (where proven valueless).\nIn other words 10 trillion dollars suddenly had to shift hands very quickly, which crashed the world economy and could have been much worse if the Federal reserve hadn't sprayed oogles of virtual cash at it.\n\nBut yeah that's pretty much it, we are hanging in thin thread held up only by the chance that this massive juggle act will hold up indefinitely.\nGood luck with that. ",
"There were a lot of posts with a lot of words so I didn't read them all.. especially that 1st post that was an essay.\n\nYes this is a real thing and this is real money. Shadow Banking is also very important to the functioning of the economy.\n\nA definition is required: Shadow Banking is any sort of financing activity that does not take place within the regulated commercial banking world.\n\nShadow banking incorporates all capital market activities, so the sale of stock either publicly or privately, the issuing of corporate debt/paper (as opposed to going to the bank and having a corporate loan), the activities performed by non-bank entities like boutique m & a firms, holding companies and special purpose companies used to make investments but structure for tax reasons, and anything else you can think of that isn't performed by a regulated commercial/retail bank.\n\nessentially Shadow Banking is a catch-all term that means practically nothing.\n\n\n\nHere is a good article that actually explains something, it is pretty long and you might not understand it but there are charts and graphs.\n_URL_0_"
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[],
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2tgxj8 | what, exactly, does it mean when someone is "forced to resign"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tgxj8/eli5_what_exactly_does_it_mean_when_someone_is/ | {
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"It means they were told they would be fired if they didn't resign.",
"Resigning may allow the individual to cash out earned time off and sick leave, along with any agreed upon salary or hours worked, whereas termination usually only allows the employee to get their wages for work performed prior to termination."
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676utz | the earth has 7 billion humans. humans produce c02. could this be a reason why our c02 levels are so high? if no, why not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/676utz/eli5_the_earth_has_7_billion_humans_humans/ | {
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"Humans, on a biological level, produce a very very very tiny percentage the worldwide CO2 production even if other human sources of CO2 (such as fossil fuel usage) aren't counted. Fossil fuel usage is really the largest contributor.",
"Although we contribute a lot, it's definitely not the biggest reason. A slightly bigger reason is all the fossil fuels we burn. An even bigger reason is all the trees we cut for furniture and farm land. Less trees, less CO2 to oxygen. Lastly, an even bigger reason is the animal agriculture system we have. Have you ever noticed that there is more frozen meat and poultry and fish and cheese and \"fresh\" meat and poultry and fish and cheese than actual humans in the supermarket? Take a look next time you're in a supermarket. Almost EVERYTHING is made with animals. Animals produce CO2, and cows are responsible for massive methane gas production. Methane is single handedly responsible for significant temperature changes, but it's also theoretically easiest to reverse the action. ",
" Humans do not make up enough of the planet's biomass to cause such a change. That takes something like Cyanobacteria, which makes up the majority of the biomass. It completely changed the atmosphere and [killed nearly everything](_URL_0_) in the process a long time ago. Nothing else on the planet comes close to this, so it would be impossible for us to be doing it biologically.",
"We get our carbon from the food we eat. If you trace the carbon in our food, it all came from a plant at some point. The carbon in a plant comes from the air. Thus, the carbon we emit through breathing is part of a closed cycle, meaning it has no net effect on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.\n\nThe same actually goes for flatulence, if you remember the silly sheep gas scare. That was actually total bull shit.\n\nBut on the flip side, planting trees has a negligible benefit, as the trunk, branches, and roots of each tree are negligible in carbon mass compared to what is burned every year. The leaves when they decompose give up their carbon right back into the air.\n\nSo the only things that have net effect on carbon in the air are mined carbon, and carbon replaced back into the ground. The former is burned in the millions of tons per year, and the latter has yet to occur. ",
"As a [high estimate](_URL_1_), a human emits about 1kg of carbon dioxide a day.\n\nSo 7 billion humans x 365 days/year x 1kg/humanday = 2.5 trillion kg/year.\n\nGlobal CO2 emissions in 2014, from cement and fossil fuels? [36 trillion kg](_URL_0_).\n\n"
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2r77gd | why are so many films in bollywood romances but 90% of the country still does arranged marriages? | I guess I could see the point of it being a "fantasy" because it rarely happens...much like our romances I suppose, but it seems to be a lot larger than here in the US. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r77gd/eli5why_are_so_many_films_in_bollywood_romances/ | {
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"Maybe that is exactly why they make those movies. Just going on a limp here, but it could very well be a form of escapism, just like zombie and apocalypse movies are an escapism genre for the west. (Just look at all the people who say they want a zombie apocalypse so they can get away from their current life).",
"I am a Pakistani, but since the cultures are so similar I might be able to add perspective. \nFor one, I know via interaction and befriending quite a few Indians that love marriages do happen, admittedly not as frequently as arranged. However most of the common people in west dont quite understand arranged marriages, or cant seem to comprehend that norm which is fine because its a major cultural difference. \nTraditionally and till date arranged marriages last longer and are more successful than love marriages. This fact might not mean anything to a culture where marriage is depleting, however for us where marriage is a support system and pretty much the core of the society stable marriages are important. Next up is the religious importance of it, in most parts being from the same sect, caste, ethnic background etc is preferred when choosing a life partner. \nAlso arranged marriages are not totally how you might think, a common example I use to explain to my western friends is that in most cases the parents act as a dating website. They have a profile of you, and then match the best prospect and in several cases setup a date. Sadly, arranged marriage is often equated to forced marriage which is wrong. There are millions of people who are happy and in love with their spouse. \n\nFinally, bollywood movies make love look like a fantasy when surely its not at all like this and has its fair share of hardships. ",
"For the same reason that 90% of American films are about action heroes who blow shit up, save the world, and get the girl in the end. It never happens, but it would be awesome to think about"
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62gq1q | why can black always get darker? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62gq1q/eli5_why_can_black_always_get_darker/ | {
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"text": [
"Dark is just a measure of how much light is absorbed. There is only one thing that reflects 0% of light that we know of. A black hole is the absolute darkest you can get. "
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biwhec | if spotify and apple music generate so little money for musicians, why do so many of them participate in it? even with the loss from piracy, surely it would be better for taylor swift or moby or ac/dc to just take in the money from regular sales as they did before. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/biwhec/eli5_if_spotify_and_apple_music_generate_so/ | {
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"What regular sales? Selling CDs? There is no other option for music distribution for them to use. \n\nInstead real money is made from tours and advertising/promotion and licensing songs for movies and tv.",
"Putting a song on Spotify doesn't mean you can't license it elsewhere. Even if you make only $5, that's $5 plus everything else people are going to spend.",
"These streaming services are simply the best options left for most artists to get their music out there and make at least some money on it, plus its a bit of a catch below... and the old world of album sales bringing in big profits are simply over. Its done, and its not coming back. It was dying for years, and now its pretty much just dead.\n\nThe only musicians that could potentially make money selling music in a way other than streaming are your absolute, monster huge ones. Your Tay Tay, Kanye, and whatever other pop crap is out there. BIG ones. BIG.\n\nThose artists are also the ones commanding like 99% of all streaming revenues as well though (seriously, not kidding). So basically this streaming structure favors these huge artists, the ones with the power to move to another business model other than streaming, but it also benefits them tremendously for sticking with streaming because they are basically the only artists actually making money from it.\n\nSecondly, currently the big music labels have some exceptional favorable deals with the streaming services, so they are quite on board with it for now, they are making good money, even if the services aren't, and if things change, well the labels just move their music elsewhere. The labels used to be behind the times, now they are way ahead of it on a business side.",
"Little money is better than no money, and that's really what the answer is, if you don't provide your stuff on the common networks people will just pirate. You make more by just selling everywhere that is willing to take you, take whatever money you get.\n\nIn the end, most of the money is really coming from tours anyways.",
"Well for one, a download from Apple music implicates a mechanical license which is compulsory in the U.S. (i.e., the artist cannot choose to disallow this, just the same as they can't stop their song from being on the radio)\n\nIn other words, once you distribute your song you can't stop it from being distributed in some forms. \n\nAs to the streaming services, however, they all use licensing agencies. Absolutely nobody will deal with an individual licensor. The transaction costs are too high. Once you add your music to one of these agencies (a performance license) you cannot keep it from playing on these services. The reasons for this are more complicated than the compulsory license, but is grounded in antitrust law. \n\nIn short: if you want your music to be played anywhere you basically have to let it be played everywhere. It's very complicated, though, but that's the basic idea.",
"As someone who’s been adjacent to some moderately successful bands, you really make your money touring, and specifically on merch. Streams and record sales usually go through so many different hands that by the time the money gets to you it’s pretty much pennies whether it was a digital or physical sale. \n\nTouring and selling merch usually goes straight back to you and most printing companies will have a bundle deal so you, if you’re good, break even pretty quickly. \n\nIt’s also partially why tour shirts are so expensive despite just being printed on whatever quality."
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3mqowz | difference between shaver, trimmer, clipper and epilator. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mqowz/eli5_difference_between_shaver_trimmer_clipper/ | {
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"A shaver will cut the hair at the skin level leaving a smooth surface.\n\nA trimmers and clippers are designed to cut the hair away from the surface of the skin. The primary difference is a trimmer tends to be smaller and designed to trim shorter hair (e.g. beards) where as clippers are designed to trim longer hair (e.g. hair on your head).\n\nAn epilator yanks the hair out rather than cuts it, leaving smooth skin for longer (but ouch!)."
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||
1ygz85 | why are there so many riots at the time? | Everyday i hear more about a new country where riots started. Syria, Egypt, Ukraine and now in Venezuela. Am i now becoming aware of them or why do they start everywhere? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ygz85/eli5why_are_there_so_many_riots_at_the_time/ | {
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" > Syria, Egypt, Ukraine and now in Venezuela. Am i now becoming aware of them or why do they start everywhere?\n\nSyria and Egypt has been going on for a couple of years now (tho Egypt has been \"on and off\" a bit). I am not quite sure about Venezuela, but I think its been going on for a while there to, or at least it as been brewing up for it for quite a while. Ukraine has been going on for three months now, so its probably you just now getting aware of it.\n\nAs for the reason, mostly because they want democracy, or just disagree whit a corrupt government. ( the last is the case with Ukraine. The people want to move their policy's towards the EU, but the president has agreed with Vladimir Putin to move Ukraine's policy's towards Russia)"
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2bmais | how do cyber criminals get away with transferring money out of a bank account without a trace of where it went? | When an individual or company's bank account is hacked and money is sent to another bank how do the hackers get away with anonymously withdrawing the money or transferring them to another bank account without a trace? Shouldn't there be a record of what accounts the money went to and who withdrew the money?
I've often heard that hackers reroute money through many different accounts but why don't the banks just freeze the accounts when the money is stolen so funds can be retrieved? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bmais/eli5_how_do_cyber_criminals_get_away_with/ | {
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"A bank is actually a very unattractive target for a cyber criminal, banks are one of the few companies who care enough about software security to have dedicated security expert teams constantly probing their online systems looking for weaknesses and security holes, furthermore even *attempting* to hack into a bank's financial systems carries an enormously weighty prison sentence.\n\nWhat a cyber criminal will try to do instead is the online version of going through your bins, they'll be trying to gather enough information about you to impersonate your identity to a sleazy credit card or loan company, they'll walk away with a loan and you and your bank will have to deal with the fallout of angry creditors asking for repayment.",
"One way of doing it that I have heard of is they make their own atm cards, transfer the money to accounts they have set up the cards to work for, then have 'middle men' go use the cards and withdraw the money. They get to keep a certain cut, and they somehow get the rest back to the criminals. \n\nThese middle men will have dozens of the cards and do all the withdraws back to back(you can only withdraw so much from your account in 1 day)"
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56g58h | is it possible to browse the internet with what is effectively complete anonymity, and if so how? | Hi all, apologies if this isn't the best place to post this - please let me know a better place if so.
I'm curious what you all have to say about the possibility of absolute anonymity regarding browsing the internet and/or online activity in general.
As a side note, here is a quick video with one person's view that online anonymity is actually impossible (Youtuber Elithecomputerguy) which caught my eye and got me thinking. What are your thoughts on it:
_URL_0_
Thanks for your time and any potential feedback :)
Exempt1993 | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56g58h/eli5_is_it_possible_to_browse_the_internet_with/ | {
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"Well there is a difference between effective anonymity and absolute anonymity. \n\nYou can achieve effective anonymity fairly easily by using any combination of proxy servers, VPN tunnels, and/or darknet services like Tor. \n\nThis can, in many cases, make you effectively anonymous (impractical for even authorities to trace) unless you give up personally identifying information out of your volition or you have code/software running on your computer which is compromising your anonymity.\n\nUltimately, though, you can never achieve absolute anonymity online because anything you do or access on the internet will necessarily have an impact on other devices on the internet even if you take steps to 'anonymize' your internet connection.\n\nIn other words, the internet is not passive—in order to access a remote resource on the internet, you need to actively send packets from your computer to another internet-connected device to request those resources. These packets also have to be addressed in a way that allows them to be routed to their final destination and in a way that allows return packets to be sent back to you.\n\nIn addition, any time you request a resource on the internet, it will (for example) lead to small changes in bandwidth consumption and CPU/memory usage on network devices (such as routers, servers, etc.) in-between you and the final destination of your packets.\n\nSo, the point is that everything you do online necessarily has an impact on other internet-connected devices which are not under your control. If somebody hypothetically has access to / control over enough of these devices (and can monitor their network activity) then that somebody can analyze and correlate data from different devices to deanonymize you even, for example, when you are using a Tor connection for protection.",
"Complete anonymity is extremely hard to obtain, There is a potential for lot of your activities to be tracked, for example websites might use the webcam on your PC. I saw a BBC documentary or something in which an expert told those who are really privacy conscious to cover their webcams with a piece of cloth and lock their phones in \"cookie\" jars. Also we forget we are under surveillance from hundreds of security cameras in public places.She even recommended putting a stone in your shoes (to change the way we walk)so as to fool gait recognition systems. \n\nLong story short to get absolute privacy you might have go a bit paranoid (Tor and VPN's could help)\n"
]
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9txu2k | why do some songs that have features in them not list the other artists in the title? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9txu2k/eli5_why_do_some_songs_that_have_features_in_them/ | {
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"Not an expert here, but sad to see an empty comment section! \nI think it has to do with negotiations between the artists/their representatives, possibly how involved the featured artist was in the process, how big they are, etc. However, sometimes it could be that the artists just don’t mind not being credited, like how P!ATD and FOB used to feature on each other’s tracks back in the day. Just a couple of buds, singing some tunes together. \n\nEdit: u/MusicalWhovian8 is smarter than me, ignore what I said and read their reply! ",
"I’m no expert but I also wonder this frequently and all I can think of is that if an artist has that feature in the title or whatever, they get monetary benefits? Whereas not having their name on the song it was more of a “favor” or a friend thing, maybe even the artist who’s song it is has payed them already so they don’t have to split the money when bought/ streamed. No clue if I’m right or even close to being right. "
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23m2w5 | what's the difference between a broadway and an off-broadway live production? what makes a production a broadway? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23m2w5/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_broadway_and/ | {
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"If it's in a Broadway theater (literally a theater on Broadway in NYC) then it's a Broadway show.",
"Broadway theaters are the largest, seating 500+. Off Broadway seat 100-499. Off off Broadway seat less than 100. There are other criteria such as location and actor's salary."
]
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4ks664 | if my dog (or another animal) is looking directly at a camera when it flashes - does it temporarily stun their eyesight like it does to humans? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ks664/eli5_if_my_dog_or_another_animal_is_looking/ | {
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"Sure does. Some asshole did it to a penguin after our guide specifically told us not to use flash on the Penguins. Post-flash it just stood there in utter confusion for about a minute, before scampering away up the hill. \n\nEdit: I should clarify that different animals have different tolerances to brightness. It's not the same for every creature. "
]
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||
7rzsso | how do shopping carts "hit the brakes" when you get too far from the store? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rzsso/eli5how_do_shopping_carts_hit_the_brakes_when_you/ | {
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"A cable is embedded underground around the perimeter of the store (or where they want to allow the carts). When a cart passes over them, it signals the locking mechanism to engage, rendering the cart annoying to use.\n\nWant to circumvent it? Find where the cable is embedded, and note how close you need to get before the cart locks. Get another cart, and with a buddy, lift it higher than that distance and walk it well past the perimeter. Done.",
"I used to work at a grocery store and often had to unlock these carts with a remote fob. At my store, they painted yellow lines along the “electronic fence,” which would stop the cart when the wheel with the lock would approached it. In my case, a single wheel was housed in a grey hood and a yellow brake would come down and under the wheel. \n \nAlthough when the fob stopped working we just filed the yellow brake down to the wheel to allow the cart to move freely again.",
"What kind of super advanced store has these? Worked retail for 6 years and have never heard of such a thing. ",
"For the question of regional presence, I've seen these in Columbus, OH and literally nowhere else from VA up through the Northeast where I've lived or at least spent time in various large-ish cities"
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so0fx | why did the pilgrims come to america? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/so0fx/why_did_the_pilgrims_come_to_america/ | {
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"They came to America because Europe was not pious enough in their eyes.",
"Pilgrims came to America because in England, the king made a law that if you live in England you had to believe his beliefs. The pilgrims didn't like the law, so they left England in search of religious freedom and other things. Some pilgrims also went to America for a better life and to start life over.",
"They came to America because they didn't like the people in England and the people in England didn't like them (with a brief interlude where they had the same problem in Holland). In both cases, this was the result of the Pilgrims' religious beliefs. \n\nAmerica was populated based on the idea of moving away from people that you don't like. This continued until we reached the Pacific. ",
"ELI5 is for difficult concepts that you need explained at a toddler-level, such as quantum physics.\n\nNot shit that even toddlers can google.",
"They were more or less kicked out of England and the Dutch republic, and there was free land available in America.",
"HAhahahahaha.... you guys are funny babbling back and forth about a FICTIONAL story, It's a Fairy Tale. end. like the easter bunny or santa clause or jesus. The true story is there never was a Nina, Pinta and Santamarina, and they weren't escaping religious prosecution...they came to america to inflict it against the natives and take the rich resources! wake up people!!"
]
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ald3s0 | why does reflected sunlight sometimes feel warmer than direct sunlight? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ald3s0/eli5_why_does_reflected_sunlight_sometimes_feel/ | {
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"If you’re in the sun and get hit with reflected sun it’s like being in more sun so it’s warmer. ",
"Think about taking a hot shower. When you have the doors closed to the bathroom, and there’s no cold air coming in, it gets really warm in there, yet the second you open a door, all the cold air rushes in and drops the temperature. Sunlight is similar in this analogy. Sunlight through a window isn’t stopped by cold air, ambient temperature, fog, etc. its almost like a water filter for heat. ",
"There's this thing called refraction.\n\nWhen the sun is directly hitting you, you're getting all the rays in one direction. When it's reflecting onto you, it's possible that depending on the surface, more rays are converging in your direction. You can think of this as being similar to a funnel or a shower vs water hose. \n\nThis is where the trope of setting things on fire with a magnifying glass comes from. I do better with picture explanations for these sorts of things, but I hope it helps anyway!"
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5xxq8b | how is that penguins ever managed to survive? | This may seem a bit odd or irrelevant but I ask this after watching a documentary on Penguins and they are real clumsy ass dudes. I just watched footage of them being so incredibly clumsy that they basically fell into the mouth of a killer whale. They don't seem particularly smart either (though I have no idea on the matter) and seem to have natural predators all around them (the ocean) a habitat they themselves are forced to go into for food, wheras other animals, though having predators that hunt them as well, have some mechanism of either defense, camouflage or habitat to protect them. (Trees, holes in the ground, air, or just blending in to the environment) but penguins have nothing I can see. Do they just die in large numbers and it doesn't affect their actual species? They certainly aren't in habitats throughout the world.
Maybe it's a stupid question and I did a cursory search on google but I hardly got any real information other than telling me that they are indeed clumsy or are clumsy for a specific reason. Maybe it didn't come up because it's a stupid question. Fuck would I know. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xxq8b/eli5_how_is_that_penguins_ever_managed_to_survive/ | {
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"As an Irishman, we say God looks out for drinks and fools, and we usually qualify for both.....so I'm guessing he has a soft spot for a bird that exists only to feed walrusses",
"the same way all prey survives their predators, by outnumbering by huge margins. There are a lot of animals that can be considered dumber than their predators and have no good defense mechanisms to defend themselves, think insects vs frogs or krill vs whales. "
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bmq64t | why is it safe to eat some raw fish? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bmq64t/eli5_why_is_it_safe_to_eat_some_raw_fish/ | {
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"Fish intended to be consumed raw is typically frozen almost immediately after catch and kept at a temperature to inhibit bacterial growth. Most of the parasites that might be in fish meat are typically killed by freezing unlike the bacteria that make raw meat and poultry dangerous to consume.",
"In general, raw meat isn't itself unsafe to eat. The problem is the bacteria and parasites that can be growing on or in the meat that is the issue.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nWhy fish is safer is that the parasites and bacteria that fish generally have aren't harmful to humans. Opposed to the bacteria and parasites that cows, chickens, and pigs tend to have.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"Some of it wouldn’t be safe pulled straight out of the water. The part of the government in charge of food safety, the FDA, requires all fish intended to be served raw to be flash frozen. A technique that kills parasites and keeps the food fresh. The biggest risk of sushi in the US is from improper handling. Outside of the US, if unfamiliar with their food safety requirements then only eat saltwater fish raw. Not the fish that spend any time in fresh water. Tuna is best for avoiding parasites."
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1179ll | the work of the 2012 nobel prize in physics winners. | Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1179ll/eli5_the_work_of_the_2012_nobel_prize_in_physics/ | {
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"There's these things called quantum particles, which are really really small and are very difficult to see.\n\nIf you try and look at these quantum particles, then you disrupt whatever they're doing. Observing them causes them to change their behavior and their state, because they act differently when they interact with the outside world (us). In other words, we thought it was impossible to observe these tiny particles without affecting them.\n\nThese researchers have come up with methods to observe and measure these particles. This was previously thought to be impossible. They figured out how to observe the particles without disrupting the state they're in and affecting their behavior.\n\nedit - IGNORE THIS. The Nobel prize was given for work on manipulating quantum states in ion traps and with photons in cavity. This showed a lot of people that quantum computers are possible. (Thank you The_Serious_Account)",
"The 'Sixty Symbols' Youtube channel has [posted a video](_URL_1_) (skip the first 2 minutes to get straight to the good stuff) with an explanation that might be a good starting point. Brady (the guy behind the camera) also posted some extra footage [here](_URL_0_).",
"didn't we **just** have an ELI5 and a bestof on the front page about this?\n\nedit:\n\n[eli5](_URL_0_)\n\n[bestof](_URL_0_c6hxlih)",
"Check this video out:\n_URL_0_",
"if they can observe these quantum particles now, what have we discovered about them?",
"Alright... So I haven't seen any correct answers to this (Flamewire's included). Unlike (apparently) anyone else I actually read the [13 page background for the prize.](_URL_0_) \n\nReally a experimental phycisist should answer this, however given the state of affairs I'll give it a shot:\n\nPhysical systems at the very tiny scale behave according to a set of rules known as quantum mechanics. This is not only interesting because it allows us to describe nature, but it might also allow us to control such systems. Why do we want to control them? Among other things it could allow us to build quantum computers, which could allow us to solve some problems very, very fast. Much faster than any \"normal\" computer ever could.\n\nThe problem with quantum computers is that it requires extremely delicate control over these systems. Since they are so very, very small this is extremely hard. \n\nThe prize was given to two physicists who greatly improved our control over individual quantum systems. In certain aspects beyond what was thought practical. They did so with two different techniques (ion traps and photon in cavity). \n\nI have no idea what all these other replys are about. Maybe they're confusing it with the schrodinger's cat is alive post that was here a few days ago. That's not correct.",
"Additional question: does the higgs boson get nothing nobel wise then?",
"In addition to the rest of the comments, you might also want to watch [Minute Physics' video](_URL_0_) about it."
]
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17egv6 | why do i always wake up with dry mouth or need water at night? | I also found if I take an antihistamine (Reactine), it seems to help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17egv6/why_do_i_always_wake_up_with_dry_mouth_or_need/ | {
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"When you breathe there is moisture in your breath. This moisture is coming from your throat and mouth. When you breathe through your nose there are special organs that will trap the moisture and retain it. But, when you breathe through your mouth all of the moisture is lost. So, if your nose is stuffed up and you're forced to breathe through your mouth then you're going to be exhaling all of your water."
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1s43od | why is rabbit not readily available at your grocery store if they taste good and are quick to breed? | People have eaten bunnies for thousands of years, but in modern times, they seem to have slipped out of the everyday diet. How come you can go to the grocery store and easily get chicken, turkey, fish, etc., but not rabbit? Why isn't rabbit a more commonly raised meat? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s43od/eli5_why_is_rabbit_not_readily_available_at_your/ | {
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"It's because the USDA doesn't require rabbits to be inspected, so some states won't allow stores to sell it. That's also the reason you don't see more wild game (the seller has to *pay* someone to inspect the meat, unlike the 'common' meats that have it done for free). ",
"The amount of meat per rabbit may not dollar out as well as as it does per chicken/pig/cow/sheep etc, meaning producers will be less likely to pursue it for wide distribution.\n\n\n\n\n",
"The place I get my meat and fish has rabbit...as well as venison, ostrich, buffalo and others",
"They have a tendency to be [somewhat wascally.](_URL_0_)",
" Because they are also kept as pets like dogs and cats in the house with a litter box,etc. And thus many people have the same negative reaction to seeing rabbit meat as seeing dog or cat meat.\n "
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fv1v53 | if humans know stuff by instinct i.e. babies sucking a teet for milk, why can't more information be given to us in this way? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fv1v53/eli5_if_humans_know_stuff_by_instinct_ie_babies/ | {
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"Because it’s not essential for survival and/or too complex. Instinctive behaviors have a survival value; babies who didn’t have suck reflex didn’t survive. They are not behaviors that are transmitted by an external action (I.e. a mother can’t wish for her baby to be born with knowledge of Pythagoras’ theorem) but behaviors that have developed spontaneously and enabled survival of the individual/species.",
"Well...in theory they could be. There are animals that have instincts we lack that are useful to them. However, this would be more of a problem than a benefit if it goes into \"higher order\" sort of areas. Remember that instincts aren't really things we control!\n\nAdaptation for survival is always inclusive of the context into which an organism exists. The more awesome seeming something might be to know instinctively, the more likely it is to be _wrong_ in some changed environment. What we have is a brain that is uniquely able to apply thought and decision making to changed environments. So...if we had developed some awesome instinct about how to grow corn on how to dissect a cow we'd be fucked in an environment that where corn wasn't able to be grown due to weather. So...its better to have higher-order things not be instinctual and therefore not under control but instead to have the ability to learn and adapt using our mind.",
"Because we wouldn't fit. Any information you know at any point in your life is encoded in connections in neurons in your brain. Humans are born as mostly blank slates and we *still* have 100 *billion* neurons at birth. And we immediately begin *synaptic pruning* - trimming unnecessary connections between neurons to \"clean up\" the brain, like defragging a hard drive and deleting junk files.\n\nHumans are already at a disadvantage. The shape of hips necessary for walking upright is not compatible with the shape of hips necessary for easy childbirth. Childbirth can be traumatic for any animal, but if you watch videos you'll notice a lot of animals just let them slip out. It's pretty easy. During labor, a human mother's hip bones will shift (painfully) to widen the gap and make it easier for the baby to exit the womb. The cervix dilates up to *ten centimeters* to accommodate the baby, *and* the vagina dilates and stretches. Even so, there is still usually a lot of tearing around the vagina. *Plus* the baby's skull is very soft and [literally gets squeezed out of shape](_URL_0_) as it gets pushed through.\n\nChildbirth mortality rates for humans are downright ghastly compared to other animals. We don't really appreciate that in the modern era when c-sections are commonplace and modern medicine can perform what would be considered miracles even a hundred years ago. Just about everything that can be wrong about human childbirth *is* wrong. And it all mostly comes down to two reasons: 1) we walk upright, and 2) babies' heads are just too damn big. To top it all off, human hips are on average getting *smaller* with each generation.\n\nIn order to be born with a lot of strong instincts like walking and fending for ourselves, we would need even larger brains at birth. Or else, we would have to sacrifice some of our ability to learn. We can't afford bigger brains at birth. Childbirth is already too risky for the mother - although again, modern medicine is changing that. Humans evolved to create societies and pass down knowledge through interactions and education rather than genetically, so we *need* to be able to learn to survive, so going the other direction would be difficult (and, I think, undesirable. Natural selection doesn't particularly *care* what is desirable, but still...)."
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33q0b5 | how can u.s. police forces and marshall's seize enormous amounts of personal cash and property without due process without being immediately challenged for violating the 4th amendment? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33q0b5/eli5_how_can_us_police_forces_and_marshalls_seize/ | {
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"Be civil forfeiture laws were written so they can charge your property with a crime not you. Your property doesn't have rights. ",
"That's the question for the ages....worse than that, if property and cash are confiscated and the victim is found to be not guilty of the crime, they rarely get their property back without a huge fight and sometimes never. I know...it happened to a friend of mine. We as a nation have fallen so far.",
" > without due process...\n\nThat's where you tripped up. Police don't just take stuff, they present their case to a judge, the judge issues an order, and that order can be appealed. You can argue whether that is sufficient due process, but it is incorrect to claim it is completely without due process.\n\nAlso, in many cases, victims of civil forfeiture are coerced into waiving their rights, usually to avoid criminal prosecution. That doesn't make it right, but it does take it out of the realm of the Fourth Amendment.",
"It's because they can. Of course it is unconstitutional but most times it's give up your possessions or go to jail. Intimidation and coercion are powerful tools. They have guns and they want your money or goods. IF you want to try to get it back it'll cost you time and money, most people don't bother.",
"The same reason every other institutionalized egregious miscarriage of justice goes on unchecked: we allow it to. We continue to re-elect politicians who vote for laws like this to begin with, and then continue to support them.\n\nShort of an actual armed invasion, you don't wake up one morning and the country is suddenly being run by fascists. Rather, people vote fascists into office and then continue to re-elect them. We impose it on ourselves.\n\n\n",
"The original purpose of the law was to allow the government to deny criminals the fruits of their labor. For example, let's say Johnny is 32 years old and has not held a job since he was 16. However, Johnny is a very successful cocaine smuggler and has expensive cars, jewelry, house, etc. If the government cannot make a criminal case against Johnny, they can seize his property and say, \"prove that you bought these with legally earned income and you can have them back\". It was supposed to be a powerful tool in the war on drugs. However, the threshold was purposefully kept low and it has been abused. \n\nEdit: It's also a powerful tool in large scale fraud investigations. \n\nEdit 2: Forgot to answer your question. The threshold is articulated suspicion which satisfies \"Oath or affirmation\". Is the threshold too low? Maybe. Either way there definitely needs to be more safeguards in place. "
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5a4l3e | in an air conditioner, why does it require energy to literally take energy out of the air? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a4l3e/eli5_in_an_air_conditioner_why_does_it_require/ | {
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"You're not just taking it out of the air, you're taking it to one place and putting it in another, typically a hotter one. Hot air normally wants to go from hot areas to cold ones, to get to equilibrium. You're trying to force it to go backward, making the cool area colder and the hot area hotter.",
"In science class, when they told you energy couldn't be created or destroyed, just transformed from one form to another, they left out one important point: heat is energy's last stop.\n\nAll the other forms of energy: electricity, kinetic, potential, light, whatever, all wind up as heat one way or another in the end. That's what entropy is. Basically, entropy is the ratio of heat to all energy total. When that ratio reaches 100%, then the universe is over. That's the \"heat death of the universe\" you may hear from time to time.\n\n(I'm oversimplifying, of course. You're five; you'll understand when you're older. And go to college. And don't sleep through it like I did.)\n\nYou can still get energy out of heat, but that's done by letting heat flow from a hot place to a cold place and intercepting it as it does so. Much the way a water wheel or a hydroelectric dam gets energy by intercepting water as it flows from a high place to a low place. You get energy out, but the amount of water never changed.\n\n(Think of a nuclear power plant generating heat and then releasing it through the cooling towers. The cooling towers are just as important as the reactor.)\n\nGoing the other way, since you can't destroy heat energy, all you can do is *pump* it from the cool area (air-conditioned room, refrigerator) to a hotter area (outside). Pumping heat from a cool area to a warm area takes energy. Furthermore, there are reasons in the laws of thermodynamics why this can never be 100% efficient.\n\nSee [Carnot Cycle](_URL_0_) for the nitty-gritty.",
"The nature of thermodynamics is that things will slowly become homogeneous over time. A room of air will eventually have one uniform temperature.\n\nOrganizing the air such that one area is cold and one is hot works against this, and doing so takes energy.\n\nYou might think that you could just use the heat energy in the air to power this process of organization. But the heat itself is not useful for providing you with energy. Only a difference in temperature provides energy that we can use."
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4ruogw | why does your brain not mute chronic pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ruogw/eli5why_does_your_brain_not_mute_chronic_pain/ | {
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"Pain serves a purpose, it exists to limit further damage, and anything which 'removes pain' is a very risky proposition. If you're ignorant of damage, you may continue to damage yourself, and that can be anything from inconvenient to deadly.\n\nEvolution itself isn't really perfect or anything, it doesn't have a good way to know that pain is \"chronic\" or not. It just knows that those sensors are sending signals, and so it reports pain. \n\nIf chronic pain was a big enough issue that it dramatically reduced reproductive success odds, we might see evolutionary pressures towards dealing with that, but it is likely the case that 'loss of pain sensitivity' would be far more dangerous to reproductive success odds, unless it somehow happened to evolve just 'perfectly' which is quite unlikely."
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4hnq6z | if you touch a live wire without touching the ground, will electricity go through your body, will you get an electric shock? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hnq6z/eli5_if_you_touch_a_live_wire_without_touching/ | {
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"Electrical engineer here. Short answer no. You have to complete the circuit whether it be earth ground or a chassis common. This is why you disconnect the negative terminal on your car battery first, why high power/voltage technicians can work on 10s kV live wires hanging out of a helicopter and why you have to jump onto an AM radio tower not just climb it from ground. If you are isolated you are safe. "
]
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||
3e4z18 | why do people associate the phases of the moon with giving birth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e4z18/eli5_why_do_people_associate_the_phases_of_the/ | {
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"Fertility is associated with the moon because *menstrual cycles* (whose name shares roots with *moon*) are about the same length as the moon's cycles.\n\nThis led people to imagine there might be a link between moon phases and childbirth. [There is not.](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://health.howstuffworks.com/pregnancy-and-parenting/pregnancy/labor-delivery/births-full-moon.htm"
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||
2yy3mq | just got back from dubai and can't understand where it gets all its money? | The whole city is brand new and basically the future. How did Dubai afford this and why can't other cities replicate it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yy3mq/eli5_just_got_back_from_dubai_and_cant_understand/ | {
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"Oil money and slave labor can do some amazing things. Once the oil money started pushing the city up real estate and construction started to take over as everyone wanted a piece of this city that has been marketed as the future. ",
" > Dubai's oil revenue helped accelerate the early development of the city, but its reserves are limited and production levels are low: today, less than 5% of the emirate's revenue comes from oil. The emirate's Western-style model of business drives its economy with the main revenues now coming from tourism, aviation, real estate, and financial services.\n\n[Wikipedia](_URL_0_)",
"It grew off the back of oil, but is now run by tourism and other exports/imports. It is also a financial hub for the Middle East with it's own securities and trades system. A large chunk of their wealth is tied up in real estate, and it was hit very hard back in 2008-2009. They have recovered well but not all the way. Also, a bunch of rich people invested into its growth back in the 90's and early 2000's.\n\nEdit: To answer the second part of the question, Dubai is an exception to the general rule. Everything happened just right and lots of money from lots of investors were involved."
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7k3662 | why is sex pleasurable and yet childbirth is incredibly painful? [likely to be nsfw] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7k3662/eli5_why_is_sex_pleasurable_and_yet_childbirth_is/ | {
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"text": [
"Sex drive is something all animals share. It's a basic, instinctual thing. Being able to even *understand* that there's a link between sex and childbirth is a uniquely human thing. Millions of years of evolution aren't going to change just because childbirth becomes unpleasant.\n\n...and the main reason childbirth is hard for humans is because we've evolved these ridiculously oversized heads to hold our oversized brains.",
"It's the result of the conflicting evolutionary strategies between humans being both smart *and* bipedal. In order to walk upright like we do, our pelvises have to be the shape and size that they are. At the same time, our intelligence requires big brains which means big heads; heads that have to fit through the opening in the pelvis that can't get any bigger. The result is that when babies are born, they're really as big as they can be to still come out. There's no extra room at all. That makes birth dangerous and painful."
]
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[],
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||
aiaj8q | how can does pressure points work, and how can they relieve things such as anxiety and stress? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aiaj8q/eli5_how_can_does_pressure_points_work_and_how/ | {
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"text": [
"Your question assumes “pressure points” somehow “work. “ are you referring to acupressure which I believe lacks ... evidence? I’m worried your question is a non-sequitur. ",
"pressure points are just areas ~~near the surface~~ where nerves and/or vasculature are close to the surface, which makes it possible to cause extreme sensations, usually pain, with minimal effort. \n\nalthough there are traditions that hold that manipulating these points can do the things you describe, they have yet to stand up to scientific scrutiny, despite numerous inquiries.\n\nedit: redundancy is redundant. ",
"I don’t know about it helping anxiety but it can help manage the symptoms I have with my stress and anxiety which manifest in tight shoulders and headaches. But it’s more that those areas are sore and happen to be pressure points than the point being magic in my opinion.\n\nAlthough when I’m in a bind and have no painkillers, pinching between the thumb and index finger can take off the edge of a bad headache but again it’s only treating symptoms not your anxiety and stress in the first place.\n\nI wouldn’t recommend looking to this as treatment of the root of your anxiety it can only help you cope with its physical manifestations. \n\nYour best options are exercise(raise endorphins and get out nervous energy), talking/therapy and if needed speak to a doc about medication as it could be a chemical imbalance that no amount of poking or yoga will fix 😛 \n\nI hope I’ve provided some info you can use!"
]
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[],
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||
8gk1t3 | how do authorities catch people who have been caught in surveillance even if the quality was too low to identify the suspect? | Let’s say there were no witnesses involved, yet in some cases they are able to catch the criminal. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8gk1t3/eli5_how_do_authorities_catch_people_who_have/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Surveillance isn't like TV, they don't do facial recognition and run it against all the driver's licenses in the state, most of the time.\n\nIn an area, you have a limited number of potential folks you could identify. You find characteristics, like \"bald guy\" or \"arm tattoo\" that help you separate the \"matches the video\" people from the \"doesn't match the video\" people.\n\nThen you go and talk to those people. Even with low quality video, you have a shorter list than just talking to everybody in the area. Occasionally, they run out of leads, so they polish up the best of the pictures and put it on TV. In reality, that only works a little bit of the time."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
s49hq | what are the differences (if any) between
cispa and sopa and why isn't there a huge outcry
again? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s49hq/eli5_what_are_the_differences_if_any_between/ | {
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"Funnily enough, I was just in the middle of reading [this article](_URL_0_) on Lifehacker. Some exerpts:\n\n > If passed, CISPA would amend the National Security Act of 1947 to allow government agencies to swap customer data from Internet service providers and websites if that data is a threat to \"cyber-security.\" On a basic level the bill is meant to provide a means for companies and the government to share information with one another to fight against cyber threats.\n\n > CISPA makes it possible for private companies to share potential cyber threat information with the government if the government concludes it needs it for cyber security information (and vice versa). SOPA gave courts the power to remove DNS listings if a site was hosting copyrighted information. CISPA is more about security whereas SOPA was about intellectual property.\n\n > The main reason companies are supporting CISPA is because it takes the pressure to regulate users off the private company. SOPA required private companies to keep track of what its users were doing and held private companies liable for its users. CISPA transfers that role and responsibility over to a government entity. Effectively, it makes it so a company cannot be sued by a user for handing their information over to the law.\n\nWhy hasn't there been another huge outcry? Because I don't think enough people have found out about CISPA, yet. SOPA and PIPA were everywhere during the height of the protests, and CISPA is pretty quiet at the moment. But I am seeing more people talking about it, and asking about it (like you!), and I think things will gain enough momentum in no time.",
"cispa and sopa have nothing to do with each other except that they both have to do with the internet - this is as bad of a false equivalency as that question last month about \"why has there been no outcry about pulling out of afghanistan?\" someone who knows very little about the subject matter in question (or doesn't care) **asks a thinly veiled political question in eli5 trying to stir shit up**. stop it.\n\ncispa isn't a bill that will allow the government to shut down websites. cispa isn't a bill that will allow the government to spy on private citizens. know why? if cispa passes, the executive agency will be the nsa, and the nsa has their hands full with external threats. domestic spying by the nsa *has* happened, but this isn't about warrantless wiretaps, this is about sharing cyber security information between the nsa (the government's chief cyber security agency) and private companies.\n\nbelieve me when i say, general alexander is a *very* sharp individual, and he is 100% on top of this \"external cyber threats\" issue. he himself is hesitant about the implications of this bill, and very strongly insists that the nsa wants nothing to do with \"monitoring private networks\" outside of sharing security information.\n\nthat sort of spooky, \"government is out to get you\" bullshit only flies in circles where people don't know shit about network security - why in the world would the nsa care enough about private company networks to devote the staggering man-hours necessary to \"monitor private networks?\" in what universe does even the nsa have enough people and money to sit around all day and keep an eye on the traffic of every private router in america? get real.",
"Someone said it already, but the government will keep pumping out these anti-piracy/\"copyright infringement\" acts until the Internet stops caring/petitioning. It's pretty much futile, since they'll just come up with another if one act fails to pass.",
"It took a number of months for it to gain attention as the media was pretty silent about it. I remember telling my friends about it before the new year, and no one seemed to care / didn't think it was real. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://lifehacker.com/5900962/why-microsoft-and-facebook-are-pro%20cispa-but-anti%20sopa"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2kmgvs | eli 5 : why does the brain/mouth sometimes swap the first letter of two words? ie. saying cetch the surve instead of sketch the curve | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kmgvs/eli_5_why_does_the_brainmouth_sometimes_swap_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"clmolib"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Because the representations in the brain greatly overlap. 'Sss' and 'Shh' are both stored in the brain as front-of-the-tongue sounds, and 'c' sounds can be 's' sounds at times, for example, so the brain confuses these more often than sounds that are made by different parts of the tongue. ‘Sally sells seashells’ is tricky. ‘Mally sells sea-smells’ is not."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5axu9l | why do rooms have ambient noise? what exactly am i hearing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5axu9l/eli5_why_do_rooms_have_ambient_noise_what_exactly/ | {
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"text": [
"The air conditioner/heater vents can rumble.\n\nSome lighting, especially office lights, have a \"ballast\" which can produce a buzz.",
"The walls have water pipes in them that make noise. The heating or AC makes noise. Cars driving outside make noise. You being in the room makes noise. \n\nRooms have flat walls which is prime for echo-creating. The more crap in the room the less sound there may be since it gets absorbed by objects, but if you have a couple bare flat walls, the sound can basically bounce back and forth between them for quite awhile."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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||
4w7vz6 | why does the united states spend such an obscene amount of money on the military, but not on its education system? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4w7vz6/eli5_why_does_the_united_states_spend_such_an/ | {
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"text": [
"Part of it is the fact that the military is what allows us to be the Super power in the world. Without the strong military we would not be capable of living the life with the access to resources that we have and freedom of movement that we have. Now we could cut our spending almost in half and still have the best funded military in the world so this is only a partial answer, but that is the primary logic of it. \n\nAs or education, the US does not have a federal education system. There is virtually no money spent on it because the federal government does not really have the authority to govern it. That is a power that resides with the States and by extension the local governments. ",
"Why is the question always military or education? Why not military or subsidizing rum in Puerto Rico? Or military or buy more land to keep people out (not just national parks)? Crappy examples, I know, but there are a million things the government pays for that shouldn't be. I say take all of that money and beef up education and the military. "
]
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[],
[]
] |
||
3lqhn9 | do high-pitched sounds hurt my hearing? | E.g [the Mosquito alarm](_URL_0_). I get a creepy sensation when I hear the sound, but does it physically hurt my eardrum? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lqhn9/eli5do_highpitched_sounds_hurt_my_hearing/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv8hu0v"
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"text": [
"The louder the sound, the more it can damage your ear. However, the pitch does not affect it. In fact, if you keep increasing the pitch on a sound it will get to the point where you can no longer hear it. \n\nHowever, higher pitch means more sound waves vibrating your eardrum per second, which is why they are much more noticeable. "
]
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKl_sTh0oHE"
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[]
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44ddkz | docker | _URL_0_ - Does not compute with me. I need an explanation without apples and bananas analogues, please. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44ddkz/eli5_docker/ | {
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"It is meant to help running a software that is delivered from a maker, to a runner. The maker, is the guys who made the software from programming to a bunch of runnable files. The runner, is the guys who intend to start this software and use it for their own purpose, usually as a website with possibly other services on the side. Typically a company is hired to make software needed by another company. It needs to deliver the software in the form of files that will run well on the other company's computers.\n\nDocker help these two in a way similar as virtual machines do. A problem these two have, is that the maker doesn't know entirely the computers that the runner will be using. The OS and other core components might be in this or that minor version which has this or that bug or limitation. Or they may be running on the side some programs that create conflicts but no one knew that.\n\nBy the use of a virtual machine, both the maker and the runner agree to use exactly the same OS, in exactly the same versions, running exactly the same software, and this is achieved by making a virtual machine image of said OS, and running it in a virtual machine, in both sides, when developing, testing, and deploying it. This solves a lot of problems between the maker and the runner.\n\nWell docker is not a virtual machine. It is called a container. The idea is that the virtual machine does too much, as it runs an entire OS for each software deployed. That's a waste of computing resources.\n\nInstead, the maker and the runner can agree to use the same container, here docker, and container version. Then the container is in charge of making the software run in enough isolation and abstraction, that it doesn't matter what the rest of the OS is made of.\n\nFor that to work, the software has to follow the rules of docker, such as how to start the software, how to make files that depend on the running machine's IP address or similar, and how to specify where to look at a database.\n"
]
} | [] | [
"https://www.docker.com/"
] | [
[]
] |
|
18uc2p | if flowers have adapted to be pretty, to spread their seeds, then why are the prettiest ones usually more rare? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18uc2p/eli5_if_flowers_have_adapted_to_be_pretty_to/ | {
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"text": [
"You first assumption that flowers are adapted to be pretty is false.",
"Because humans are not the ones they have adapted to. Most flowers adapt not for spreading seeds, but for attracting pollinators. Flowers are vibrantly colored (often moreso if you can see in the ultraviolet spectrum) to attract bees, butterflies, and other pollinator species. \n\nFruit, on the other hand, is adapted to help spread seeds. And most of them appeal to the creature best suited for that spread. Strawberries have little hard seeds on their outside which the birds, which eat the fruit, will pass along through their digestive tract.\n\nSome fruit have hard pits which are discarded later by the creature eating the fruit.\n\nEvolution favors the flowering plants that can attract pollinators, repel \"greedy\" species that don't spread pollen, and creatures that will cast the seeds far to new areas."
]
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[],
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] |
||
4t9fsa | how is everything in earth's orbit free falling, and how does it always miss earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4t9fsa/eli5_how_is_everything_in_earths_orbit_free/ | {
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"d5fkpzn"
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"_URL_0_\n\nIf you shoot a cannon horizontal to the ground, the shell falls to the ground, eventually.\n\nBut - if you give the cannonball enough speed and height to fall from, it'll keep \"falling off the edge\". Essentially - orbit. \n\nBeing in orbit ... is falling off the edge of the world ... at the exact same speed the \"edge of the world\" falls away under you."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://perseshow.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/canon.png"
]
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||
k7w7w | when i squint my eyes at a bright light, it seems to break into thin beams and look like a star | I'm sure many people do this, it works best with small, bright lights. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k7w7w/eli5_when_i_squint_my_eyes_at_a_bright_light_it/ | {
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"text": [
"This is my first ELI5 so it might not be good, but here goes.\n\nThe photography concept that will help explain it is the idea of a star filter. it looks like this:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nYou'll notice that there is a grid on the filter. When one of these is on the front of the lens, this happens:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe reason this happens is because light follows the lines on the grid. If you spin the star filter, the little lines coming from the light will also spin. What this means for you is that when you squint your eyes, the light that is coming in follows the lines in front of your eyes which are your eyelashes.",
"A wild guess, but I'm gonna go with diffraction and/or shadows from your eyelashes.",
"This is my first ELI5 so it might not be good, but here goes.\n\nThe photography concept that will help explain it is the idea of a star filter. it looks like this:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nYou'll notice that there is a grid on the filter. When one of these is on the front of the lens, this happens:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe reason this happens is because light follows the lines on the grid. If you spin the star filter, the little lines coming from the light will also spin. What this means for you is that when you squint your eyes, the light that is coming in follows the lines in front of your eyes which are your eyelashes.",
"A wild guess, but I'm gonna go with diffraction and/or shadows from your eyelashes."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://p.lefux.com/61/20091104/A1274000CT/InsetImage/MASSA-77mm-4-Cross-Point-Star-Lens-Filter_4.jpg",
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"http://p.lefux.com/61/20091104/A1274000CT/InsetImage/MASSA-77mm-4-Cross-Point-Star-Lens-Filter_4.jpg",
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|
4vdj73 | why are the nominees for major political parties entitled to intelligence briefings by the cia? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vdj73/eli5why_are_the_nominees_for_major_political/ | {
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"text": [
"The CIA is a government agency with a practical job to do. If they decide that informing certain people of certain facts will make their job easier, they can do so.\n\nThe limitation is that some government information is only available to people with a certain level of security clearance -- regardless of whether they are candidates. If elected, they automatically get a certain level of clearance.",
"Remember when you came to class completely unprepared on your first day of school, how nothing made sense, and too much at once without understanding fully all the other pieces to the puzzle. Imagine that on the scale of the World. Doing your homework matters, and for one of these people, they have a 4 year test coming up, I'd want them to do all the homework they can.",
"They aren't entitled at all. The President chooses to allow for these few briefings so that the nominees can campaign a bit more informed of the happenings in the world that they otherwise might not know. The President, at any point and for any reason can decide not to do it for one or both nominees. It's just been traditional for the last half century or so to have these briefings."
]
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[],
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||
820a9y | i just heard that there is absolutely no way to be anonymous on the internet - is this true? is there a way to make sure that no one knows who you are on the internet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/820a9y/eli5_i_just_heard_that_there_is_absolutely_no_way/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv6i01l"
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"text": [
"Somebody knows, or can know, who you are. It all depends on who you're trying to hide your identity from. Hiding from your Mom's review of your browser history is not the same as hiding from the NSA.\n\nIf you use the internet from home, your ISP sees every byte you send and they can copy it down. Perhaps the data is encrypted, but not the IP address of the people you are talking to. Your ISP knows who you are (or at least who pays the bill) and what data you sent to whom.\n\nIn a public Internet cafe, the people who run the place AND their ISP see everything. This is the same, except the people who own the place probably also have a security camera that took your picture while you were using their Internet.\n\nYou can use Tor, but then the output node knows everything you sent. Maybe that's some anarchist that doesn't keep records, or maybe it's the KGB, the whole point of Tor is you don't know.\n\nBy doing combinations of these things, and living in a country with no extradition treaty, you might be able to avoid the NSA. However, it's much easier to not have them want to track you by not using the Internet to be a terrorist."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5rk2jv | what are "sovereign citizens"? i've heard the term a couple times and see it online but don't really understand what they are and how they work | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rk2jv/eli5_what_are_sovereign_citizens_ive_heard_the/ | {
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"text": [
"Basically it is a semi-delusional believe by some anti-government individuals that, through some bizarre interpretation of the language of the law that people are not actually subject to the law or the constitution and the government has no real jurisdiction over them and are exempt from things like paying taxes.\n\nThey don't work.",
"Essentially they're nuts who believe that because they haven't specifically consented to being governed by laws, laws don't apply to them.\n\nThey have some wacky legal justifications for their beliefs but they've been laughed out of every court in the land.",
"Dumb people who believe they don't have to follow rules of society like the rest of us. Having said that, I've read that if you're stopped by a police officer and declare yourself a \"Sovereign Citizen\" you'll be treated differently, but still under the rule of law. I don't remember how differently you'll be treated, because I read that article a long time ago.",
"Essentially it's a group of separatists who believe that if you don't acknowledge the authority of a government, then it doesn't have any authority over you. They don't feel like they are subject to follow the laws of the government because they never agreed to be a citizen of that nation. Often they will cite antiquated laws or letters (such as the Articles of Confederation) as giving them this power to ignore governmental authority.\n\nOften times you will hear them parse words during traffic stops about how they aren't \"driving\" but rather \"travelling.\" This is a reference to the Articles of Confederation which said that \"free inhabitants\" have the freedom to \"travel\" from state to state. So if a cop pulls one over for doing 100 in a 55 mph zone, that traffic stop is \"illegal\" because it violates their right to \"travel\" freely.\n\nMost of the ones I've seen on YouTube act like they know the laws and how they don't have to obey them, but they typically only parrot poor interpretations or versions of laws that have no relevance or aren't even applicable. They simply like the idea of not being subject to any government, so they believe anything that serves this purpose, even if it makes no sense or completely fabricated out of thin air.",
"I assume sovereign citizens feel the way they do because [this article](_URL_0_) on *PEOPLE or CITIZEN WHICH ONE ARE YOU?* which states:\n\n > From the beginning, in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the people were acknowledged as the source of authority, i.e. the sovereignty which authorized the Declaration of Independence.\n\n > After the Declaration of Independence, but before the ordainment and establishment of the Constitution, the people of the United States pretty much handled their own affairs using the common law. They were not subject to any higher authority other than the authority of the common law as administered by the people themselves (self governance). Although the states did exist, they only existed by the authority of the people. Every man was a king, and every woman a queen--and none had any subjects. Upon declaring our independence, we all became sovereigns and members of the peerage (nobility).",
"The child-like belief that if you don't accept the rules, you don't have to follow them. It nice and empowering in theory, but if you want to interact with anyone else in a meaningful cooperative way, you necessarily have to participate in the social contract to some degree.\n\nDoesn't mean you can't and shouldn't opt out and go live on your own land doing your own self sustaining thing, but if you want to drive a car on a public road with other citizens, then you're expected to have and show your license (for example) because otherwise society would be chaotic and dangerous (etc).\n\nIt's all well and good saying you're a human being that never signed up for this, you were born into this and you _can_ opt out, although _really_ opting out is much more difficult than just going around being self-centred and ignoring all the conventions. can't just play by your own rules on govt soil, around other citizens, without coming up against (justified and reasonable) opposition.",
"They tend to use a lot of wordplay and use their own interpretations on things, American ones often citing the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. For example, someone can get on a bus without a fare or get stopped at a simple DUI checkpoint and start arguing about the right to travel unmolested. In reality, the right to travel unmolested means you can walk to your destinations."
]
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2q2sgb | when does a cult become a religion? | Or what are the key differences? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q2sgb/eli5_when_does_a_cult_become_a_religion/ | {
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"text": [
"By definition a cult is simply the worship of a deity or aspect often through a ritual lifestyle. The word originates from the Greeks where their cults engaged in total dedication to a Greek gods. While the followers of Applo lived in towers and made oracles the follows of Dionysus got drunk and had wild parties. Today we still have this form of lifestyle worship of God in monastic and cloistered living. In Jeudaism we see this with Hasidic worship. This is normal In other words it is a misnomer to think that cults are bad. They are actually very normal and still very common. \n\nin the United States the word cult has come to mean something very differnt then the dictionary definition. In the US it is used to mean a relgion that is doing evil or bad things. This is totally subjective and is Used to discredit religions that don't conform to mainstream views. ",
"The definition that sociologists use for a cult is simply a group of people with a particular religious practice. You often hear about it in context of ancient Greek/Roman religions used this way - eg \"The cult of Demeter\" are the people that particularly focussed on the worship of the goddess Demeter while still recognizing the pantheon as a whole. Other similar terms could be \"sect\" or \"denomination\".\n\nIn common usage, a cult is a new religion that has dangerous and destructive beliefs. They might just be an offshoot of a major religion that focuses on a charismatic leader or divergent doctrine, but they could also be something completely new, such as people that worship some sort of UFO aliens. This is normally what you hear about on talk shows when they talk about people escaping cults & being brainwashed.\n\nThese days, people discussing things seriously tend to use the term [new religious movement](_URL_0_) to describe an upstart religious group if they want a term without all the negative connotations of \"cult\".\n\nUltimately, as with many things in the social sciences, there's few hard & fast rules that define how old a set of beliefs should be before it becomes widely accepted. For example, the LDS (Mormon) Church has 15 million members & has been around for over 150 years and some people still don't consider them a 'real religion'."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_religious_movement"
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1lw2sx | why is god referred to as a "he"? is there a historical context for this, and are religious institutions offended by calling god "she" or "it"? | I am Specifically referring to the Christian god, in any Of the three Abrahamic religions and their related spoken languages. I understand some languages do not use genders so god is automatically "It." why is god typically referred to in English as "He" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lw2sx/eli5_why_is_god_referred_to_as_a_he_is_there_a/ | {
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"In English, 'he' is the default, gender-neutral pronoun to use when talking about a person. People frequently to anthropomorphize (treat as if it is human) God so \"he\"/\"she\" would be used rather than \"it\".\n\nBeyond that, Christianity comes out of a fairly male-dominated society. The Bible frequently uses terms like \"LORD\" and \"Father\" to refer to God - which give it a masculine connotation.",
"Because the Christian God is frequently referred to in scripture as \"father.\" But there are clearly passages that also refer to God with female metaphors."
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1q4ns7 | why when if you have a dvd with scratchs you used toothpaste to fix it | i have never understood why this could work | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q4ns7/eli5why_when_if_you_have_a_dvd_with_scratchs_you/ | {
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"There is a relatively thick layer of protection on the surface of the DVD. When a scratch occurs, it can deflect the light of the laser causing the DVD to be mis-read. Toothpaste has polishing agents in it that polish out the scratch, thus restoring the surface.\n\nFun Fact: this protective layer is so strong that some say that the \"data side\" of the DVD is stronger than the label side."
]
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|
c2vh8k | why do seemingly non-perishable items — like rubbing alcohol, dental floss and body lotion — have expiration dates? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c2vh8k/eli5_why_do_seemingly_nonperishable_items_like/ | {
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"While there is actual chemical breakdown where certain items eventually do become less effective or physically break down (items from 1970 would likely not be very effective for instance), most of it's marketing designed to get people to toss stuff out and replace it.\n\nIt's even the same with foods: The 'best by' date has a grain of truth to it as far as when it begins to chemically alter and lose its desired taste, but is NOT the same thing as an 'expiration date,' something that only applies to certain food items (mostly baby products, dairy, etc). Very often canned and dried goods can survive much, much longer than people think and get tossed for no reason at all.\n\nDon't take this as an invitation to eat random 30 year old tins of beans, mind you, since things can definitely go bad and in dangerous ways, but chances are you can ignore the date on dental floss or lotion.",
"Disclaimer: this is an educated guess, but my understanding is that exposure to air and/or moisture (even if that moisture is just from the air) can cause things to deteriorate or change such that their original makeup or effectiveness changes. At that point, while it may not appear bad it is essentially expired.",
"The FDA requires everything that it regulates to have an expiration date no later than 2 years from the date it was made unless the manufacturer can prove that the product lasts longer than that. Its expensive to prove that a product lasts longer than 2 years, and so most manufacturers just slap the 2 year expiration date on non-perishable goods.\n\nDental floss is regulated by the FDA and so is subject to that expiration date requirement.",
"It’s not only about the product itself, but about the integrity of the packaging it comes in. \n\nAs that packaging deteriorates or becomes compromised somehow, air/water/bacteria/etc. as well elements of the broken down packaging can enter and affect/compromise the product inside, possibly as far as making the product unsafe for use/consumption.\n\nThat’s why even centuries-old Himalayan sea salt sold in stores carries a use-by date."
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6vxk7b | what does the process of inventing an entire new language like klingon or valyrian look like? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vxk7b/eli5_what_does_the_process_of_inventing_an_entire/ | {
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"I think you have to start with the sounds (phonetics). Most authors who created fictional languages, such as Tolkien, found inspiration in languages they liked, which they did not always talk themselves.\n\nYou also need an alphabet, and it can be more or less cryptic, depending on what you like. If you want it to be relatively easy to learn, it should not differ too much from real-life alphabets. In each case, there has to be a strong link between sounds and letters. \nI think Valyrian uses the Latin alphabet. \n\nThen you can invent words. They can be totally made up, but you will probably wish to give your new lexicon some etymologies, so words that indicate the same kind of objects also ressemble in shape. Then again, you can (and will, more often than not) find inspiration in modern or ancient languages. \nIn Valyrian, \"dragon fire\" is \"dracarys\". The inventor used the Latin etymon \"draco\" (which is still recognizable in English, too). \nIt is a very long work. I'm not an expert in Klingon, but I think Valyrian does not have a lot of words,probably because G. Martin could care more for linguistics. \n\nYou will also need grammar rules. How do verbs work in your language? Do the nouns decline? Does the order of the words in a sentence change its meaning? \nIn order to invent a new language you will always study a lot of languages from around the world, and you can borrow some of their grammar rules, easy or intricate. \n\nThen... You have to try and learn it and test it out, lol. "
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||
1g4h5u | why don't they use hawkeye on every point in tennis, to avoid human error? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g4h5u/eli5_why_dont_they_use_hawkeye_on_every_point_in/ | {
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"Tradition, I guess. Otherwise umpires would become useless and out of a job. I also imagine having a qualified person there to make a split-second decision speeds up the process, instead of spending half the match watching a video replay. This is the reason why FIFA refuse to bring in video technology, because they feel referees would become redundant and there would be too much wasted time.",
"It takes a little bit of time to confirm or reverse a call. Why waste this time after every play and make matches longer?\n\nMost points don't have any controversial shots worth reviewing. Why bother using a machine to tell that the ball didn't make it over the net or went out by two feet?\n\nSince there are multiple people judging where the ball bounces on any given point, the officiating is generally reliable. Hawkeye is good too, albeit still not perfect. However, the on-court officials have the advantage of being able to communicate with players and to understand all the rules of the game. \n\nNot every tennis court has this technology available to them, so some matches can't use it. Also, all players have are used to playing matches without it. ",
"Multiple reasons:\n\nFirst, cost. Many smaller tournaments can't afford to have hawkeye installed, and even the Grand Slams and Masters 1000 tournaments only use it on their larger courts due to the cost of installing them everywhere. \n\nSecond, time. The vast majority of calls are made correctly and *immediately* by the umpires. There's no need to wait 15 seconds for every call on hawkeye instead of letting the umpires do so right away. \n\nThird, clay courts. On clay courts, the ball hitting the court leaves a mark, so there are no clay court tournaments (to my knowledge) that use hawkeye, though the larger ones (like the French Open) do have an unofficial hawkeye installed on some courts. Personally I believe it's ridiculous (and more time consuming) to have the umpire have to climb out of his/her chair and check a very vague mark on the court, but it's probably kept for tradition over anything else. "
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4a1dfw | what is happening when the shower water pressure drops and the water gets hotter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a1dfw/eli5_what_is_happening_when_the_shower_water/ | {
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"If someone flushes a toilet or turns on the cold water it reduces the pressure in the cold water feed lines, and thus the total flow for any one open tap. Since the water coming from the shower is a mix of hot and cold, reducing the cold water flow reduces the total flow but increases the *proportion* of that flow which is coming from the hot water feed.\n\nHow strong an effect it has will depend on how close (not physically, but in terms of the pipe layout) the newly opened tap is to the shower, and the details of the plumbing system.",
"Mine goes ice cold for a minute or two when the pressure drops. I have to do shower gymnastics to avoid the stream until it warms back up again",
"Modern shower valves eliminate this. I was surprised at how well it works, but I remodeled our shower and the local plumbing supply said it was required and now our shower temps are not affected by toilet flushes or any other uses.",
"Shower faucets are now mandated to have pressure balancers in them to avoid scalding due to pressure drops from other fixtures being turned on. You must live in an older home with non pressure balanced fixtures. Swap them out ..."
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||
8qu2b7 | why does taking a warm bath when you have a fever feel so cold? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8qu2b7/eli5_why_does_taking_a_warm_bath_when_you_have_a/ | {
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"Because - in order to slow down viral multiplication - your body increases the thermostat of your body. So what normally feels comfortable suddenly feels cold.\n\nUpdate: That's also why you sweat when you're recovering. The body lowers the thermostat back to normal temperature. Everything feels more hot as when you were sick. ",
"The temperature of your body is only 1-3 degrees Celsius warmer when you have a fever so the relative temperature argument is weak.\n\nWhen you have a fever you body warms up intentionally to kill the virus. So when you try to counteract that by going into water (which steals warmth quickly), your body exaggerates the coolness of the water.",
"think of it like this. when your body is hot, what normally is relatively warm (compared to your body's temperature) will feel relatively cold, basically what was equal to your bodys temperature when you were normal will now be lower than your bodys temperature so it feels cold",
"Imagine that your perception of cold is just the difference between the temperature of your body and the temperature of your surroundings. When you increase your temperature due to a fever, you increase the temperature gap between your body and the surroundings, giving you the *perception* that the bath is colder than it should be, when in actuality you are just warmer than you should be",
"You aren't actually able to sense absolute temperature. Only the temperature difference between yourself and other objects.\n\nSo if the other object is cooler than you, it feels cold\n\nEdit: /u/JDFidelius points out that it's more precise to say that you sense heat flow. This not only incorporates the sense of temperature difference, but also characteristics specific to the material you are touching. This is why for example a piece of metal feels colder than a piece of wood, even if they are both at 70º F.",
"Why does cold hurt so much? Is it because the contrast is too big?\n\nAlso I find it weird how one or two degrees (C) can affect your feeling of warmth so much, but if the room temperature raises one or two degrees it is not a big deal",
"Something that I didn’t see mentioned that should be said: When you have the chills a part of your brain (hypothalamus) is telling you that you’re cold, even when you aren’t. It leads you to perform a lot of heat-seeking behaviors like getting under a blanket or taking a hot shower. Your heat-seeking actions are helping your body to spike the fever.\n",
"Your ability to feel hot or cold isn’t about the temperature but is instead about the direction the heat is going.\n\nHeat always leaves the hotter object.\n\nIf heat leaves your body, you feel coldness. If heat enters your body, you feel heat.\n\nThe more heat that leaves, the colder you feel. \n\nAnd so, if you and the water are the same temperature (body temp), then it will just feel warm. Neither hot nor cold. But if you are hotter than the water (you have a fever), then the water will feel cold because heat is leaving you.",
"ELI5 in comments: why as someone with mental and physical chronic illnesses, I feel the healthiest right after I break a fever?",
"Body does not measure temperature, it measures temperature flux/direction. So Two Scenarios:\n1. Touch ice for 10 seconds and then place your finger at room temp water: it'll feel hot.\n2. Get cold, your body temperature rises, and take a hot shower, it'll feel cold.",
"Your body temperature is normally 5/10 hot \nLet's say the bath is 8/10 hot \nThen the fever makes your body 10/10 hot \nMaking 8/10 hot feel cold",
"The sensation of cold is simply the feeling that is produced when heat flows from your skin to another object. The opposite is true of a sensation of warmth. A 100F bath will thus feel warm to a person with a normal body temperature (99F) and cold to a person with a fever of higher than 100F!"
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37upbl | how are presidency candidates chosen every election? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37upbl/eli5how_are_presidency_candidates_chosen_every/ | {
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"There are 'mini-elections' (if you will) for each party (Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, etc.). I'm sure you have heard of primaries and caucuses? This is what those are for.\n\nSo, there are most likely going to be around 12-15 Republican candidates running. There will be a few debates, then the caucuses vote on who they want to be the Republican nominee. After this occurs, the bottom half that did very poor in the polls will most likely drop out - leaving 3-5 serious contenders. Then the primaries will vote on the rest of the candidates, and the winner is named the official Republican endorsed candidate - however the other candidates can still run as an independent (even though it's rare).",
"They are chosen through the primary elections.\n\nA primary election consist of members of the same party competing to be a presidential candidate. Members of the party vote on who progresses. For example, Ted Cruz, George Pataki, and Jeb Bush are all republicans who seek the nomination. Whoever wins will be up againts a democrat for president.",
"To expand, one thing my government teacher told us back in the day. \n\nThe candidate has to act extreme enough to gain their parties nomination. Meaning a GOP candidate can't run on legalizing weed. Then once nominated, has to switch to a middle point of view to gain national supoort, maybe controlled recreational use?"
]
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dw3fj9 | what is the silicon lottery (jackpot) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dw3fj9/eli5_what_is_the_silicon_lottery_jackpot/ | {
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"Some CPU parts are faster than others, even faster than you paid for. If you are willing to experimentally overclock, you can make your computer 10-20% faster.",
"Computer hardware is so extremely small and delicate that no one even tries to make it perfectly right. Every chip past a certain complexity is broken in one way or another, but that is fine and every design is made to have parts of the chip that can run too slow or too hot or be broken and still have that be okay. If your chip can't run at 3ghz, then you sell it as a chip that runs at 2ghz, if the math coprocessor in broken on half the chips you just sell it as a version without a coprocessor. A lot of products are actually the same product but \"binned\" into different categories by how well the thing actually came out. \n\n\nThe magic about this is that it means every bit of equipment is of unknown quality. And some of them happen to be just, really really good. Like maybe the chip won't run at 3ghz, but it will run at 2.999ghz but is sold as a 2ghz chip for a much lower price, maybe it'll run at 3ghz but just not with the cooling the testing process uses, maybe it'll run at 4ghz but they don't sell a 4ghz chip with the other specs it has so you got yourself a chip that runs faster than anything officially on the market. etc. But it's a gamble, you might buy a 2ghz chip and find out yup, it's a 2ghz chip. You might try and unlock some cores on a graphics card and find out they are all actually broken for real, or find out they seem to work fine and it's not even clear why they disabled them. It's like a lottery."
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||
55rr0g | healing crystals | I searched for this but couldn't find anything.
Is there any scientific proof that crystals can help with healing of the human body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55rr0g/eli5_healing_crystals/ | {
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"Crystal rocks (they're minerals, Marie) = no.\n\nCrystalline molecular structure of medicine = if it's the right medicine.",
"not in the way you are asking, no. crystals like quartz, amethysts, etc have no effect on healing. Some drugs, however, form crystals when in their solid form. These can of course help heal. But that is not the type of crystals you meant, i am rather sure. ",
"None at all, it's what is referred to as \"bullshit\" or \"woo\", or more accurately, \"pseudoscience\". A good rule of thumb is that a claim should have evidence to support it, which is commensurate to the claim itself. If you want to find out about the \"healing\" properties of aspirin, would it be particularly difficult? "
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