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13ewe1 | how do movie analysts already know the weekend box office results by sunday morning? | As an avid filmgoer, I've always been interested in the weekly box office results. However, I've never understood how analysts have already determined the numbers for each film by Sunday morning/early afternoon, even though half of the day's showtimes have yet to be screened. Explain please! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13ewe1/eli5_how_do_movie_analysts_already_know_the/ | {
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"text": [
"They don't have the actual results; they just have *projected* results.\n\nThe thing is, most weekend box office sales happen on Friday or Saturday. So by the time Sunday rolls around, you can make pretty good estimates of what's selling and what isn't.",
"Box office performance usually follows a characteristic curve. There are certainly exceptions, but most films follow the same shaped curve. Once you know what the film did on Friday and Saturday, you know pretty accurately how it will do on Sunday."
]
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[],
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bb0hra | why does your gums get open sores that last, so easily? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bb0hra/eli5_why_does_your_gums_get_open_sores_that_last/ | {
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"1. Theyre sensitive and you may not be brushing/flossing them enough. \n2. They processed foods we eat are really hard on our teeth, gums, etc. Humans were never designed to be able to eat high fructose corn syrup and the like, hence our mouths dont really handle things like that well.",
"It could be a sign you're malnourished. Repeated mouth ulcers and bleeding gums are a sign you need more vitamin C, so either look up vitamin C rich foods (mainly citrus fruits) or take a multivitamin every day.",
"Possible reaction to your toothpaste. I’ve had this happen to me with 4 different brands. Switch to a very plain, basic paste, maybe one labelled as for children.",
"As in like a canker sore? From what I understand, those are caused by the same virus as that which causes cold sores. \n\nI typically get both after an illness. My doctor explained that they typically occur after the immune system has been taxed."
]
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2z6ems | what is system 32 and why am i not supposed to delete it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z6ems/eli5_what_is_system_32_and_why_am_i_not_supposed/ | {
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"It's a core part of the windows operating system. So removing it will just make your windows stop working.",
"Windows won't allow you to delete system32 these days anyway. Back in Windows 9x it was possible to cause damage to the system by deleting some files but even then you couldn't delete everything in the folder because Windows won't allow files to be deleted if they are in the process of being used. \n\nIf you were to bypass the Windows installation using that system32 folder (i.e. a boot CD or connecting the hard drive to another computer), you could delete it, and then you will be left with a Windows system that won't boot. You'll turn on the computer, you might get a Windows loading screen for half a second, and then it will come up with an error message because it can't find the files needed to complete the process of loading Windows."
]
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[],
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17azl1 | how does the internet data cap works in usa? | In my country it applies only to mobile internet so all regular home connections have unlimited download/upload data cap; and I was wondering if limiting data download in home connections is usual in USA because your country is a technological reference to ours and I fear it could happen to us.
Thank you, excuse my english :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17azl1/eli5_how_does_the_internet_data_cap_works_in_usa/ | {
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"I have never heard of an ISP with up/down limits in the US.",
"The only reason for this is associated costs, they can make more money by making you pay for a higher limit.",
"While I have no idea if such things are in the US, limits are damn common in Canada. A mid-tier plan at my ISP, for example, gives you a total of 80GB/month in usage before you run into overage charges ($1.5/gb)."
]
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2k7xhs | why does it seem that all dentists only cater to children? | Every dentist I've ever been to (3 or 4 different dentists) strictly stocks children's magazines as reading material and has cartoons on constantly. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k7xhs/eli5_why_does_it_seem_that_all_dentists_only/ | {
"a_id": [
"clir3ax",
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"text": [
"When Adults get extremely bored, they'll be able to entertain themselves with children magazines and comics.\nWhen children get bored, they wont understand shit about adults magazines.",
"How old are you? You may simply be going to pediatric dentists, or dentists who cater primarily to families. There's more money in catering to whole families and making a practice family friendly: In the US, 82% of children 2-17 visited a dentist in the last year, while 61% of adults 18-64 [did](_URL_0_). I couldn't find a stat on it, but I'd bet most of those adults are older and likely have their own children, since many young adults in their 20s-30s don't have dental insurance. Plus, children need to be entertained while adults can be expected to sit quietly or bring their own entertainment. Every time I've been in a waiting room recently I and most of the people around just browsed smartphones."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/dental.htm"
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|
60xo6i | what is the point of a corporate bailout? if a company can not survive on it's own aren't we just prolonging it's inevitable demise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60xo6i/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_a_corporate_bailout_if/ | {
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"The argument goes that some corporations are \"too big to fail.\" That is, they employ so many people and their economic impact is so great, that if they were to completely collapse, the damage this would inflict on the general economy would cost more than the money spent to bail them out. \n\nTo prevent this from simply being a reward for bad business practices, and prevent it from happening again, usually the bailout money comes with a bunch of demands on how the company must restructure in order to return to profitability.",
"Not necessarily. Sometimes, companies get in trouble in ways that just aren't going to repeat. In those cases, the company might still thrive long after the bailout without needed further bailouts. \n\nThere is never any one \"point.\" Sometimes, they're given because the people involved in the bailed out corporation are politically connected. Sometimes, they're given because there are concerns for other companies that would go out of business. Sometimes, they're bailed out because of the number of people they employ. Sometimes, they're bailed out just because of national pride."
]
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5clpqz | why do we "freeze" in life-threatening situations? shouldn't our bodies be doing the exact opposite in those moments? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5clpqz/eli5_why_do_we_freeze_in_lifethreatening/ | {
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"text": [
"extraordinary sensory overload, its not flight or fight, it's actually flight, fight or freeze",
"Staying still might allow you to hide from a predator which hasn't spotted you. Immediately running isn't always the best plan.",
"Freezing can happen when the threat is overwhelming or neither fight nor flight are an option. \n\nThat guy froze because the the threat was so sudden he didn't have an instinctive response to it. We haven't evolved to deal with a ton of metal suddenly bearing down on us at 50mph.",
"Some predators have vision that's based on movement, like the T-Rex in Jurassic park. If your far enough away, this is a great reaction.",
"I'm wondering why 2 motorcyclists drove by (one right beside him) and didn't stop or even slow down to see if he was ok. The person didn't even get out of the car. ",
"He's not freezing. He's trying to slow down and go in the opposite direction once he noticed the oncoming vehicle. He even manages to take one step backwards "
]
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1izr8l | historically, how have otherwise-worthless objects like gold and paper money been given value? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1izr8l/eli5_historically_how_have_otherwiseworthless/ | {
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"A long time ago, people realized that having \"money\" of some kind was more useful than just trading things for other things. If you were a shoemaker, and wanted some bacon, you better hope the pig farmer wanted some shoes. With \"money,\" or \"currency,\" that stopped being an issue. \n\nPretty quickly, people also figured out that in order for something to be good as \"money,\" it needed to have a few special characteristics. It needed to be rare, portable, durable, and easily divisible (that is, easy to split into smaller amounts, in case you wanted something cheap). Gold fit all of these characteristics very well - it's rare but not too rare, can be made into pocketable coins, doesn't rust or tarnish much, and can be split pretty easily. Silver was also used as money, but wasn't considered as valuable because it is both less rare and tarnishes quickly. Different cultures used different things, but they all tended to share those four characteristics. \n\nSome other things began to gain value from simply being rare -certain gemstones are a good example of this. Rubies, emeralds, and sapphires are all rare and pretty, so they became valuable - people wanted to have them. It's the same reason some baseball cards or stamps are considered valuable. "
]
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bgfbmm | why does sugar form clumps when untouched for a while while salt doesn't? | Just came home after 2 months, the sugar built big clumps (because of water in the air I assume?) while the salt right next to it is still perfectly crystalline.
I found [these images of salt/sugar](_URL_0_) and the structure doesn't give me any hint as to why this is happening. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bgfbmm/eli5_why_does_sugar_form_clumps_when_untouched/ | {
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"Moisture from the air partially dissolves the surface molecules. If the air dried a little, it evaporates again and the grains end up stuck together by the sugar left behind.\n\nSalt will do the same but the branded name versions usually have an anti-caking ingredient added to prevent or reduce it. Because salt is often used in a salt cellar on the table, it needs to remain free running.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Buy some non iodized salt, sea salt, Himalayan, whatever you find cheapest. They don't have dextrose in them, they'll clump like that too. I have to shake/hit my salt shaker a few times to loosen it up if I haven't used it for a day or two."
]
} | [] | [
"https://i.imgur.com/MvJKiCB.png"
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[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticaking_agent"
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2rwsy9 | how does the wii u stream video to the gamepad? | I assume it doesn't steam it through the Wi-Fi like chromecast because I can loose connection to the console if I stray too far. Yet I have only seen streaming through internet connection. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rwsy9/eli5_how_does_the_wii_u_stream_video_to_the/ | {
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"text": [
"The GamePad communicates with a Wii U console over a modified Wi-Fi protocol designed for low-latency transmission, establishing its connection with the console by using a variant of the WPS process, with proprietary transfer protocol. The GamePad's display contents are streamed as video from the console using a custom protocol and the H.264 video codec, for which the GamePad contains a .hardware decoder."
]
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51l8jk | what do analysts mean when they say that the us defaulting on a bond is almost impossible? why would that be "the end" of the world economy? | I've read countless articles, and have had innumerable professors tell me, that if the US were to ever default on their loans, that would spell the largest recession in the world, mark the end of investor confidence, amongst a host of other claims.
I'm sure these claims are all true, I just wonder what the underlying mechanisms are that would lead to this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51l8jk/eli5_what_do_analysts_mean_when_they_say_that_the/ | {
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"The key word in your question is \"confidence\": the world economy runs on confidence, and confidence in the USA is high because they don't have a history of defaulting on debts. It means that the USA's debt offerings (bonds) are highly-rated. If you default on a debt, it decreases the likelihood that people will lend to you \"next\" time - or if they do, they will want a higher interest rate. \n\nNote also that economies and loans are interlinked. Imagine that you are a central banker or finance minister of a small country that has a bit of spare money, and you buy a long-term US Treasury Bond to \"park\" that money somewhere safe. To you, that bond is an asset with an expected return (\"bond yield\"). With high confidence that the bond will \"perform\" (pay out on schedule), you may borrow more short-term funds, using that bond as security. If the US Treasury defaults on that bond, the security for other loans or projects just evaporated, and the other lender may make a \"margin call\" demanding that you pay some or all of that money back. *That* lender may themselves be trading off that loan as an asset, borrowing to make other investments, and so on and so on. \n\nThere are chains of debts running through the world's economies. If confidence evaporates, the result could be breaking of those chains. We are already hearing talk of the [Great Unwinding] (_URL_0_): this is what they mean. China is central to these concerns. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.ft.com/content/a2d1f66a-1bd8-398f-bc7f-f9d41dc44d59"
]
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1ujaay | why do stoves use meaningless scales on their dials? | 1-6 & Hi? Low-Hi and Hi+ on the power burner? Watts or rate of fuel flow would provide an easier basis of comparison between stoves and make cooking far more consistent. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ujaay/eli5_why_do_stoves_use_meaningless_scales_on/ | {
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"text": [
"The arbitrary scales are easy to implement and easy to understand. Using a \"real\" unit like watts or fuel flow would take extra instrumentation and careful calibration and, even then, would not give you consistent cooking because you care about how much energy gets transferred to the food, which is extremely strongly influenced by the shape of the burner, the shape of the flames, and the cooking vessel.",
"Because the vast majority of consumers don't think in those terms. Lo-Med-Hi is easier to comprehend. Also, there are often variances between appliances, so one manufacturer's \"Med Hi\" may be another's \"Hi.\"\n\nAs an side note -- Yes, things like light bulbs DO show wattages, but most people use them on a comparative basis only; i.e., \"This bulb will be brighter, and use more power, than that bulb.\"",
"Even watts or flow rate wouldn't apply across stoves because stoves might have different burner setups (gas) or heating coil efficiency/configuration (electric). Really it would only be accurate between the same brand/model of stove, but in that case, the arbitrary number scale would apply too.\n\nIt's better to just have a 1-10 on the dial and then the home cook can just learn how *their* stove works. ",
"Simply they have no real way to know the actual temperature, so have a control that is basically a thermostat that is heated with an element the same time as power goes to the surface element. \n\nMy stove is low-1 to 9, and high, and have learned (by practice) what setting to cook what. I would have to do science to see what the settings actually refer to."
]
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2okp4o | why so few american stadiums have a roof when there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars spent on them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2okp4o/eli5_why_so_few_american_stadiums_have_a_roof/ | {
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"text": [
"Roofs are expensive to install and to maintain. Especially large roofs which must cover a playing field and seating. A large concrete structure that people sit on, in comparison, is not expensive.\n\nAdded to this, the stadiums where there is no roof typically host sports which are considered \"outside sports\". Having no roof gives a certain feeling to the stadium. If you were to go to a professional basketball game that was held outside, it would feel very strange given that basketball was designed to be an inside sport."
]
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||
45t9a6 | how are flights near the poles directionally navigated? | For instance, at an extreme location near the pole, maintaining a cardinal direction heading would require traveling in a large arc. So I would imagine this is not how it is done in a flight traveling from, for instance, a point in the US to a point in Russia. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45t9a6/eli5_how_are_flights_near_the_poles_directionally/ | {
"a_id": [
"czzzk48"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Many long distance flights use [great circle paths](_URL_0_ ). Since cardinal directions don't make sense, they don't use them. That's what navigation computers and GPS is for."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle"
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|
1rq5lt | how do the amsterdam canals work? | I understand the basic premise of canals, they make an area that would usually be under water, well...not. But Amsterdam is right next to the ocean, how can these canals stop the entire ocean from flooding in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rq5lt/how_do_the_amsterdam_canals_work/ | {
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"text": [
"The water is held back by dykes(levees). A canal is a man made channel for water.",
"Here is how land is reclaimed historically in the Netherlands:\n\nA raised wall (a dyke) keeps the water off a lower-than-the-sea plain (a polder) and pumps (originally powered by windmill) drain the water from this now protected land. This water flows into canals then the sea. The rain which would be trapped by the dykes and fill the polder, drains into the sea via specifically designed canals. \n\nThis is my understanding of the Dutch land reclamation program. ",
"[here](_URL_0_) is the wikipedia link for the delta werken. It protects us from floodings like the 1953 one."
]
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3sfj6j | why do cats and dogs generally show natural aggression towards eachother? | I know it is not always the case, but usually dogs and cats seem to just not get on, is there any scientific explanation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sfj6j/eli5_why_do_cats_and_dogs_generally_show_natural/ | {
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"text": [
"I've had dogs and cats together and honestly I think the only examples I have of dogs and cats not getting along are in cartoons. In cartoons it is shown as if they were real enemies.",
"Usually, if a dog does not like cats, they don't like any other animal at all, except other dogs.(and visa versa)\n\nYou've got to remember, these animals ARE animals. They evolved being either the predator or the prey.\n\nYou just hear a lot about cats and dogs because they are the primary pet sort of animals. You won't find many animals in the wild that just \"get along\".\n\nIn a sense, those highly domesticated animals that do \"get along\" are that way because we've bred them to be retarded, more or less. They'd no longer function as they were in the wild. It is not just that they *learned* to be dependent, but that their strain would die out on their own even if you could get, say, a pack of wolves to take in your newborn beagle or chihuahua."
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27z2d6 | why do schools allow children to skip one to so many grades? | Won't children be missing out on social interactions with people around their own age or something and what allows a child to qualify to skip a grade? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27z2d6/eli5_why_do_schools_allow_children_to_skip_one_to/ | {
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"text": [
"No. I skipped 4th grade.\n\nIt's mainly due to those kids who are just smart enough for it, and would be wasting time in lower grades. I didn't miss out on any social interaction, though I was pretty inept (and still am!).",
"Because they get bored with their school work and then start to find school in general uninteresting. A smart kid who is bored with school is a bad combination.",
"Keeping a child in a grade that they have clearly surpassed is damaging too. Often the child becomes bored, loses attention, loses desire to go to school, and begins to suffer academically.\n\nThe loss of social interaction and the immediate stigma that comes with skipping a grade has to be balanced with those factors.",
"If the school doesn't have an adequate program for students who are bored because they're running ahead, then a cheap and easy fix is to just move those kids up a grade. If they just skip one grade, the student ends up being 0-1 year younger than the typical age of that grade, depending on where their birthday falls."
]
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1utkex | if women on birth control don't menstruate, why do they have periods? | What causes the withdraw bleed when taking the placebo pills if the woman is not menstruating | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1utkex/eli5_if_women_on_birth_control_dont_menstruate/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Birth control pills stop the ovaries from releasing eggs every month, but they don't do anything to stop the buildup of the uterine lining. When a woman switches to the placebo pills, the loss of hormones causes that lining to break down, just like it would in a normal period",
"I think I know what your asking but here is a correction to your question:\n\nPeriod = Menstruation\n\nYou mean to ask: \"If women on BC don't *ovulate*, why do they *menstruate*?\"\n\nThe answer is they don't. While on standard hormone replacement pills the signals they create will block both ovulation and menstruation. In the standard BC regimen, a woman will take three weeks of hormone pills to block ovulation, then one week of placebo pills (the ones usually have a diffrent color in the packaging). The three weeks on hormones blocked ovulation or the development of a viable egg to travel to the womb and get fertilized, and the week off removes the hormone trick and lets menstruation occur. \n\nNewer BC regimens and implants and IUDs remove or eliminate many of these \"off weeks\" and will block both ovulation and menstruation for longer blocks of time. \n\nThere is a balance of risks and preferences that a woman must make with her doctor before selecting a method of BC. Many will elect for BC that allows for fewer periods but there is an increased risk of breakthrough bleeds where small amount of the uterine lining will still menstruate and also removes fewer check points to detect BC failure. Thats right, one advantage to the old one period a month pills are they have a failure check built in the schedule, if you go on the placebo week and you don't get a period, you can go get checked for pregnancy with a doctor as BC, pill or not, is never 100% foolproof. "
]
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1wuodq | right ascension & declination | My son has a telescope, but no way of working out RA & Dec.
Is there a way to calculate this without need special equipment (mounts etc)
Cheers x | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wuodq/eli5_right_ascension_declination/ | {
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"text": [
"You may find it easier to convert Right Ascention and Declination to Altitude and Azimuth. [This](_URL_0_) page will do that for you.\n\nFrom there you just need a compass to measure azimuth and some tool to measure altitude--you can get this by mounting a protractor with a string at the center and a straw on the long edge, like [this](_URL_1_). When you look through the straw the string will indicate altitude.\n\nAltitude and Azimuth are better in some circumstances, but if your son's telescope doesn't have the mounts to read out in these measurements directly then it's not worth the trouble. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.convertalot.com/celestial_horizon_co-ordinates_calculator.html",
"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/lessons/media/finished_clinometer.jpg"
]
] |
|
2iquyy | do we really need to crouch when we board a helicopter? | Does it serve a practical purpose? Or is it only seen in the movies? Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2iquyy/eli5_do_we_really_need_to_crouch_when_we_board_a/ | {
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"text": [
"No unless you are super duper tall. Crouching is just an extra safety precaution besides being vertically challenged. ",
"You don't, but it's also a sort of natural reaction to get your noggin away from several pieces of metal whirling around at several hundred RPM.\n\nThe downdraft from the blades also encourages you to hunker down.",
"There is one reason to crouch, and that's if the pilot accidentally bumps the cyclic control (the stick you steer with). That can cause the whole rotor disc to tilt over, significantly lowering the distance from the blades to the ground at the edge of the rotor disc. \n\nBut mostly it's just a reflex, when heavy pieces of metal are whirring around in the air right above your head, you instinctively crouch to keep your head safe. ",
"When the pilot is aware that a person is approaching the aircraft you don't need to crouch. \n\nNever approach if the pilot is not aware, and stay out from under the rotor after the engine is shut down (until the rotor has stopped turning). When the rotor is turning slowly a gust of wind can bend the rotor towards the ground, even if the cyclic is centered. \n\nNever approach from the rear of the helicopter, so that the pilot can see you and to keep a safe distance away from the tail rotor."
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3fws4d | why do bath towels start smelling bad when all they do is fill with water and then dry? | I'm guessing maybe the longer drying time means mildew has a chance to build up? Or maybe when you dry off, your body isn't perfectly clean so the towel is picking up soap and dirt from your body which then builds up and smells? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fws4d/eli5_why_do_bath_towels_start_smelling_bad_when/ | {
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"You are surrounded, all the time, by millions upon millions of tiny microorganisms. You are also coated in them, even after you shower. \n\nGetting your towel wet makes it a hospitable environment for this host of creatures. Many of them, when they become numerous enough, smell pretty funky. "
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2510hz | a gambling addiction | How does it start? What makes it worse? Why does it become so difficult to recover? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2510hz/eli5_a_gambling_addiction/ | {
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"It's more an adrenaline addiction. \n\nPeople get a rush when they take a perceived risk. Do it more, it takes more adrenaline to get the same rush. \n\nYou are messing with the chemical balance of the brain. ",
"Some people actually get addicted to losing. It's fucking awful.",
"You can create gambling addict mice. You set up a lever that will give a treat every, say, thousandth push. The mice will sit there pressing the lever over and over again knowing ever now and then they might get a reward. It's the same principle in humans. We essentially have two parts of the brain. One is deep within the brain and is far more primitive. This is where most base instincts come from: Anger, lust etc. Think survival mechanisms. Many human faults come from a battle between these two parts of the brain. One, desiring instant gratification etc. The other, long term planning and goal setting. Addicts have trouble balancing the two parts of the brain and give in time and time again to instant gratification. ",
"Whoa! I just listened to Brady and CGP Grey talking about this on their podcast earlier, or touching on it.. or something. (It's Hello Internet if you get curious).\n\nSo I'll regurgitate in shorthand. Our brains are especially reactive to 'intermittent reinforcement' - which essentially means that when you do a task you aren't *always* rewarded for it. For example - Gamblers put $.10 in the slot machine and can win nothing, the jackpot, or anything in between. It's this random aspect of the interaction that keeps us coming back for more because our brains are constantly seeking out that rewarding feeling of winning big.\n\nGrey likens this to email/twitter/reddit/internet addiction which was pretty interesting (to me anyway). You get that notification on your phone and pop over to your email.. it could be yet another piece of junk mail, a news feed you're subbed to, or.. a job offer! Intermittent reinforcement fueling your addiction to checking your email. Boom. Blew my damn mind.\n\n",
"Variable-Ratio Schedule rewards are a stronger enforcer of a behavior than fixed-ratio schedule rewards to animals.\n\nFor example, if you teach the dog when he stands on his hind legs he gets a cookie, he'll do that. However when he does it and doesn't get a cookie, he goes, fuck this, and goes into a behavioral status called extinction, which is to say there is no longer an association with the cookie and standing up.\n\nHOWEVER\n\nIf doggie stands up and SOMETIMES he gets a cookie, he will keep doing it even if you stop giving him a cookie. \n\nWithout throwing around unnecessary jargon (more than I already have)\n\nDoggy learns if you KEEP standing on hind legs, eventually you get the cookie.\n\nIt's a much stronger reinforcer.\n\nGambling does the exact same thing. \n\nDoggy goes up to slot machine pulls handle. \nIf it gives him a cookie every time, doggy keeps pulling handle. WHen it stops giving cookies, doggy says, I guess the cookie machine is broken now, and goes to do something else.\n\n\nSometimes he gets a cookie, sometimes not. When he pulls a few times and then gets the cookie, his body makes all the feel good doggy chemicals and he feels good and he gets a cookie.\n\nThat way when doggy is on a losing streak at the slots, instead of thinking \"the machine is broken\" he thinks, \"I'll bet I just need to pull it one more time\"\n\nThen he starts really really wanting the cookie and the feel good doggy chemicals that his body makes when he wins. He starts wanting them so badly he starts feeling like something bad will happen if he doesn't place one more bet. He might even have knots in his stomach.\n\nAnd that's how it works. ",
"I think Al Pacino says it best in [Two for the Money.](_URL_0_)",
"Gambling (winning) releases profound amount of dopamine. \n\nExtremely economic visuals that congratulate you, even with the lightest rewards, and the fact that a human can't stand failure if all it takes to win is to try again instantly. \n\nGambling addiction is similar to being addicted to Call Of Duty or WoW. There's a constant influx of stimuli that keep on going \"YOU'RE ALMOST THERE, 10414 THINGIES TO GO.\" \"WABLABLALBA, YOU WIN!\", this is a dopamine transporter's wet-dream. \n\nCoincedentally, one of the possible symptoms of taking Parkinson's medications (which regulate / boost dopamine levels) is a thirst for gambling.",
"Louis Theroux did a documentary on gambling addiction. You should check it out (I think it's on Netflix); it's really interesting. Something that I wasn't expecting is that a lot of the gamblers have the mindset that they CAN'T lose. One of them even said that it doesn't matter if he comes away with less money, because it's about the rush, and the rush is a sure thing. It's a twisted way of thinking, but the documentary showed that it's a pretty common thing.",
"For sports betting it takes a mundane event and adds drama to it to keep you interested. You also have a rush of adrenaline whether you win or lose which is pretty addictive. ",
"I used to wonder about this, too, until I took a weekend trip to Las Vegas with some buddies. \"I'll spend $50 on blackjack and walk away.\"\n\nThen you sit down and the adrenaline starts flowing and it's intense. In 15 minutes I realized exactly how easy it is for people to get hooked on it. That crazy thought of, \"Well, a few more hands and I'll win it back,\" starts to make sense.\n\nMy $50 promise turned into being $400 up at one point (all on $5/hand blackjack!) and then I jumped to $10/hand and, by the end of the weekend, left with $500 less than I had come in with.",
"**How does it start?**\n\nMost - not all, but most - gamblers start their gambling addictions after something happens in their life. You can gamble and not be addicted to gambling, which is what most gamblers do, if you know how to walk away from the counter after you've had your fun. The problem starts when you stop being able to walk away. \n\nIn fact, the problem often starts when you win **once**. When normal people lose at a game and continue to lose, they will often walk away because they clearly see that it's pointless and is losing them money. The trick is to win a few times - not enough to recover from anything, just enough to make an impression. So imagine this - your wife just left you and your life is a mess. If ONLY you had money - then your life would be better! So, you wander into a casino somehow, or start a betting game (because you're desperate enough), and you bet a little. Miraculously, after a few rounds you win something! Maybe it's $20, maybe it's a fiver, it doesn't matter because you just got a little kick of dopamine, you feel on top of the world. That's the starting point.\n\n**What makes it worse?**\n\nSo you've won once, and you feel pretty good. This motivates you to keep on betting. Maybe you stumble into a casino, attracted by the flashing lights and beautiful women. You can feel happy here, like you belong, like you're rich and all is right in the world. Casinos are great at making you feel good - they create a safe haven for you to go (provided you throw lots of money at them, of course). You gamble some more, quickly lose all your money, but it's no big deal. You get some more money, and you gamble it all away quickly as well. Casinos don't encourage lingering - you feel like you need to spend to have fun there, and in order to belong.\n\nMaybe at this point the rational part of your brain is telling you that you're being stupid, you're going to lose everything. Maybe you still don't realize anything is wrong. All you know is that when you try to walk away from a bet, you're struck with the thought that what if THIS ONE will be the one that wins you the lottery? It's an attractive thought, and so you keep on playing. You're struck with the fear of losing out more than you are struck with the fear of slowly melting away your money. This is called the gambler's fallacy - you've slowly trained your brain to become addicted. Maybe you win a few more small jackpots, and you're on top of the moon every time it happens. Like any addict, you are now chasing an unachievable high, and your happiness is slowly becoming dependent on your gambling addiction.\n\n**Why does it become so difficult to recover?**\n\nLike the most successful addictive things out there, gambling comes with a self perpetuating cycle. The more you gamble, the crappier your life outside the casino comes, the more you crave escapism, the more you gamble. Down and down the rabbit hole you go, until you get to the first day you start to borrow money to fuel this addiction. You don't realize it, but this is one of the big turning points - now, you're in debt. This is around when some doubt starts creeping in. If you still have a job (which high end addictive personalities might possibly be able to keep), you're now facing immense pressure to pay all that back.\n\nSo, money problems - what do you turn to? Gambling, of course. You know you need money, but **this** one will be the one, you just KNOW it. You entertain yourself with the illusion of a jackpot - as long as you stick it out you'll have to win something SOMEday, right? Then you'll be able to pay off your debts, win back the love of your children etc., and all your problems will be solved. But it's just about too late for you, because you've basically devoted your life to gambling. Even if you do win a big jackpot, as was mentioned in another thread recently a lot of jackpot winners turn to gambling afterwards and gamble the money away again.\n\n**TL;DR - Gambling is a dangerous addiction. Like all addictions it tricks you into thinking that gambling can solve all your problems. DON'T gamble more than you can afford - and know when to seek help!**",
"This doesn't really answer your question, however I thought I'd add my first hand experience of gamblers.\n\nI work in a betting shop, which I hate with a passion, and I've noticed 3 sets of gamblers.\n\n1) Recreational - You see them once in a blue moon, they might come in, place a football bet and leave. 2) Regular - They come in every day, place a number of bets on the Horses for later that day, and then leave, not returning till the next day. 3) The pathological gambler - They come in every day, and from instantly being in the shop they need to gamble. It doesn't matter what, they'll gamble on it. They'll constantly have money in the machines, run up the counter to place a dog bet. Usually these people are very arrogant.\n\nI'll give you an occasion as to why I simply hate gamblers;\n\nA few years ago in one of our \"worse shops\", a customer collapsed at the counter and subsequently died. Customers stepped over him to place a bet. Disgusting. (Edit: Would be longer, but 1k limit :()",
"I was addicted, not too big but worse enough lost a couple thousands.\n\nAll I can tell you is it isnt about the money any more after a while.\n\nThe problems for me were basically:\n\n\n1.\n\nYou start with a couple dollars and then you get lucky one time and win your first 100$. Of course you take it all and go home with a smile. You will probably come back regulary now only making small bets. Next time you win 100$ you invest it again and raise the bets. Then you get lucky and win 300$ and the cycle begins from new. \n\nThe problem is once you played with a bet of 100 playing for 1000s you cant go back to playing with 10s for 100s. Its just boring, you feel like it is wasted time. So you start playing big from the get go.\n\n\n2.\n\nit will probably happen once that you lose everything you intended to play with and then invest just 10$ more and win everything back. Guess what you are going to do next time you lose everything? You try to win it back with all the money you got, why walk out with a loss now when the next 100$ get you everything back?\n\n\nYou know the odds are against you, you know you lose still you come back just for the thrill. Even today, I basically have everything under control and dont play anymore. But maybe once a year I go into the casino with friends and I bring at least 400$ with me because its simply not fun to me to play with less. ",
"There is already a lot of good explanation of this from the scientific phenomena perspective, but I'd like to answer from the personal \"inside the head\" perspective as the child of a gambling addict.\n\nA gambling addict is ultimately someone who loses the perspective to do the math on their losses, and dreams constantly of the big reward that might be. \n\nThey will develop rituals and routines around gambling. \"On the way home from work, I stop at the convenience store, and buy $25 dollars worth of scratch tickets.\" Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose, but it doesn't start out being a big loss comparative to their income, so they don't worry too much about it. \n\nThe insidious plot turn is that they can't then go home without stopping at the store to get those tickets. Not only that, they can't get even one fewer than the ritual dictates... because \"what if that was the one? What if the last ticket that I always buy was the million dollar jackpot, and I skipped it today?\" This feeling will tear them apart inside. The certainty that the ticket they didn't buy was the winner they've been searching for their whole lives.\n\nOnce that feeling takes hold in the routine, it gains more and more control over their psyche until they reach a point where every last dollar they don't spend gambling is quitting on the dream. They failed themselves if they leave any potential winning bet ungambled. It doesn't matter how deep they are in the hole. The next bet might be the one that solves all the problems and creates perfect bliss, but it doesn't. There are small wins along the way, and yeah every once in a while a very small percentage of addicts will hit it big (or see normal financial games in life). This is actually the worst thing that can happen to a gambling addict.\n\nInvariably, it doesn't fix their problems, because in the process they have become very sick people with the worst imaginable financial sense. It's an already morbidly obese person getting a lifetime pass at the all-you-can-eat buffet. The problems aren't solved. They are exponentially magnified. The illusion that money will fix every single thing and fill every single hole is shattered when you spend all the money on everything you could ever ask for that money can buy, and you don't feel any better even when you've spent it all.\n\n... and THAT is what happened to my dad's savings from the high powered sales job he lost. It's what happened to my college fund, and it's what happened to his half of the equity in the house that my mom bought him out of in the divorce. He burned it all on scratch tickets, at the casino, playing keno or anywhere else he could trying to win big. He went from a dream house and sports car in a picturesque neighborhood to the shittiest tiniest apartment in a small town, barely able to keep a crappy car, all the while thinking \"well I'll just play one more time.\"",
"The adrenline rush is why I have a such a bad gambling problem. Betting $50 on a hand of black jack or a spin of roulette no longer gives me the rush it used to since I've done it so many times. Now in order to get that same initial rush that I used to get when id bet $10, I have to bet like $200. Another problem with being addicted is that most of the time winning begins to feel like losing. Let's say you consistently bet $20 on the number 19 in roulette. It doesn't hit for a while and you're running out of money so you dial it back and bet $10 a spin instead. When it hits, you don't feel like you won $350. You feel like you lost $350 because you would have won $700 with the $20 bets.",
"I am actually addicted to sports betting. I am fully aware that I am addicted, but I only gamble what I am prepared to lose and it hasn't escalated to the point where it is a problem or affects any other part of my life.\n\nI got started when I was 17, at the time I'd get my sister to place the bets for me as I wasn't old enough. The allure to me was accumulators, every week I'll pick a number of teams from multiple sports and put them all in and get odds of up to 10000-1. I realise that I'll probably never win, but the fact that I could win $50000 by picking 15-20 teams that win anywhere in the world in any sport in a week is too tempting for me. \n\nI've gone some weekends where I won't place a bet and it can be agonizing to watch sports and see the teams that I usually bet on win, it feels like the time you don't get a lottery ticket and your numbers come up. \n\nI'd guess that it's so hard to recover because I have no intentions of \"recovering\". I don't see it as a problem or something that I have to give up. I have no problem with losing $10-20 a week if it allows me to dream of what I would do if I win one of the multis. I'm sure it would be the same for people betting more than they can afford, you don't focus on the loss, only the potential win.",
"You start playing blackjack because it is fun. The first time you play, you walk out up 90 dollars. You get a rush. You keep playing because every once in a while you win, and when you lose, it is OK because you had a blast. Repeat for a few years with no problems. Something in your life happens and you feel shitty about things. The trip to the blackjack table provides a little relief. One night you can't sleep and you run to the casino to play a few hands and kill some time. You forget that you can't sleep and you forget the problems you had earlier that day. You are dealt 2 consecutive hot decks and win 70% of the hands, hit every double down opportunity, and pop a few table max natural blackjacks. You walk out of the casino up 700 dollars and you can pay for all your bills and food for the next month and stop at the music shop and pick up a few albums and buy a case of beer. Meanwhile, non-gambling issues in your life are eating you up. You hate the town you are in. You hate some things about yourself. You get hurt. You pop down to the tables to burn a few hours. You forget everything. You feel awesome highs. You feel terrible when you lose. You start losing more than you win. You play too often, even though you don't have money. You know the ATM at the casino will let you draw 300 dollars even with 70 cents in the account. You overdraft your account. Your change jar has long been emptied. You pawn some DVDs and textbooks. You skip a few meals. You can play for 6 hours on an empty stomach because gambling allows that. You go negative in your bank. You catch a heater and win 4 nights in a row. You throw money around because you are up 1600 dollars in the last week and rent was paid. You lose big one night. You lose big another night. You hate yourself so much after losing that you scream in the car on the way home. You hate yourself so much for everything that the only thing that drowns out the own hate in your head is a few shoes of blackjack. Now you are a compulsive gambler. The hooks are deep.",
"There have been studies that have shown that compulsive gamblers' brains are literally wired differently. When 'normal' people get a 'near-miss' on a slot machine (i.e. two symbols match and the third one just misses), they treat it as any other losing spin. But compulsive gamblers' brains actually treat it is as almost a win, so as they're gambling, they get that rush even though they're actually losing. There have been numerous articles on it, but here's one: _URL_0_",
"Step 1: move to Vegas. Step 2: Casinos give free alcohol while gambling. And Step 3: people hate to admit they have a problem and refuse to move out of Nevada. Pretty much it.",
"This sounds very similar to MMO's and random drops from bosses or mobs. Or any kind of random task you have to do many times for a chance to get something (fishing in WoW comes to mind). But it's even more insidious, because you aren't paying every single time to do the task, you are paying with time and a monthly subscription.\n\nYou keep playing because you miiiiight get the drop you need (and oh yes, you **need** this drop) this time around, if you just do it one more time. Oh, not this time? OK, do it one more time...grrr, it's 1:30am, if I go to bed now I might miss the drop if I don't do it one more time. Next thing you know it's 5am. \n\nSource - played WoW for over 4 years, have done this multiple times until I stopped playing 2 years ago. Even now I know I could hop back online and start up again unless I tell myself not to do it.",
"WOO i got this one. I've done a lot of drugs, there is no comparison to making $10,000 in 30 minutes playing cards or whatever your game is. You're hooked after your first big win.",
"Gambling addiction is almost exactly like your gaming addiction, except every time you play you either win/lose money instead of having fun and wasting time.",
"All addictions affect the mesolimbic dopamine circuit in the brain. In this pathway, the ventral tegmental area projects to the nucleus accumbens, which releases dopamine, which affects multiple areas in the brain. When this happens, you feel really good. Normally there are GABAergic neurons which inhibit the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens so it's not firing all the time. Pleasurable things, including things like music and chocolate, can stimulate the pathway. All addictive things manipulate this pathway and cause it to be overactive.\n\n[Here is a picture illustrating the pathway.](_URL_1_) Another thing that factors into whether something is addictive is how quickly the pathway gets stimulated. If something immediately stimulates the pathway (as opposed to taking some time), has a very strong effect (as opposed to a mild one), and wears off quickly (making you want to go back to it quickly), it is more likely to be addictive.\n\nIn the latest version of the DSM that came out last year, the book that standardizes the criteria for psychiatric disorders, gambling addiction was added to the \"Substance Related and Addictive Disorders\" chapter. Gambling addiction is in a category of its own called behavioral addictions. There is still some debate about whether other behavioral addictions, such as sex addiction, should be added to this list. At this time, however, scientific research suggests that gambling addiction affects the mesolimbic pathway in the same way that things like cocaine addiction do, whereas sex addiction has a different mechanism, so that's why gambling addiction made the cut.\n\nedit: Because someone asked for clarification - \n\nThe ventral tegmental area is responsible for the *reinforcing* properties of addictions. Reinforcement means something that makes you want to keep repeating a behavior. It's like how getting a gold star sticker for doing all your chores makes you want to do your chores again the next day so you can get another sticker! There are other parts of the brain that are responsible for creating memory and a sense of craving, but let's focus on the reinforcement part now.\n\nSo, the different regions in your brain aren't always on or off. Certain conditions will turn them on and others will turn them off. You probably have heard of dopamine. In simplistic terms, dopamine makes you feel good. You know how it feels when you're really happy? As good as it feels, if you were that worked up all the time it would cause a stress on your body. So you normally want to inhibit the release of dopamine and only release it under controlled circumstances. There are specialized cells in the brain, called GABAergic neurons, that do just that: they inhibit the nucleus accumbens from being stimulated.\n\nThe dopamine actually comes from another part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area. The ventral tegmental area sends the dopamine to the nucleus accumbens, and then the nucleus accumbens (unless it's being inhibited by the GABA neuron) will then send the dopamine to other parts of the brain, resulting in you feeling high.\n\nAddictive things manipulate the system so that extra dopamine gets released. Most of them either stimulate the nucleus accumbens directly, so it starts releasing dopamine independent from getting signals from the ventral tegmental area, or inhibit the GABAnergic neurons which inhibit the nucleus accumbens. You know that saying, \"the enemy of your enemy is your friend?\" Same concept here: if you inhibit an inhibitor, you end up with stimulation.\n\nMost things that make us feel good, like watching a beautiful sunset, have pretty mild effects. We don't get that high feeling so quickly or so intensely, so we don't develop that much of a motivation to keep going to find sunsets to look at. If we use addictive substances, and in this case, behaviors, that instantly release a lot of dopamine, we get a big rush and that's what motivates to use them again. Tolerance also comes into play, but I think someone else has already explained that in this thread. I just wanted to give the biochemical explanation because I didn't see it mentioned yet.\n\nHere's a better picture: _URL_0_\n\nA illustrates what positive reinforcement is. Positive reinforcement means something happens that makes you want to repeat the behavior, like getting a sticker for doing your chores. Dopamine goes from the ventral tegmental area (marked by VTA in the figure) to the nucleus accumbence, which results in the high feeling. GABA inhibits the ventral tegmental area, and the addictive thing (in this case, opioids), inhibits GABA. So if you inhibit GABA, then the ventral tegmental area is free to send lots of dopamine to the nucleus accumbens, resulting in a big high.\n\nB illustrates what happens in a person who has become dependent on a substance/behavior. Now, the person is mostly motivated by *negative* reinforcement. Negative reinforcement means that something bad happens when you DON'T do the behavior. In other words, you've become so dependent on alcohol that now you don't drink so much to get the good feeling that alcohol gives you, but because if you *don't* drink, you will feel horrible, and that horrible feeling goes away after you drink.",
"Imagine you choose the same lottery numbers every day/week/whatever, and you've been doing this for let's say, a year? You think about changing them but then you realise how horrible it would feel if those numbers rolled and you didn't have a lottery ticket. So you end up addicted to buying lottery tickets (a form of gambling). Now I understand this doesn't apply to all of gambling but the principle is pretty much the same, and it may not be a scientific explanation, but it allows you to see it from their perspective.",
"Okay so I usually just browse Reddit and have done for a long time but after reading this I had to make a Throw Away to post, I noticed alot of replies to this thread were from the perspective of someone affected by a gambling addict, well I am a self confessed Gambling addict and I thought my insight but be useful to some, I'm now 23 and I've gambled almost everyday since the age of 18 and I can't begin to imagine what my turnover would be in terms of wins and losses but it would have to be in the £100,000's..\n\nI will start from the beginning, hitting age 18 I was already big into my drugs, I was addicted to cannabis, selling it to make the money I needed to support my Habit, I was employed at a local supermarket and studying my A levels in Law, Economics and Computer Science, I had and still have dreams and ambitions to make it big, ever since I was young I was determined that I'd be rich, I told my Parents and pretty much anyone who would listen this since the age of maybe 10.. Now I appreciated that to do this I would have to be more socially acceptable to gain a job in a financial or law position (I'm currently a sales advisor for a large UK bank) So I understood that my lifestyle could not continue, though despite this of course I continued and In my prime I was selling around £5000 of cannabis a week and had multiple people working beneath me at around the age of 21 I had built a small empire which funded my gambling and smoking habits, I lived in small fairly well of village in England and I ran it's Cannabis trade, this was exciting and I loved every minute of it and I still miss it today..\n\nOkay so onto the Gambling, I started off betting on horses at the age of 18, my friends told me to meet them in the local bookmakers before a night out, I thought this was stupid and budgeted myself just £2 to spend before going out as I knew my Father had had gambling and alcoholism issues until he topped himself when I was 9, so I met up with them and placed my two £1 bets, and of course I won, which is where it all started..\n\nFast forward and I went on to study accounting and finance at university, which is where I met my major drug connections, so for the people who say that gambling addicts have no concept of their finances, I'd like to disagree, of course I like to think that my knowledge of finance and financial institutions is second to none, okay so whilst at uni I didn't have much money coming in as I left my job at the supermarket as they wouldn't provide me with hours which coincided with my degree, so of course Drug dealing, pay day loans and the government funded my massive gambling addiction and cannabis, Mephedrone and the what ever the fuck I want to do habit, I have lived like a king in multiple times in my life and I've also been skint the most skint you can imagine in fact so in debt that you can't see a way out of it except that next big win which will solve it all and not only in debt to companies but to drug dealers which is a very stressful place to be, however my luck could change with a toss of a coin, I could go from this to having £2000+ to play with and all my debts repaid in a matter of minutes, living life like this was insane.. \n\nSo fast forward to leaving university, I landed a part time job as a cashier in the bank about a year and a half a go, at this time I was very unhappy in my life and when I'm depressed I turn to gambling, it's my friend that's always there, It never turns it's back and it's always something to do, I also had the realization that this was my chance to turn it around, soo.. I stopped selling drugs and taking them completely, which I'm glad to say is still my life today, however this just left me with more free time to gamble and my job was semi well paid so I had a bit more of a steady income to gamble with, During the next year that followed I probably had an income of £10,000 in the year however the complete turn over of my bank account was probably around £120,000 my problem is as most of said is it's always that one next bet where I'm going to win big, It's always going to feel like that any money I don't spend on Gambling is money wasted, as this is potential investment which is going on something useless like clothes or food..\n\nHowever I've always repaid my debts first, so I'm not in quite as difficult position as I could have let myself slip into..\n\nThe main issue is, is that my addiction and lifestyle unlike my other ones is fairly socially acceptable, in my current job I can go to work they all know I'm a gambling addict, my girlfriend who I live with knows I'm a gambling addict, and I even have friends at work who are also self confessed gambling addicts, this isn't a problem to them however if they all knew or even thought that I was addicted or selling drugs, this would be a MAJOR issue and I wouldn't keep my job for very long, so I've replaced all the excitement and self induced stress of selling and taking drugs all the time to gambling as it's the only thing that comes near the exhilaration I used to experience and which I still crave..\n\nToday I hold down my full time sales job and I've got a lot more sensible with my gambling since I moved into our own flat with my SO, however we can't have a joint account or I'd just gamble all the money to pay for bills and rent and I know this is how I am so the accounts are in her name and she looks after them and I transfer in all the money I need to live for the month and the entirety of my remaining money I gamble as much and as often as I can, If i'm out drinking with my friends I'll try and get them to gamble on anything from cp vs cp on Fifa to a coin flip, anything, I realise that this may sound insane to some however my brain just doesn't realise that this is an issue, I have fun and I have a craving that must be filled I still occasionally turn £20 into £4000 in the blink of an eye today I've gambled £1000 on a single roulette spin and won £5000+, I've also lost £1000 in 10 minutes but it's a laugh and I do want to stop but it's consumed my life and one day I still feel as though I will be able to stop however this is likely to be the day that I've found peace of mind, that I feel that I've accomplished whatever it is I've set out to accomplish in my life, which I'm not sure what it is yet... and I'm sure once I've worked out what hole it is that I'm trying to fill I will eventually stop as even though I am the way I am I Whole heartedly agree with this quote 100%\n\n \"The illusion that money will fix every single thing and fill every single hole is shattered when you spend all the money on everything you could ever ask for that money can buy, and you don't feel any better even when you've spent it all.\" \n\nSo I can comprehend this fact and I know that my path is only going to lead to more emptiness and despair ",
"If you haven't ever been gambling I'd encourage you to try it. I played for like 20 minutes and I have a much better grasp on what it's all about. I definitely didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did.",
"I think there's two ways it starts: \n\n* You get into so much debt you try to gamble your way out\n* You win big the first time, and you lack the self control to walk away while you're up\n\n",
"The personal experiences vary with family/friends that are gambling addicts, here is my father.. \n\nBoth my parents were active in Alcoholics Anonymous, my mother is now 30 years sober. When I was born, my dad had a mental breakdown and from my knowledge felt he was not meant to be a parent. My parents divorced when I was six years old and were given a \"split custody\" type of situation. My dad had me and my brother on Wednesdays and weekends. He was a financial analyst at a large company, and had things going pretty well (from what I thought). I can remember at a very young age going to bars, being left in the car for an hour or more, or him giving us money to go play the stuffed animal machines so he could be left to do his betting on dogs and horses. There would also be the occasional trip to the now non-existent dog track. Eventually, the \"split custody\" turned into my father getting laid off and sleeping on his ex-wife's couch. I believe she did this so we could see him, and she also understood the struggle he was going through. He eventually got a place once my mom decided she was moving me and my brother out of the city, and that is when things spiraled down for the worst.\n\nHe was moving from shitty house to shitty house living with people he met at these bars, but eventually found another job in the same financial position. The people he was finding these houses to bounce around from were terrible people, drug dealers, loan sharks, people who would show up to your workplace demanding money that was owed, and people who would legitimately come after your family. And this did happen to us two times when I was 16. \n\nApparently through my 18 years of life at this point, he had \"borrowed\" a substantial amount of money from all of his nine brothers and sisters (I know now that my aunt has personally given him about 50k), his step mom, my mom, and many other outside sources. This is when his closest brother and sister decided that they would attempt an intervention regarding his gambling and pill use. It was just like the show, a psychiatrist was present, my mom, my brother, and his two siblings were present, as well as myself. He walked into the room knowing exactly what was going on, and agreed to do treatment seeing how upset my brother and I were having to get to this point with him. At that time I still did not realize how bad his addiction was. \n\nHe failed the treatment, as he did not WANT the treatment. We visited him one time in the thirty days he was there before he was to go to a half way house type of place - so he could get back on his feet. After never showing up at this halfway house I did not see him for about six months. Ever since then, and this was about three years ago now, he has not kept a job for over 5-6 months, and the money he makes goes straight to betting, goes straight to slots, goes straight to pills, my friends are now running in to him at the casino and it's basically a big \"FUCK YOU\" to all the issues he has caused due to his addiction. He is paranoid, blames his issues on everyone else, feels everyone is out to get him and that he is a \"bad guy\"\n\nHe is not in any way a bad guy, he is a man with serious issues that date back well before I was born. He will suppress these issues in any way until the day he is gone. It is almost like I do not know my own father now, we rented rooms at the same house for a while because I wanted to be close to him and be there for him (a self admitted enabler) because I can see the depression and hurt in him every day. He is turning 60 in a year, and I am still hoping a light bulb will click and he will accept the help that has been around him the whole time.\n",
"Always wondered how it would start too. Always seemed logical that if you can't afford to play you don't. first time I went to a casino, I realized how easy it is to get in deep. You're sitting there playing for a while and winning, you're stack gets bigger and bigger and its a great feeling. You're thinking \"wow, I'm doing good, lets go for a big hand.\" Double your bet and now there's 50 bucks on the table before a card is dealt. Dealer shows a five and you've got 11. Time to double down. But shit that's 100 bucks, and all you're thinking about is how much you could buy with 100 as the dealer gives you another card. Its a 10 and its the greatest feeling ever. Then you spend the rest of the night chasing that feeling until you're out of money.",
"I dont know if i were a gambling addict. I never incurred debt. But i have gambled for millions. It all started when i discovered bitcoin. I researched it, and thought it was pretty awesome and had potential. I did treat it as an investment, i was hoping it would keep rising in value when i bought it, but things kind of slowed down, and the exchange rate were flat. This was a while back and there was not much you could do with bitcoin. I wanted to investment them, because i thought investing bitcoin, getting a return in bitcoin, while the bitcoin exchange rate rose would be awesome. Like a two for one investment. I stumbled upon a gambling site that allowed anyone to invest bitcoin, let players gamble against it, and if they lost, get a portion of the reward proportinate with the amount of bitcoin you had invested. It was pretty cool. Except there was a gambler who was pretty. fucking. good. He had taken the house in the red, his bankroll too big for the house, he almost couldnt loose. Well. I studied him, and this is where my gambling addiction(?) started. First and foremost he would usually play around the same time every day, so i rushed home from work, and got ready to watch him play. He was a high roller. And i wanted to be invested when he lost, and divested, ofsetting the loss to the remaining investors when he won. It was working allright. But it got boring i guess. After considering it for a while i tried a small bet. And it seemed like easy money.\n\nTo be honest i had no idea what i was doing, but before long, i had worked up a pretty big bankroll. I wasnt loosing, i just kept winning, and it was my first attempt at gambling. I was just doing everything right. I was betting big when i was winning, and betting small when i loosing. It was a dice game by the way. A very simple game where you decide your odds, and the amount if money you want to bet. You then have to guess hi or lo. I developed a technique that couldnt loose. Or so i thought. At least it was doing very well. It was a series of small risk bets, and then a few high risk in between when i felt i was winning. And if i lost, i took an even higher risk, and it usually paid of. I was carefully considering my every bet, and it seemed to work good. It actually worked so well that i within a few days became a millionaire. I had enough bitcoin that i would be considered a millionaire... I remember when hitting the balance, i sat back and thought to myself. Im going to travel now. It was a good night for me that night, i had won the most i ever had in a day, and when i wanted to withdraw. ERROR. There was not enough money in the hot wallet to cover my withdrawal, i would have to contact the site owner. That. Really. Freaked me out. I wasnt gonna leave a million bucks worth of bitcoin on some dudes site overnight while i was sleeping. So i waited for the owner to show up, he was usually active in the chat, but he didnt show up the first hour, so i tried to kill some time by gambling again. It actually went good, i was still able to concentrate, and i almost made 100k more. (The more bitcoin you had, the more you could win of course.) It takes a bank roll to make a bank roll. So making 100k was relatively easy. But then it just hit me. I made a big bet, and i lost it. I lost my first big bet. It was 10k in one bet. So. And i guess i was getting lazy at this point. So i made another 10k bet. And i lost that as well. That infurated me, so i bet another 10k. And lost it. Then i just blacked out. I dont remember what happened. But i remember stopping briefly at the amount i originially had and wanted to withdraw, the amount that would make me a millionare by the current exchange rate. That was an amount equal to 1 million USD. But it just didnt feel the same. I had to get back to the 2100 btc i had before. But i just couldnt. I had lost focus. I kept taking huge risks and loosing, eventually i only had 100 bitcoin left. That was still alot of money, but i thought fuck it. If the site wants it all it can take it. I gambled the rest, and i was broke. 0. I have been trying since then to win it back. Every excess money i had i put into bitcoin, and went to the site to win my balance back. I never incurred debt, it was always spare money, but i just kept loosing. I always ended being up, then loosing track, tilting and loosing it all back. \n\nNow i have stopped. I hope. Because i have \"wasted\" alot of money on gambling. But that aside, i dont regret it as such. Making such huge bets really gets the adrenaline flowing. It is a very intense feeling. And when you are playing your favorite feel good music loud that makes it even better. However i would not recommend it to anyone. The house, really always win. The longer you play the bigger the chance of loosing is. Even tho you are able to concentrate, day after day, one day you will be cought of guard and loose it all. Gambling is not worth it. It will not make you happy. And not a day goes by when i think about the money i lost and what i could have been, what i could have done, had i not gambled the money away and just saved the bitcoin in this case instead.\n\nAnyway, that was a load of my mind. Thank you for reading.",
"If you want a GREAT movie to watch that explains gambling addiction very well, watch \"Rounders\" with Matt Damon, Edward Norton and Mark Wahlberg. I don't want to give anything away, but if you want to discuss it after you watch it drop me a PM. GREAT MOVIE!!!!!!!!",
"Not an expert on the topic but I did go to rehab for weed (insert bob saget lulz) and they treat all types of addiction the same. The point at which something becomes an addiction is the point when a person realizes that thing is making their life unmanageable. So for gambling it would be when youre spending more money than you'd like and can't stop. Sorry for the simplicity but there's my two cents.",
"A person that wins more often then they lose (or at least make that claim), can be considered addicts as well. Not just the losers!! Addiction is when you feel like you can't survive without partaking in the activity, whether it is drinking, drugs, gambling, etc. A 'winner' gets agitated when they can not gamble. Would rather be at a casino or sports book then with their family. Don't show up for commitments, work, family gatherings. It's all about gambling. So those that think they are not addicted just because they win, are not seeing the whole picture. As a compulsive gambler, I can remember everyone of my wins over $500, but forget or won't fess upto the many, many loses to make those wins"
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5wr2ms | why do some physical injuries (without going into shock) take a long time to hurt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wr2ms/eli5_why_do_some_physical_injuries_without_going/ | {
"a_id": [
"decbyzr"
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"text": [
"Adrenaline. Whenever you hurt yourself your body releases adrenaline so you can either fight or run away (fight or flight), it's the adrenaline that reduces your ability to feel pain momentarily. After it is out of your system you will feel the pain"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3vm2dy | why do some imgur gifs on reddit work on my galaxy note 4 and others don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vm2dy/eli5_why_do_some_imgur_gifs_on_reddit_work_on_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxoog7n"
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"text": [
"Gif is a really really REALLY old file type (1985) and a lot of it's current functionality is actually a bunch of stuff tacked on that isn't supported by the official standard. Because the implementation is up the manufacturer of the device (or, most likely, the browser or image viewer that you are using on that device) you can find gifs that won't work with some programs. they could be too big or just contain data that they don't know how to read.\n\ngifs are incredibly limited and inefficient but for the longest time it was pretty much the only file type for stuff of it's kind, unless you wanted to give out something that you had to play in a dedicated movie program. Now web browsers are better about playing videos, and gifs are starting to dissappear (for the better)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2u2n4l | why do these power-adapters have to be so huge? | Honestly. Everything in techonoly is getting smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter.
BUT THESE DAMN POWER ADAPTERS.
WiiU, Xbox 360, Xbox One, etc. etc. etc.
I mean: look at these monsters:
[Exhibit A](_URL_3_), [Exhibit B](_URL_0_), [Exhibit C](_URL_1_), [Exhibit D](_URL_2_).
Sometimes I think they grow over the years - MASSIVE BRICKS!
Can anyone eplain to me why these have to be THAT big? Since like.. forever?
Has it to do with the power the devices need? (example: Apple TV - just a cord needed)
Which phyisical problem keeps them that big?
Can we expect them to be smaller in the future?
Don't let me down, future of technology - you did a nice job with smartphones, now work on these power-adapters!
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2u2n4l/eli5_why_do_these_poweradapters_have_to_be_so_huge/ | {
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"The big box is an AC (Alternating Current) to DC (Direct Current) rectifier. Depending on the device and its power load/quality requirements the box may be larger or smaller. The more power a device needs, the larger the rectifier needs to be. The cleaner and more stable a device needs the power to be, the more complex (thus larger) the rectifier will need to be.\n\nThey used to be built into the devices themselves, but that added additional weight and heat to the device, which is fine for devices that don't move (the apple TV in your example). Then came \"Wall Warts\", a rectifier at the plug, but those tended to obstruct the second wall plug or fall out of the socket. Now we have this compromise, a box in the middle of the line.\n\nThere have been improvements over the years and there may still be some room for improvement, but as I understand it they are already pushing the limits of efficiency.",
"Those adaptors have a few things, the main thing being an AC rectifier and a transformer. The transformer first reduces the voltage from your outlet to something your device uses (my computer uses 60V, so 120V to 60V). Then the adaptor feeds the AC current through (usually) a pair of diodes which only allow the positive voltage from an AC current to pass through.\n\nThese two devices take up some space, and that's why they're big.",
"You've got 110V coming out of the wall & you only need like 12V for your console. Dropping voltages like that requires a transformer.\n\nThe size of that transformer is defined by laws of physics (as a function of the voltage change & how much power you need to push through it). It's not a semiconductor device that can be shrunk with better technology - it's a chunk of metal with wires wrapped around it.\n\n...and as long as new consoles keep needing more power, they'll need to keep making larger power bricks."
]
} | [] | [
"http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/power-bricks.jpg",
"http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/251385166185-0-1/s-l1000.jpg",
"http://img.tomshardware.com/us/2006/06/13/3d_gaming_notebooks/alienware_aurora_m7700_power_supply_002.jpg",
"http://www.destructoid.com/ul/266017-ps4-vs-xbox-one-comparison-and-gallery/DSC03634-620x.jpg"
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5qexgz | why you can't just hold your breath when getting water boarded. i don't understand why it causes so much discomfort. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qexgz/eli5_why_you_cant_just_hold_your_breath_when/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcypl77"
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"text": [
"If you've used a neti pot, imagine that at an incline that allows your sinuses to fill with water and trigger a drowning response, but you can still get enough air through your mouth that it's not fatal. You experience drowning for as long as the administer wants."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
2tvkk9 | with today's start-up culture, are we not headed towards another dot com bubble? what's different this time? | I mean, when I look at the dot com bubble I see a lot of parallels to today's start-up culture (this is from reading about it, since I was 8 years old at the time so I don't have a lot of insight).
You have a lot of investors flying around and ready to throw money at the next big prospect. So much money has gone into start-ups that have failed.
Snapchat recently (finally) implemented their money-making system - ads! They've gotten so big up until this point even when no one was sure how they would make money. Facebook too .. but I guess a lot of their revenue comes from selling user info which I'm not entirely sure about.
But if I understand correctly, a big part of why the dot com bubble happened was exactly that - people thought that page hits = revenue, so they invested a lot into popular pages. But then somewhere along the way, people realized that more pagehits didn't result in more clicks and more clicks didn't result in more sales for the people advertising.
So really here, what's the difference? Are people a lot more careful now, or are they repeating the same mistakes as before? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tvkk9/eli5_with_todays_startup_culture_are_we_not/ | {
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"text": [
"A lot of the dot com bubble came from people throwing money at companies that had very little in the way of a product, much less a path to profitability. They operated under the Underpants Gnome philosophy.\n\n1. Build market share\n2. ???\n3. Profit!\n\nPeople are generally more concerned about the nuances of the second step these days. It's harder to get money without a real product, and without a revenue model. VCs are faster to pull the plug when things aren't going to plan, and they typically have more oversight (at least based on my experiences with start-ups both pre and post the bubble)."
]
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|
3nohcj | why do the dirtier "grimm version" of fairy tales serve as better teaching tools than the disney or "clean" versions of fairy tales? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nohcj/eli5why_do_the_dirtier_grimm_version_of_fairy/ | {
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"An example would be useful. But if you mean what I think I mean then: Reality sucks. Things don't work out perfectly 99% of the time. \"Happily ever after\" is an extremely rare occurrence. So it's better to tell stories that are a little more grounded.",
"Who are you teaching to specifically? The original versions where meant to be warnings to children back then. It was never meant to inspire hope or the like. If it were meant to be taught today to children, most of the ideas that come with it(death,etc) will either be misunderstood due to the fact that kids today live a sheltered life and not the kind of free life that kids had back then. So if you're talking about the effectiveness of the versions, it depends on the era. Kids back then will be disciplined with frightful stories, but kids today will never know true fear (until they feel it)"
]
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[],
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||
er9sct | why do glasses/cups change "pitch" when you pour hot water into them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/er9sct/eli5_why_do_glassescups_change_pitch_when_you/ | {
"a_id": [
"ff2kqb1"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"The liquid muffles the vibration of the material, so the wavelength of the sound you hear is effectively from the top of the liquid to the top of the glass. Shorter wavelength means a higher pitch. Same concept as holding a higher fret on a guitar string."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
6a8ffe | mitochondrial eve - how can it be that we are all descendant from a single person? | If the population at the time of Mitochondrial Eve was ten thousand people, how can all the other lines of descendants disappear, and how can we know that they did without testing every single human alive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6a8ffe/eli5_mitochondrial_eve_how_can_it_be_that_we_are/ | {
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"text": [
"Mitochondrial Eve isn't a real single person, it's a concept for a theoretical person, but the actual person isn't known, and would constantly change with time. It's not really useful to think of it as an actual person.",
"Those lines of descent didn't disappear: they intermixed. There are probably several thousand of those 10,000 people who are also common ancestors (in particular, they are almost certainly either a common ancestor of everybody alive, or they have no living descendants). Let's take a small example:\n\nSay we have 3 men and 3 women in generation 1. Label the women A,B,C, and the men D,E,F. Suppose A and D, B and E, and C and F are couples, and each have one male and one female child. That gives us, again, 3 men and 3 women in generation 2. Label the children of A and D by G (male) and H (female), the children of B and E by I (male) and J (female), and the children of C and F by K (male) and L (female). \n\nIn generation 3, G and J, H and K, and I and L form couples, and again each have one male and one female child (we'll avoid breeding with siblings, but wont worry about it too much more generations back than that, since it's inevitable before too long anyway). Label these, as above, M,N,O,P,Q,R. Our couples are then MP, NQ, and OR. \n\nAt this point, we consider the next generation down (generation 4). Each of the people in this generation is the child of one of the above three couples. If they are a child of MP, then they are descended from A (M is the son of G, who is the son of A). If they are a child of N, then they are descended from A (N is the daughter of G, who is the son of A). Finally, if they are a child of OR, then they are a descendent of A (O is the son of H, who is the daughter of A). \n\nThus, A is a common ancestor for all of generation 4, and therefore for the entire population thereafter. But so are B (M is the son of J who is the daughter of B, N is the daughter of J who is the daughter of B, and R is the daughter of I who is the son of B) and C (P is the daughter of K, who is the son of C, Q is the son of L who is the daughter of C, and R is the daughter of L who is the daughter of C). Thus, none of our bloodlines have run out, and yet every single member of our original generation is a last common ancestor (the same reasoning works for the men). ",
"The descendants didn't disappear they simply adopted into the dominate Mitochondrial. Since it can only be passed via the female if one generation of the line only had males it would seem to disappear but really adopted into whatever the female Mitochondrial was available. So which ever line births the most females eventually takes over given sufficient mixing.",
"\"The title of \"Mitochondrial Eve\" is not permanently fixed to a single individual, but rather shifts forward in time over the course of human history as maternal lineages become extinct. Unlike her biblical namesake, she was not the only living human female of her time. However, by the definition of Mitochondrial Eve, her female contemporaries, though they may have descendants alive today, do not have any descendants today who descend in an unbroken female line of descent\".\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe term is actually 'matrilineal most recent common ancestor', (MRCA). This term is called 'mitochondrial eve' because the measure of genetic drift between changing germ cell mtDNA can determine that our mitochondrial foundations came form one population of mating adults; just as, we can look for significant genetic markers to ascertain a 'y-chromosomal Adam': 'Y-chromosomal most recent common ancestor', (Y-MRCA).\n\nThese terms reference a degree of measure in genetic markers, and represent the most common ancestor [population] of origin DNA markers. ",
"Most of those ten thousand individuals are direct ancestors of every human on Earth, but only one female has a direct female to female lineage that is unbroken and applies to all humans. If you go back 300 years or roughly 15 generations, you have 32,768 ancestors. All 32,768 of those people have a surviving bloodline, unless some of them are the same people (probably they are, no offense, just statistics) but only one of them was the donor of your mitochondria. This common donor can move forward in time if one of her daughters' bloodlines dies out from failing to have daughters (this bloodline will produce males and will probably have many direct descendants, but not necessarily unbroken female-female ones). Our estimate of when she lived can move backward in time if we find unique mitochondria that don't fit into her bloodline. She is a single individual, however. We couldn't definitively identify her without testing a lot more people.",
"Imagine:\n\nHold hands with your mother and walk backwards through time. She (and your aunt) hold hands with their mother, your grandmother. As you walk further back in time, you are joined on your march by your more and more distant relatives as you reach your common great-great-great… grandmother.\n\nEventually, at some point, we will reach the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA). This is not the \"first human\", but the youngest woman who can claim all of living humanity as her descendants. You will see that there must be such a person at some point on the timeline, since we are all human.\n\nIf you like, we can keep going, all of humanity marching together through time, when who is that approaching us from across the African savanna? It's the chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest kin of the primates (chimps and bonobos joined up before they reached us *H. sapiens*). As we continue our journey, we are joined next by the gorillas, then orangutans, gibbons, old- and new-world monkeys, then still more distant relations like tarsiers and lemurs.\n\nWe can go still further back, our primate parade being joined, in time, by other mammals, then the birds (including dinosaurs!), reptiles, amphibians, fish and so on. Ultimately, after only 40 such convergences, we reach the MRCA of all life on Earth—every human, every animal and insect, every plant, fungus, or microscopic organism—all united, continuing to march backward into the warm primordial seas, back to the most primitive replicators until… who knows?\n\nCheck out Richard Dawkins and his book [The Ancestor's Tale](_URL_0_) for more information. It's a recommended read!"
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3ms78s | why is that near identical movies are often released at the same time (the illusionist/prestige, armageddon/deep impact, wyatt earp/tombstone, ed tv/truman show) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ms78s/eli5_why_is_that_near_identical_movies_are_often/ | {
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"The same reason that Home Depot and Lowe's always pop up near each other. One guy gets a whiff of another studio doing a movie and they go, \"WE'LL MAKE THAT SAME MOVIE BUT BETTER AND STEAL ALL THEIR MONIES!\" This makes no sense, but movie people are extraordinarily stupid, so it makes sense to them.",
"One company hearing about another movie and trying to capitalize. \"A Bug's Life\" and \"Antz\" were another good example. Suspect DreamWorks was trying to ride on Pixar's coattails. ",
"That Illusionist/Prestige thing threw me off when they came out. Just so weird....to even have a 19th century magician mystery drama come out....but two?! Oh what a time to be alive.",
"I always assumed it stemmed from various writers and producers shopping their pitches around, getting declined by studios who make a version of the pitch anyway.",
"Art is never created in loose space, there is always some context. Sometimes people are inspired to create art (books, movies, music, paintings,...) by private experiences, sometimes by news stories, sometimes by other art. Because we live in one world people have sometimes the same idea. \nBefore Truman Show and Ed TV there was a rise of reality TV in the 90s, hidden camera shows were very popular, cameras were getting smaller and smaller and CCTV became common in bigger cities. \nWhen Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter in 1994 a lot of people thought about the idea of a comet hitting earth. \nKevin Kostner brought back Western movies in 1990 with Dances with wolves, one year later Hugh O'Brian who was best known for his Wyatt Earp role (1955-1961) returned for a TV film series as Wyatt Earp for one film. ",
"Not strictly speaking an answer to your question, but when there are two similar movies which come out close to another in time, the first one out nearly *always* wins. Who wants to go and see *another* animated-ant/volcano/asteroid movie two weeks after the first one? Also people get confused: the publicity for one movie gets people to see the other, and people don't go to the second one because they think they've already seen it.",
" > Twin films are films with the same, or very similar, plot produced or released at the same time in two different studios.[1] The phenomenon can result from two or more[2] production companies investing in similar scripts around the same time, resulting in a race to distribute the films to audiences.[3] Some attribute twin films to industrial espionage, the fact of film makers moving between studios, or that the same screenplays are sent to several film studios. Another explanation is that films often deal with topical issues, such as comets, volcano eruptions, reality TV, terrorist attacks or significant anniversaries.[3]\n\n[Twin Films](_URL_0_)",
"Ideas can't be copywrited. Once the concept is floating around Hollywood, more than one version may be made.",
"There are a lot of great answers in this thread, but there's another simple question that can help understand why this happens: What's popular right now? (If I weren't explaining like you're five, I'd say \"cultural zeitgeist.\")\n\nPeople tend to like a lot of the same things at the same time. Imagine you're on the playground this year, and the most popular game is kickball. Every day, there's a big kickball game. Maybe even two. Everyone wants to play kickball.\n\nThen your teacher gives you homework - invent an outdoor game. Well, everyone likes kickball, right? So three different classmates take ideas from kickball and add to them or change them or make them more or less important when they're making their games. If you look at the three different games they come up with, it would be easy to describe them all the same: It's like kickball, but there are some different rules.\n\nBut they may be very different games when you play them.\n\nThat's what happens with these movies. Reality TV is popular. Everyone loves Cops, and Jerry Springer, and this new \"Survivor\" thing is being talked about a lot in the industry because it was big in Europe and is probably going to be big here. So let's make a movie where reality TV gets really extreme, but with just one star!\n\nSo you get EdTV. He knows he's on TV, he's the star of his own show, and everyone loves it. The movie is about his struggles with a new and very strange kind of fame.\n\nAnd you get the Truman Show. He has no idea he's on TV, his whole life is controlled so he can be the star, and the movie is really about the oddity of him learning that his whole life is a lie.\n\nThey're really different movies. But at their core, they can easily spring from the same big cultural idea. It happens.",
"The given explanations make sense, but I thought the main reason was film studios farming the same data about audience preferences. They are all searching for the movie with the widest audience (which equals more $$$) and they all tend to get back similar survey data when they bring in focus groups or look at current trends. Some studios execute on the finished product much better than others, making the less successful studio look like an idea stealer. Not for sure on this, but could be another reason the same product hitting the market at virtually the same time.\nEdit: words"
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31j4nw | what goes into the process of designing an automated factory? | How are they designed? Who is involved? Do companies buy machines from other places or do they build them themselves? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31j4nw/eli5_what_goes_into_the_process_of_designing_an/ | {
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"Lots of engineers involved. Assuming the company is already making a product by hand, a process engineer will determine how to convert the process to an automated one, an industrial engineer will determine how to efficiently set up the process, and mechanical engineers will make physical tools for each new subprocess. All this is performed simultaneously under the direction of a project engineer. ",
"To answer at least one of your questions, companies DO buy a lot of their machines, or have them custom-made, from other places who specialize in making machine-tools.",
"Know a guy who sells those machines.\n\nThey come to his company and say \"we need our ptoduct packaged with this item first, then turn it on its side so we can pack the second item\". My buddy will look at all parts required, and from that you can get a little bit better of an idea in terms of space taking.\n\nThe customer also thinks alot about \"is it cheaper to pay one sweaty dummy to pack these two items?\"",
" > How are they designed? Who is involved?\n\nEngineers analyze what the company's trying to build and design a process for building it.\n\n > Do companies buy machines from other places or do they build them themselves?\n\nBoth of these happen in different circumstances. It depends on how unique the requirements are—if the machine is required to do something completely different from any commercially-made machine, then yeah, they're going to have to build it themselves.\n\nMy favorite example here is 19th century American watch factories. The first successful American watch factory was the [Waltham Watch Company](_URL_1_), first founded in 1850. They had to invent all their machinery, and had a hard time at it—the original company went bankrupt in 1857, but was bought out and reorganized. Apparently they went bankrupt just before they figured out a working formula, because the company just took off after that.\n\nAfter that success, in the 1860s and 1870s a bunch of second-generation watch companies was founded; the most successful of these was the [Elgin National Watch Company](_URL_0_). The way these companies got started was by hiring away Waltham employees who had learned a lot about watch-making machinery and factory processes right there in the factory where it was invented—and even some of the inventors of the original machinery. These second generation factories also built their own equipment, but Waltham's successful factory was already a model of how to do this.\n\nAlso, most of these second generation companies failed. What happened very often then is that in their bankruptcies they sold their machinery to somebody else trying to start a watch company... which would then also fail. It's never entirely clear what all the reasons were, but some watch collectors believe that one cause of the failures may have been that the second-hand machinery was actually rather crappy.\n\nThen by the 1880s there were enough entrepreneurs interested in starting watch factories that specialized companies sprung up that made not watches, but *tools* and *machinery* for making watches. The most notable of these was the [American Watch Tool Company](_URL_2_), which was started by some of the top Waltham guys. So in the 1880s if you wanted to start a watch factory you could, **in theory**, buy a lot of the tools and machinery from a specialized company. \n\nIn practice, actually, most companies founded after this also failed, and the watch tool companies mostly produced generic (not specialized) tools for watch repairers and factories. Waltham and Elgin, the top dogs of the American watch industry, kept inventing and building their own improved machinery and processes, which were better than what you could buy from the tool companies. So to start a successful watch factory after that point you still had to invent (or copy!) and build your own process and machinery—but a lot of the simpler machines you could just buy, and a lot of the complex machinery could be built by buying simpler machines and modifying them to work together.\n\nThis is just one industry (American watches) in one time period (1850-1900), but it shows that there's no easy answer to your question.",
"Being a maintenance mechanic/tech for a few years in a couple of different manufacturing facilities, you won't ever get perfection on certain processes. Sure you want and strive to have it as automated as you can hope for. PLC's and sensors everywhere with clever HMI's that can idiot proof malfunctions, but you will always still need people to run them machines and people to maintain that equipment. \n\nWorking in textiles currently and we'd love to meet the super engineer/project manager that can try and completely automate the process. "
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189orq | the video i'm watching says it's already loaded for the next few minutes. why does it keep stopping to buffer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/189orq/eli5_the_video_im_watching_says_its_already/ | {
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"I'm guessing you are talking about Youtube? If so, then here's why:\n\nYoutube processes video and audio separately. This means that one is always loaded more quickly than the other, and the quicker one is usually the audio. The gray bar on the Youtube player shows whichever one is loaded farther, for some odd reason. And since the audio is the only thing loaded, it still has to load the video. The gray bar gives a very inaccurate depiction of what's going on, loading-wise.\n\nI have no idea why Youtube still uses this crappy design, but I hope they change it soon"
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3vy6aw | how and why did chicago become the crime capital for gang violence? has it always been like this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vy6aw/eli5_how_and_why_did_chicago_become_the_crime/ | {
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"First off, Chicago is not the most violent per capita... but it's the 3rd largest city, and hasn't had the success that NYC and LA have had in reducing gang violence so it leads in absolute numbers. Murder numbers in Chicago are down by more than 50% from their peak in the early 90's (from about 1200 to about 500 annually), but NYC and LA have seen their murder numbers drop by like 80% in that time.\n\nThere are a number of factors that contribute:\n\n1) Chicago is a crossroads in terms of transportation... much of nation's rail traffic passes through Chicago, O'Hare is often busiest airport in the world, etc... and this extends to drug distribution networks, too! Much of the drugs that make their way throughout the U.S. pass through Chicago. This both impacts the wholesale/distribution level of moving drug and also the retail level, where cheap prices flood the streets with product.\n\n2) In some ways, it's a negative consequence of fighting gangs. A number of major king pens were captures and sent to prison a while back, and as a result a few large gangs fractured into hundreds of smaller ones... this meant more fights for territory, establishing power, etc. \n\n3) Chicago tore down the massive public housing projects Cabrini-Green, Robert Taylor Homes, and Henry Horner Homes. These giant high rise housing projects were among the most dangerous placed in the U.S. because of their high concentration of gang members. Well, once the developments closed, those gang members were scattered all over the city. Similar affect to the break-up of the big gangs in that it created lots of smaller, fractured gangs trying to establish their presence in new locations.\n\n4) The general blight and dispair in parts of the city... Chicago is really two different worlds. Part is a vibrant, wealthy world class city. And a few miles away, there is abject poverty, broken families, rampant drug use, terrible schools, no jobs, etc. and the people who live like that have little hope of escaping that lifestyle. So gangs are the most attractive option for many.",
"Chicago, like most cities, is two cities. The part tourists would visit, full of young professionals, trendy bars/restaurants, attractions and generally vibrant. Then there is the part where the unsuccessful go, places of poverty and violence. If you go to Chicago and stay away from low income housing, you'll be perfectly safe. If you go to any of the largest 100 cities in the US and hang around the low income housing, you are going to be in danger.\n\nA low income area is like a classic prisoner's dilemma, if everyone cooperates, it's pretty good, if one person strong arms everyone else, they live the high life, and if two people try to strong arm everyone there is violence. In a place where the violence element already exists, the area cannot revert back to cooperation. The violent element must be completely removed first (and in a way that makes it clear that it is not welcome again), which is nearly impossible for high density populations in cities. Rural areas accomplish this because the violent element has a name, they can be identified and removed. In the city, there are too many people and you simply can't know everyone around you.",
"Chicago has a north and a south side (and even that is a misleading split, but for 5 year old explanations we'll use it). When we think of most of Chicago we picture skyscrapers, iron bridges and pudgy people talking about dah Bears. That's all in the north side.\n\nThe south side is like a completely separate city. Lots of industry, both active and abandoned, lot's of gangs, poor education, poor funding and decreasing job opportunities have turned many neighborhoods into isolated pockets from the rest of the country. The thing is, places like this are in *every* city, so why did Chicago get the brunt end?\n\nIt's easy to assume infrastructure and poor urban planning (which isn't entirely off), and in a lot of ways the poorer districts were set decades ago through the practice of [residential segregation](_URL_0_). For a Chicago, in particular, entire swaths of the city quickly became \"bad part's of town\" as these neighborhoods had to be more self reliant with little hope of finding employment in the less industrial areas. \n\nNow, while race/segregation/years of US social history set the foundation, I can't stress enough that areas like this exist everywhere [Glasgow has one of the highest murder rates in the western world](_URL_1_) but nowhere near the same social history. The common thread here is, when a people are ghettoized, education drops, social mobility drops, standard of living stagnates (at an already low position) and the odds of escape are very low. \n\nThe thing is, humans still have the need to survive and with it comes tribalism in the interest of survival. Much in the same way that feudal kingdoms rise to power in the wake of an empires collapse, gangs spawn from the comparative anarchy (not to say that it *is* anarchy so much as to highlight that as a larger authority's ability to live up to a social contract wanes, the more independence people seek outside of that authority). So for decades, gang violence became a status quo (and for many kids a gang was akin to a high school job they, allowing them to make just as much money as they would at [McDonalds](_URL_3_). We see this in cities like [Caracas](_URL_2_), gangs aren't murder packs of violent youths, they're clans satisfying safety and financial interests for individuals who lack both. \n\nEnter crack. The crack epidemic saw a veritable gold rush for criminal activity and street gangs (with establish infrastructure) were able to monopolize on it. While there was a crime wave as gangs powerful and petty vied for their slice of the pie, one gang was able to rise to power as the veritable Chicago Charlemagne: The Gangster Disciples. In the same year that Chicago began dismantling their housing projects, the heads of the Gangster Disciples were arrested. While conventional wisdom would say, cut off the head and the body dies, this line of thinking ignores why people become criminals in the first place (nobody wakes up one day and decides to be the \"bad guy\") the reality is closer to, kill the leviathan and you birth a hydra. In the wake of the power vacuum, coupled with a market collapse (the crack bubbled burst along with a declining reliance on US industrial output) smaller gangs, former allies and members of the Gangster Disciples began fighting for the scraps of Westeros. New factions have formed, violence has increased all around and, worse yet, the violence kills mobility even further in these neighborhoods making gang membership all the more essential for young people just trying to survive. \n\nTL:DR poverty has always (and does always) welcome gang violence, but the egregious real estate segregation of Chicago established veritable (and I guess eventually very real) ghettos which fostered a positive feedback loop for gang violence. After decades of this stuff, the Crack epidemic caused a massively lucrative gang war which ended in winning gang being targeted and eventually had its leadership gutted. But, just like how blowing up a death star and killing the emperor doesn't destroy an Empire, taking out the big boss just resulted in weaker leaders vying for control. No improvement gets made to these neighborhoods. The city stagnates. Crime continues and politicians still believe that if we just arrest them all, these areas will eventually stop being full of crime. "
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"http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1674-5-ways-life-different-in-worlds-deadliest-city.html",
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2d1y28 | where do domestic cats come from and why don't we ever see them in the wild? | What I mean is why do we only see cats in connection with humans? Sure there are strays and all but I never go hunting for example and see a wild calico cat den or hear a cat mating call when I'm out camping. Where did they originate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d1y28/eli5_where_do_domestic_cats_come_from_and_why/ | {
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"They do exist in the wild. They were domesticated from the \"wild cat\", Felis silvestris."
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6wn6j6 | why are maps inconsistent about the arctic north-pole | Is there really land on the north pole? Google maps shows only ocean, but some random images i find show a sheet of ice/show covering the whole arctic circle. is there really land there or is it all just a frozen sea?
As stated before, I don't see ice or land using Google Maps, just ocean. the only ice i see is from the land in Russia and North America. Edit: And Greenland(almost forgot about that one)
Follow up question: has the Ice around the north pole melted? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wn6j6/eli5_why_are_maps_inconsistent_about_the_arctic/ | {
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"There is no land there. But in winter there is an extremely wide sheet of solid ice. In summer there's still some ice.",
"There is no land at the north pole. In the winter it is virtually fully frozen over, in the summer some of it melts and parts can be navigated by boat. ",
"Not for long.\n\nIn a matter of years here there will be navigable water at the N Pole during summer.\n\nSo no, there is no land there, and the summer ice is rapidly melting away."
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3d3rdo | why after i wake up is my mouth/tongue filled/covered with white gunky stuff that tastes bad, what is it, and how can i get it to stop happening? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d3rdo/eli5_why_after_i_wake_up_is_my_mouthtongue/ | {
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"I'm no expert on this, but I've noticed the white stuff form after I eat something hot for dinner. Maybe dried up / dead tongue cells?",
"Bacteria forms in your mouth while you sleep, it's totally natural. What you can do to prevent or help solve it is to brush your teeth, and also invest in a tongue scraper to remove it.",
"You may also want to try a non-alcohol enzyme mouthwash like Biotene. \nThe thing with most mouthwashes is that they kill ALL the bacteria, which leaves sort of a wide-open habitat for the overgrowth of the wrong kind of bacteria. \n\nAlso, if you sleep with your mouth open, it tends to dry out, which also tips the balance in the favor of the wrong bacteria. You may want to try out those nose strips so you can breathe better through your nose. They even make these strap things that keep your jaw from falling open when you sleep.",
"brush no more than twice a day and drink more water in the evenings. like way more water. I get this from time to time when I'm mildly dehydrated- mostly in winter when i have the heater on - if it persists go try some anti-bacterial mouthwash or see a doctor if it's really worrying you.",
"You might have candida overgrowth. A change in your diet could help your body better balance your fungus levels. Eat probiotics and limit your sugar/carbs."
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e3jsj0 | why are most forensic gloves blue in colour? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e3jsj0/eli5_why_are_most_forensic_gloves_blue_in_colour/ | {
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"Medical gloves that are non-latex are colored in order to quickly and easily identify them. Blue is just the color that has been agreed upon by manufacturers. Other colored gloves are made, but blue is the default color"
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3njl4d | hobbes' leviathan | Studying Leviathan right now for a grad course and I'm getting lost. Anyone have a good brief explanation of what Hobbes is trying to say? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3njl4d/eli5_hobbes_leviathan/ | {
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"Hobbes thinks that government is dangerous, corruptive, abusive, and necessary. He doesn't disagree with people like Locke or Rousseau that government and civil liberty will always be at odds to some extent, but he thinks it's worth it anyway because without it we end up with anarchy and chaos. The key quote is that life in the 'state of nature' is \"nasty, brutish, and short\" - so we need government to protect us from one another.",
"Hobbes was thinking of things like Libya and Syria. It is better to have one massive dickhead to suck up to, than to remove the massive dickhead and instead have 20000 little dickheads. \n\nHe thought the whole world would be like that."
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1pfyt6 | why does fat usually gather around the midsection/waist (lovehandles) instead elsewhere on the body? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pfyt6/eli5_why_does_fat_usually_gather_around_the/ | {
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"Because your core doesn't have the same range of motion and precision requirements as your arms and legs. They also don't house vital organs necessary for living, meaning the fat serves as protection and insulation. In a nutshell: it's the best place your body can store energy reserves without getting in the way."
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de0ewz | why can't you just lipo a fat person thin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/de0ewz/eli5_why_cant_you_just_lipo_a_fat_person_thin/ | {
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"First of all, liposuction is a surgery and it carries risks like all surgeries. It's for removing a few pounds in specific locations for body contouring, not dozens or even hundreds of pounds. That would be an absolutely ridiculously dangerous surgery. Second of all, removing fat via liposuction doesn't give any of the health benefits of losing weight normally. It doesn't remove visceral fat (fat around the organs, which is much worse than subcutaneous fat), it doesn't unclog arteries or improve cardiac health, and it doesn't reduce cholesterol or blood pressure. It doesn't improve health in any way, it's literally just cosmetic.",
"The most dangerous thing about obesity is not the fat you can see, but the fat in the organs and cardiovascular system. Nobody ever died from having fat thighs, but plenty of people have died from fat clogging their arteries. If you did what you propose, the person would be just as unhealthy as before, they just wouldn’t look it. There really wouldn’t be much point. \n\nNot only would it be basically useless, but liposuction is a pretty invasive surgery. It’s decently safe if someone has a few spots they want to reduce, but removing massive amounts of fat would likely be extremely dangerous.",
"The simplest reason is the risk: liposuction is not a safe procedure, and most people are not good candidates for it.\n\nYou typically need good muscle tone, and good skin elasticity - otherwise you have an extreme excess skin problem. Most medical professionals actually don't advise liposuction if you're overweight.\n\nPotential risks include the puncturing of organs, burns from equipment, anesthesia related complications, shock, and death. That's during the surgery.\n\nAfter the surgery, you are at risk of blood clots to the lungs, infection, bleeding under the skin, skin necrosis (where the skin cells die, like gangrene), kidney issues and death.\n\nPut simply, other weight loss measures are much, much safer, are better at implementing long-term weight loss, and are more effective at removing excess fat.",
"Partially because evidence suggests lipo only has a temporary effect, and partially because it’s not a vital surgery. You don’t have to weigh 300lb to stay alive but you’re not going to be morbidly ill just for being that weight. It increases odds of certain conditions sure, but it’s not immediate like an infection or cancer is. \n\nLipo might cause immediate weight loss but usually, even keeping up with a diet and exercise regimen, the body will regrow those cells it’s lost. It redistributes while it’s at it, usually to the fat layer surrounding internal organs (which is a problem) and to the abdomen (also kind of a problem). Given the risks in this procedure (one in 10000 death rate, which isn’t horrible but not great either) it’s not really all too viable medically. That’s why it’s considered cosmetic. \n\nThe best way to lose weight is lifestyle changes. Diet, exercise, mindset. This isn’t going to change just because we invent a way to fast track it by controlled massive bodily trauma.",
"There is a reason why that person became 300 lbs in the first place; people are not naturally obese. If you remove the fat, the reason why a person became that heavy still remain. There is a decent chance that they will become obese again after the surgery.\n\nThe only true way to eliminate obesity is to change eating and exercising habits."
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3su0i2 | is the reinstatement of the u.s. draft a real possibility? | After everything that's occurred, I have been paranoid that this was possible being a 23 year old male in the USA. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3su0i2/eli5is_the_reinstatement_of_the_us_draft_a_real/ | {
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"They have established the IRR, where people who separate before their 8 year commitment are placed for the remainder of the time. In a time of need they will be recalled to active duty and deployed where necessary. The last time that happened was at the spearhead of Iraq. So I don't think the actual draft will ever be needed unless the IRR sources are tapped out.",
"I was 18 when 9/11 happened and everyone was crazy over this possibility. If it didn't happen then, I feel confident it won't happen now. Not to say that if situations get worse, particularly with the possibility of having a new president soon, and World War III breaks out...I mean, who fucking knows. \n\nBut, for now, I'd say you're fine. ",
"I'd say pretty slim. There was a lot of backlash when it was last used in the US, which is part of why the modern US military is built the way it is. The modern US military is built into three components: active duty, reserve and national guard, inactive regular reserve (irr). The active duty is supposed to be the main bulk of the fighting force, with the reserves designed to fill in any gaps in active duty capabilities, either by sending individual servicemembers to deploying units, or by sending entire units. The IRR is composed of people (like myself) who did less than 8 years in an active or reserve unit. My contract was a 6x2 (read \"6 by 2\"), meaning I did 6 years in the regular reserves, and have a 2 year obligation in the IRR. I don't have to drill, maintain physical fitness standards, etc, but if the Marines need me, they can tell me to show up for regular training or to go to war. \n\nThere's also a forth group of people who are out of the IRR, but have some kind of special or unique training that means the military can call them up any time. That's generally intelligence people, I think.\n\nAnd there's a fifth group, which is the State Guard. The state guard is similar to the National Guard, but are trained and equipped individually by their state, and they are used to supplement the National Guard in responding to national emergencies. I don't think any of them have been deployed since WWI, but they can (in theory, at least) be deployed overseas I believe.\n\nAnyways, point is: the modern structure of the military is designed to take *a lot* of shit before running low on troops. We would have to be in a seriously major crisis before the draft was actually required for us to maintain war fighting capabilities. At the present time, I don't see the US being hit hard enough by anyone to necessitate that kind of thing.\n\nThere's also the issue that the modern military probably wouldn't want to accept draftees. When I was in, any discussion of the abilities of the Marines vs the Army in reference to Vietnam, Korea, or WWII quickly included comments about how the Army took draftees, while the Marines did not*. The mentality is that a volunteer force is more willing to do dangerous things for the good of the unit/war effort. How true that is, I don't know, but I do know that modern servicemembers are highly skeptical of the abilities of draftees.\n\n\\* We did, but only at the end of the Vietnam War",
"Frankly, it's not going to happen unless World War 3 somehow starts, and then if it again somehow didn't involve a nuclear exchange. The military isn't going to need more manpower than it already has for anything less. "
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5tigcb | why does looking at somebody else's wounds or injuries cause me to feel disgusted/uncomfortable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tigcb/eli5_why_does_looking_at_somebody_elses_wounds_or/ | {
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"Part of it is that people are gross, but most of it from a psychological perspective has to do with empathy and sympathy. We don't want ourselves to get hurt, and that manifests as physical discomfort when we see others hurt, sometimes to the point of screaming, crying, vomiting, or fainting. Besides that, a useful reference for feelings of disgust is the movie “Inside Out,” where it's explained that disgust keeps the body safe, like when Riley won't eat broccoli. She's disgusted and repelled because it smells bad, and the body wants to be as sure as possible that bad smells aren't harmful.",
"Oh I just learned this! Our brains have this type of neuron called \"mirror neurons\". Mirror neurons have a lot of activity when two things happen: 1) when you do something and 2) when you see someone do the same thing. So when you see someone hit their head, your mirror neurons fire and you get reminded of you hitting your head.\n\nedit: this might not answer the disgusted part of the question but might help with the uncomfortable part"
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4lrear | how tranquilizer darts work as they can't be pinpointing veins? | I've read about missed vein shots of various drugs, users say they either don't feel anything or feel much less sensation than what they would after 15-20min of miss-shot. I believe to be able to make a great ape go nighty nights with a dart shot in 5 minutes you need huge amounts of sedatives but wouldn't it make it extremely dangerous for the animal if by hazard it hits a vein and all the concentration goes directly to blood stream? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lrear/eli5how_tranquilizer_darts_work_as_they_cant_be/ | {
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"You use drugs that have a low chance of causing respiratory arrest and aim for big muscles.\n\nUsually the dart isn't to knock the animal out. Just to slow it down enough that a vet can administer a sedative safely.",
"In general, drugs can be effectively delivered to the body by different 'routes.' These routes include: \n\n*intravenous (directly into the bloodstream going to the heart)\n\n*subcutaneous (underneath the skin)\n\n*oral (swallowed)\n\n*buccal (absorbed through the inside of the cheek) \n\n*sublingual (absorbed under the tongue) \n\n*intramuscular (absorbed within the muscle) \n\n*installation (eye drops) \n\n*insufflation ('snorted' up the nose) \n\n*inhaled (breathed in) \n\n*endotracheal (liquids administered through a breathing tube)\n\nThe drugs in tranquilizer darts work through the intramuscular route. The drug gets absorbed into the blood stream, but it does so from within the muscle."
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4qjxhh | why are taxpayers always liable for lawsuits against government instead of holding individuals accountable? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qjxhh/eli5why_are_taxpayers_always_liable_for_lawsuits/ | {
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"Because their jobs expose them to greater legal risks, and without some sort of gov't protection, no one would do them.\n\nMy job doesn't put me in a position where I might have to decide whether or not to shoot someone. If it did, I would't do it without some reassurance they are not going to hang me if things to badly. That's why most people in law enforcement have some form of *qualified immunity*, where they cannot be personally held responsible for mistakes in judgement done while doing their duties.\n\nAlso, it wouldn't do the injured party a lot of good. If the courts determine you suffered $10M in damages, garnishing some civil servants wages isn't ever going to put a dent in that."
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4hiav9 | why do some cultures put the family name first, but others put the family name last? | For a long time, I got confused about names like Kim Jong-un following Kim Jong-il, because our Western convention is that reading a name like that would mean that "Kim" is the person's first name--their individual name--and "Jong-il" would be a surname, which is supposed to stay the same across the family (except in the case of marriages or legal name changes).
Then I learned that many East Asian cultures put the family name first and the individual name last, which is flip-flopped from how we do it in the West. So why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hiav9/eli5_why_do_some_cultures_put_the_family_name/ | {
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"It is based on what the culture prioritizes--the individual or the tribe. \n\nEver seen a Japanese business card? Company, position, last name, first name.",
"I'm not sure if anyone can really answer that - it's not like all those countries had a convention at some point and decided to \"do it this way from now on\".\n\nNames tell you a lot about culture and ancient traditions. In Germany, where I live, as well as in the UK, and therefore also the US, the first name is often derived from saints and people were usually not that creative (in ancient rome, the first boy was called after the current leader, and then they just counted from there on - secundus, tertius, quartus, quintus...). So the last name traditionally helped to distinguish people with the same firstname and was often derived from locations or trades. So John Smith was another John, than John Greenfield. As a perk, it showed some kind of belonging of the individual, so you might know something about the person through the name alone. In modern times we are living in huge cities with thousands of people, so the wish for individual expression has grown stronger, and the first name is carried like a lifestyle accessory - the name should make you unique (and is also expression of your parents personality).\n\nIn Iceland, the last name still consists only of the name of the father with the ending -son or -dottir, depending if the child is a boy or a girl and respectively \"Johan's son\" or \"Johan's daughter\" (Johanson, Johandottir). I think this might have been custom in many Northern European countries. Therefore Icelanders use their first names only.\n\nMany asian cultures encourage conformity and (group) harmony, and don't value individuality so much as does the west. It's one way to maintain peace when you're living with many people in very small spaces and creates a strong social contract, a social security network.\n\nIn culture studies, you might hear the terms individualism vs. collectivism - the idea if the person defines themselves more over the group they belong to, or their individual characteristics. Putting the family name first is one way to stress its importance. To argue which of the two is cause, and which is effect, whether the culture is shaped by this custom, or this custom an expression of the culture, is probably like arguing if egg or hen came first. \n\nI'm sure there's many more different customs connected to naming traditions around the world. To simply say \"the west\" has it one way and \"the East\" has it \"flip-flopped from how we do it\" is a too simple way of looking at it. \n"
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3b2aeo | why is a leap second required? | *A leap second will be added on June 30, 2015 23:59:60 UTC.*
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b2aeo/eli5_why_is_a_leap_second_required/ | {
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"Because the rotation of Earth is slowing slowly. By occasionally adding leap seconds, everything stays in sync.",
"The length of a day is fixed, based on how quickly the earth rotates. We split this day into 24 hours, each made of 60 minutes, each made of 60 seconds. That means there are 86,400 seconds per day. Over time, we've been able measure the length of a second more and more accurately, and now scientists can describe a second to an incredible degree of accuracy.\n\nThe thing is, the rate at which the earth rotates isn't quite as accurate as how accurately scientists measure a second. The earth is very gradually slowing down, so that it takes a tiny bit longer than 86,400 seconds for one day to pass.\n\nBut although the earth is slowing down, it's really not practical to adjust the length of a second. Now that we've defined it so precisely, many other areas of science, computing, communications and so on rely on this precise length. So instead of redefining the second, instead we choose to add leap-seconds every now and then. This prevents the time shown on our clocks (which we would naturally adjust based on when daylight is) from being too different to the time based on an atomic clock (which is based on the scientific definition of how long a second is). ~~Once we add the next leap-second, they will be 36 seconds different. The aim of adding leap-seconds is to reduce this number.~~ (Edit: deleted this sentence because it is wrong - see my later post, below.)",
"A second used to be defined as 1/86400th (1 / (24 * 60 * 60)) of a mean solar day.\n\nHowever, as our ability to measure time precisely improved, we discovered the earth's rotation wasn't completely regular. We needed a more precise, unchanging second, so we defined one based on atomic clocks.\n\nOver the years, irregularities in the earth's rotation and orbit accumulate, and the atomic clock gets out of sync with the astronomical clock. When this happens, usually once every couple of years, a leap second is added to adjust."
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4spht9 | how does/could cooling air help a jet engine? | Why does cooling air really fast help generate thrust in any way?
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4spht9/eli5_how_doescould_cooling_air_help_a_jet_engine/ | {
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"Cold air is more dense. The fans at the front of the jet engine are there to compress the air to make it even more dense, especially as the jet gets higher where there's less air. \n\nFuel needs air to burn, right? So if you compress the air, make it more dense, there's more air in the same space as your fuel, which makes your fuel way more efficient, since it burns much better. \n\nAs well, you're deriving work from the fuel by using it to expand the air rapidly, by heating it rapidly, and by turning your dense liquid fuel into way less dense gas. By compressing the air going in, it already wants to expand back out again, so when the fuel ignites it's again more efficient at doing the work it's supposed to be doing. And cold air is more dense already than hot air.",
"The way a jet engine works is basically the same concept of an internal combustion engine: Take air in, compress it, add fuel, ignite, extract energy from the force of expansion. For car engines it is driving pistons to turn wheels, while for jet engines it is spinning turbines which drive fans that push air out the back.\n\nIf you want better performance you need more air and more fuel reacting. For cars this means higher compression in the cylinder (which is why higher octane gas is required, as it resists burning too soon under high compression), and the same is true for jet engines. But compressing air has a big problem: Heat!\n\nMashing air with a given amount of heat into a smaller space obviously increases the relative concentration of that heat; in effect it gets \"hotter\" in comparison. For an automobile engine this heat can result in igniting the gasoline mixture too soon, blowing a piston through the top of your engine. For a jet engine this heat means your engine parts might melt, which is also \"bad\".\n\nHow do you get around this? Use cooler air of course! You can fly higher for cooler air.. but it is much less dense so you would need to go even faster. Or you can get clever.\n\nAir is actually made up of a mix of air molecules of various speeds, which averages to a given temperature. If you could find a way to somehow \"sort\" these molecules you could isolate the slower moving ones and kick out the hotter ones. And the vast majority of air which enters a jet engine is already being diverted to the big fans which push air backward, rather than the combustion chambers which actually drive those fans.\n\nI'm not really familiar with how exactly their pre-cooler works but I suspect it is something like that. With the cooler air they can operate at greater compression without melting their engines, and so increase their engine performance.",
"Jet engines operate using the [Brayton Cycle](_URL_0_) which is a way of handling the thermodynamics of the engine.\n\nOne of the things which affects the efficiency of the engine is the difference between input and out put temperatures. Simply, the colder the air going in, the better - and not just because it's more dense."
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ft7qs9 | why are bodies cremated in a container? | Doing some end of life planning and we were looking at cremation for our will. When we did some research it seems like you still need to purchase a container to be cremated in, either an all wood coffin or a cardboard box. Everything we found said you must do this (in the US) but nothing explained why. The point for my wife and I is that we feel that cremation is more eco friendly and cheaper, if I'm still being told to purchase 'extra' items (from my uneducated prospective) it kind of defeats the point. So Reddit, explain it like I'm 5, why must you cremate a body in a container? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ft7qs9/eli5_why_are_bodies_cremated_in_a_container/ | {
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"In addition to the practical answers here specific to cremation there are also a lot of state laws about the proper handling, storage, and final disposition of the deceased that come from rather drastic abuses in the past by morticians. The requirement that the container be destroyed in my state is as much about a few cases of crematory workers reselling \"lightly used\" caskets as new as they have to do with anything else. We also have some very specific laws about what can and cannot be used to position the body inside because of people using caskets as a method for disposing of trash. Some states like Pennsylvania have laws requiring embalming and a sealed container.\n\nThe paperboard box is not particularly harsh on the environment, but in many states you can bring your own so to speak, so if you know a woodworker you could likely have something arranged without breaking the bank if that would be your preference. The most eco friendly option in my opinion is to be buried in a state that permits natural burial and be buried in under 24hrs, but there are a lot of situations where that is simply impractical.",
"Because they cant just throw your body in the oven and have it flopping around and falling off the pedestal.",
"The container is to make moving the body easier and to protect the crematory operator from bodily fluids. Interestingly, most states don't require embalming, especially for a cremation. You can safe a lot of money going with a cardboard box and no embalming.",
"[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n**Common cremation containers**\n\nCrematories use what is commonly called a “cremation container” for typical cremations. They are rigid, corrugated (cardboard) boxes large enough to handle an average size body.\n\nThe purpose of the container is to provide a dignified means of storing the body prior to cremation and to literally contain the body while it is being prepared for cremation and when entering the retort. Made out of affordable materials, it provides an inexpensive cremation option for families.\n\nIn some situations, a simple cardboard container may not be an option. Frequently this occurs with larger sized individuals where a more sturdy material is needed. In these cases, the cremation service provider will supply an alternative container. These are typically only used when necessary. A small additional charge may apply as these containers are more expensive to purchase."
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3qgepb | how do bone marrow recipients continue producing blood with their own dna instead of their donor's? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qgepb/eli5_how_do_bone_marrow_recipients_continue/ | {
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"They don't, but red blood cells don't have nuclei, so no DNA. But the donor has to be carefully selected for compatibility."
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jmg1x | can someone explain the osi model like i am 5? | What each layer represents and analogies for a 5 year old. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jmg1x/eli5_can_someone_explain_the_osi_model_like_i_am_5/ | {
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"You're studying for an exam, aren't you?",
"I'll give it a shot. I'm pretty sure that if I mess this up someone will be along to correct me. :)\n\n\nLayer 1 - Physical: The wires connecting all the telephones together in your neighborhood.\n\nLayer 2 - Data Link: The phone numbers for everyone in your neighborhood\n\nLayer 3 - Network: The address book your mom has with your neighbors names and their phone numbers.\n\nLayer 4 - Transport: The telephone company.\n\nLayer 5 - Session: The telephone company's equipment that makes the phone ring when someone calls and ends the call when everyone hangs up the phone.\n\nLayer 6 - Presentation: The telephone in your house.\n\nLayer 7 - Application: The microphone and speaker on the telephone that let you hear the other person and let them hear you talking.\n",
"The OSI model is a way to make it easier for us to understand everything that happens when (e.g.) you surf the 'net. While you are browsing reddit, in the end electricity needs to be applied to the wires in your phone cable. How do we get from a to b? Surely, you can make a ginormous program that takes care of everything, but that would not be very practical, and nobody would understand. So we split things up into different parts that need to be done, and we call them layers. That way it's easier to understand, small programs can do things they are good at, and if it's done well, we can replace a piece of software in the chain with a better one without affecting the others. \n\nYou could think of them as a conveyor belt at the shipping department of say, Amazon. You order some books, and the next day they are at your door. How'd that happen? First, the books need to be collected and put together. Then they have to be wrapped up. Some padding may be added. They are put in a box, next step is to put a sticker with your address on them. Finally, UPS is informed and the package is put into the van. And at your place, you sign for the package, unpack it, etc, etc, until you hold in your hands the books that were once at Amazon's. \n\nJust like the books needed to go through a series of steps to get sent to you, the data needs to be processed before it can be sent onto the tubes of the internet. And, like you need to sign, unpack, etc. in order to finally read the book, the data has to travel through the reverse of those steps at the other end. \n\nI'd write an overview of the 7 layers, but I gotta get back to work now. If this post is well received I'll do it later :)",
"You're studying for an exam, aren't you?",
"I'll give it a shot. I'm pretty sure that if I mess this up someone will be along to correct me. :)\n\n\nLayer 1 - Physical: The wires connecting all the telephones together in your neighborhood.\n\nLayer 2 - Data Link: The phone numbers for everyone in your neighborhood\n\nLayer 3 - Network: The address book your mom has with your neighbors names and their phone numbers.\n\nLayer 4 - Transport: The telephone company.\n\nLayer 5 - Session: The telephone company's equipment that makes the phone ring when someone calls and ends the call when everyone hangs up the phone.\n\nLayer 6 - Presentation: The telephone in your house.\n\nLayer 7 - Application: The microphone and speaker on the telephone that let you hear the other person and let them hear you talking.\n",
"The OSI model is a way to make it easier for us to understand everything that happens when (e.g.) you surf the 'net. While you are browsing reddit, in the end electricity needs to be applied to the wires in your phone cable. How do we get from a to b? Surely, you can make a ginormous program that takes care of everything, but that would not be very practical, and nobody would understand. So we split things up into different parts that need to be done, and we call them layers. That way it's easier to understand, small programs can do things they are good at, and if it's done well, we can replace a piece of software in the chain with a better one without affecting the others. \n\nYou could think of them as a conveyor belt at the shipping department of say, Amazon. You order some books, and the next day they are at your door. How'd that happen? First, the books need to be collected and put together. Then they have to be wrapped up. Some padding may be added. They are put in a box, next step is to put a sticker with your address on them. Finally, UPS is informed and the package is put into the van. And at your place, you sign for the package, unpack it, etc, etc, until you hold in your hands the books that were once at Amazon's. \n\nJust like the books needed to go through a series of steps to get sent to you, the data needs to be processed before it can be sent onto the tubes of the internet. And, like you need to sign, unpack, etc. in order to finally read the book, the data has to travel through the reverse of those steps at the other end. \n\nI'd write an overview of the 7 layers, but I gotta get back to work now. If this post is well received I'll do it later :)"
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1wtdza | is the existence of light necessarily paired with heat, or is it just that that's how we've always observed it? | So, I know that is its generally accepted that light acts both as a wave and a particle. I know that anything, when moving, generates heat, and the faster it goes, the hotter it gets. So I was wondering; is it theoretically (or actually) possible to create some sort of light without generating *ANY HEAT* whatsoever?
My initial instinct was no, but my boyfriend says that even though light can be considered a particle, it has no mass, so (somehow?) this means it's theoretically possible to create light without heat -- it's just that no one has ever observed this. He also says that we're not 100% sure that light is a wave OR a particle, but that this is just a useful way to think about it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wtdza/eli5_is_the_existence_of_light_necessarily_paired/ | {
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"Pretty much everything is necessarily paired with heat, just because of how the universe is. Heat is basically just random motion, and since nothing's perfect, there's always energy that gets \"wasted\" in the form of heat when you try to do something.\n\nIn theory, though, yes, you can produce light without generating heat. They're not necessarily linked, but in every practical situation, they are.\n\nTo answer the last part, what we basically know is that light isn't really a \"wave\" or a \"particle\" by the standard definitions. That doesn't mean that we don't know what it is, it just means that the definitions we made for those terms way back in 1900 don't work.\n\nIt's not a lack of understanding of the nature of light, because light is actually one of the things in physics we understand best. It's just a lack of terminology that communicates what \"particle\" means to a lay audience.",
"Photons transmit light\n\nPhotons have energy\n\nAny method of detecting light involves the absorption of photons\n\nAbsorbing photons increases the atomic kinetic energy of atoms/molecules, also known as heat.\n\nThe existence of light in isolation is not tied to heat, however the detection or interaction of light is."
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5xxcon | why have african americans struggled more than other immigrant groups in america in terms of poverty and incarceration rates? | Why have minority groups in America such as Mexicans, Japanese, Indian, Polish, German, Italian, Irish, Chinese, Korean, and any other Non-African groups prospered more than African Americans? By prosper I mean avoid the pitfalls of poverty and not becoming incarcerated. Is it education? Maintaining the nuclear family? Money from relatives back home? Melatonin? The for profit penal system? Law enforcement? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xxcon/eli5_why_have_african_americans_struggled_more/ | {
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"Imma go with \"Because they weren't subjected to 400 years of slavery followed by 100 years of state-sanctioned racism\" for 800 Alex.",
"When they immigrated, it was as slaves. And then when they tried to acquire wealth or influence after slavery, they were killed. \n\nThe civil rights act is still within living memory. That's 400 years of America without the chance to build up capital, own stock, etc. No African Americans were allowed on the Board of Standard Oil, US Bank, or the Union Pacific. They have been building up wealth since the 60s and 70s, but it's tough to play catchup. ",
"All but one ethnic group in the United States migrated to find a better life. The Native Americans came first, then much, much later came the European colonizers. More recently people from Southeast Asia and Latin America have made the same act.\n\nBut one group was kidnapped from their homeland, tortured, and brought to work as unpaid labor for centuries. When you ask most people to tell their families' immigrant story, they will likely share some tale of hardship, having their whole life in a trunk, or having to plow a field out of a virgin forest.\n\nBut one group will say, \"I don't know, but it probably involved torture, rape, murder, child abuse, broken families, kidnapping, and forced labor. Grandma didn't have any stories to share with us.\"\n\nSo the African American started in the United States in a profoundly worse position than any other American immigrant group. If each generation a group rises three steps in the race to prosperity, then the three steps the African American takes are dozens of steps behind the three climbed by the Latino or Asian.\n\nRace isn't an indicator of personality, it is simply a demographic trend. African Americans can also rise to the presidency and other ethnic groups have individuals whose lives are far more pitiful than most of us care to contemplate. But in aggregate the African American experience is to start the race laps behind and be blamed for not being faster.",
"Blah blah any mass \"integration\" had problems look at the Irish for example. They were not treated so well and they didn't act so great at the time either. ",
"FYI, if your family has been in the United States for centuries, you're not an immigrate, you're an American.",
"There was systemic discrimination until the past 50 years, and social discrimination still. The effects carry through generations. For example, the practice of redlining. When the federal government started guaranteeing mortgages -- opening the idea of home ownership, 30 year mortgages, etc. to Americans -- the lending guidelines outlines where govermment-guaranteed loans could be issued... green zones were safe to lend to, yellow were marginal and red was \"do not lend.\" Basically, any place African-Americans lived was defined as blighted and redlined. So it was difficult for blacks to build wealth though home ownership. They could buy with non-guaranteed loans though often shady lenders, or they could just rent. Now many middle class Americans have used home equity to fund retirement, fund college education for their children, held their children buy homes, etc. Take away that source of wealth and inter-generational help, and it has had an ongoing impact on the ability of the black middle class to develop. Additionally, places where blacks have lived have long been passed over in terms of education, parks, job recruitment... white flight caused many whites to head to suburbs (again, guaranteed green zone areas where they could easily get mortgages), and the tax base to fund schools went to the suburban schools. Companies began moving out of center cities and oursourcing manufacturing, taking jobs away from the black population centers inside big cities."
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3b5x62 | why is it that young children aren't "embarassed" easily, thus doing stuff that will embarass them when they're adults/teens? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b5x62/eli5_why_is_it_that_young_children_arent/ | {
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"Because embarrassment is an emotion that you learn as you learn about your society's social views. A child doesn't know right from wrong and embarrassing from smart nearly as well as a teenager.",
"They don't yet know which things are going to lead them to be ridiculed. They haven't learned society's expectations of them. In addition, they haven't learned to read others' reactions very well -- for example they can't easily tell from your face if you think something they said is dumb."
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18li8a | why are there different pronunciations of the word celtic? | For example, the NBA team is called the Boston Celtics (SELL-ticks) but if you have a Celtic heritage its (KELL-tick). Is there any reason behind this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18li8a/why_are_there_different_pronunciations_of_the/ | {
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"The Boston Celtics share their name with [Glasgow Celtic FC](_URL_1_), from Scotland, where I'm from. Note there's no 's', Celtic here is an adjective, not a noun - it's not \"the Glasgow Celtics.\" It's Celtic Football Club, from Glasgow, but it's still pronounced Seltik and not Keltik. Celtic FC was was started to provide a leisure activity to the swathes of Irish immigrants to Glasgow in the late 19th century. See also [Hibernian FC](_URL_2_.), the equivalent in Edinburgh. I don't know enough about the history of the Boston Celtics to say that it's a similar story for them, but given that Irish immigration happened in that part of the world a bit later on, I'd say that Celtic FC had some influence on the naming.\n\nThe Romans called us the *Celtae* in Latin, which became how we referred to ourselves, the Celts [Selts]. 'C' in Latin is always an 'S' sound.\n\nMeanwhile, in England, there had been a Germanic and Viking influence on the language since the Roman invasion, and in Middle English a 'C' always has a 'K' sound. So when the Celts introduced themselves to the Anglo-Saxons, it became pronounced Kelts. For a whole buttload of history reasons, the English became the dominant force in the British Isles, and the \"Keltic\" pronunciation stuck.\n\nIn the mid 19th century there came a [revival of the Celtic](_URL_0_) identity and culture, and adherents advocated the true Latin-derived \"Seltik\" pronunciation over the bastardised \"Keltik\". Hence in modern English, \"Keltik\" usually refers to the historical Celts, and \"Seltik\" refers to things formed during the Celtic revival, such as the sports teams. In the Welsh language and Irish and Scottish Gaelic the word, though spelled differently, is always pronounced \"Selta.\""
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228lyq | why are some diseases or conditions "endemic" to only certain areas? why does location matter? | Also, why do outbreaks seem to be cyclical, for example, major ones occurring every 2 or 3 years? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/228lyq/eli5_why_are_some_diseases_or_conditions_endemic/ | {
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"\n\n\nViruses do quite well in tropical or sub-tropical regions. Their chances of mutating improve. And passing a virus on to a human host is more easily attained. Think \"swine flu\" subtropical China, \"H.I.V.\" Central Africa, or the presently well-publicized \"Ebola Virus\". \n\n\n\n\n",
"Q1: Location matters because many diseases have \"resevoirs\", that is, other life forms that complete part of the life cycle but is not adversely affected by the pathogen. I assume you're referring to the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa. Ebola is endemic to Africa because it needs certain African bat species to survive. \n\nQ2: Mostly because of awareness. An outbreak happens, people freak out, two years later they forget, and another outbreak happens. ",
"example: unclean drinking water contains certain unfiltered elements such as human waste which is related to e coli. in areas where such bad filtration is part of the daily life these outbreaks will occur in sporatic times and be more prevalent than they would be in better filtered areas more or less due to inclining population with lower immune systems; children and other sicker folk like aids victims. \n\nthen theres climate - certain virii thrive in humid areas. that doesnt mean you never get sick at a pole, only you will find the viruses spread less rapidly in those areas. mosquitoes carrying Malaria thrive in forested areas because the mosquito season is longer. aids and other std's are prevalent in rape-culture areas like India.\n\nculture is also of particular significance as certain foods are better taken care of, or eaten which can prevent onset of other diseases; an island in Japan hosts the worlds oldest people and they are healthy in part due to the care they take in eating properly.\n\n"
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ez73xq | what exactly is a mortgage and why can't every working adult get one? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ez73xq/eli5_what_exactly_is_a_mortgage_and_why_cant/ | {
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"A mortgage is a loan used to purchase a house. It has lower interest as the bank is protected against risk i.e they can take/sell your house if you stop paying them. \n\n\nTwo parts are required for a mortgage: \n\n- **Downpayment**: A lump sump (typically 10-20%) that is required up-front to ensure the bank isn't too exposed to risk. \n\n- **Servicing**: An on-going payment (typically monthly) that is required to pay the mortgage down. \n\nIf person X wants to buy a $500,000 house, they require a $100,000 (20%) **deposit** upfront and earn over $70,000/year to **service** the loan, taking into consideration all other living costs. \n\nMeeting both requirements isn't always easy especially when living costs are high as it increases the amount required to service & hinders saving for the downpayment.",
"It is a bank credit for buying a house. \n\nIt is different from a normal credit because it have better interest rates and longer periods of time for the credit to be paid. \n\nWhen you apply the bank looks at your financial state and if they calculate that you will not be able to pay back they will not give you one.\n\nThey consider all your income and all the living expenses.",
"A mortgage (fun fact: mortgage means \"dead pledge\") is a type of loan to purchase property, secured by an interest in said property.\n\nThis means that the lender in question will loan you the money you need to purchase a piece of property, and in return, they place a lien on the property, such that if you fail to repay the mortgage, the lender can reclaim the house/land/what have you.\n\nNot every working adult can get one because mortgages are *expensive,* and can be conditioned on the seeker's credit score.",
"A mortgage refers to a loan for property where the property itself serves as a guarantee of the loan (ie the property can be repossessed if the loan defaults) Typically these are for large amounts (several times the annual income of the borrower) and fairly long repayment terms (15, 20 or 30 years). Mortgages are seldom given for depreciating assets (cars, etc) to most people. \n\nIt depends on a country by country basis. Mostly getting a mortgage involves saving (or having someone give you) enough money for a deposit AND also having a steady enough income to service the mortgage. Typically for low income workers, the government might provide some kind of insurance/undertaking function which allows them to more easily qualify for mortgages. Singapore, for example, has a mandatory savings scheme and government subsidized housing which pretty much guarantees ( > 90%) most adults can own their own property. \n\nIn most cases though, having a job (or proof of some kind of regular income) is needed. If a person can afford a very large downpayment, then banks are more likely to give a loan regardless of income status."
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eso0ur | why did we culturally agree that right represents forward and that left represents backwards? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eso0ur/eli5_why_did_we_culturally_agree_that_right/ | {
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"A very likely answer to this is the fact that we English speakers read from left to right. We probably just really internalized that idea of going left to right and let that manifest itself in other parts of our lives."
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cxot84 | why is the north pole considered the "top" of the earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cxot84/eli5_why_is_the_north_pole_considered_the_top_of/ | {
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"Tradition and only tradition. But many early \"world\" maps were made by Europeans. Eventually, additional parts of the world were included.",
"It's mostly to do with who was doing most of the exploring and whose culture came to dominate the biggest chunk of the world: the Europeans. Throughout the world before the age of exploration, we see maps with all different orientations - with East at the top so that it can be oriented towards the rising sun, with south at the top in reference to a big landmark of that culture (like Mecca, for example, which was south of most of the Muslim world), or whatever. \n\nBut come the age of exploration, when explorers from the Northern Hemisphere were exploring a New World (starting with the Northern hemisphere of it) and one of their key navigational tools was the North Star, it eventually became a convention that maps used North as a top point. And one of the most historically important maps made by Mercator - the first flat world map that tried to account for the Earth's curvature - used north as a top point more or less arbitrarily, but because it was such a reproduced map, this may have contributed to the popularity.\n\nUltimately, there's no scientific reason to put north on top or anything. If you visit Australia for example, you'll find plenty of globes and maps and coffee mugs made with South on top or featuring an \"upside down\" Australia from what we're used to, as tourist souvenirs. Because ultimately it doesn't matter, those images just play with our preconception that north is on top because that's what we're most used to.",
"Maps from China from the 1400s have china as the center of the map. Maps and how they display cultural outlook is truly a fascinating dive if you are bored on a Friday night."
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5cgifh | can you see satellites with your eyes | I have seen loads in my past... i remember literally looking at them and pointing at them with my finger as they went across the sky... recently i just keep looking and can not see any? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cgifh/eli5_can_you_see_satellites_with_your_eyes/ | {
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"Yes, you can absolutely see satellites. Satellite gazing is a hobby of mine.\n\nSatellites are very small, so you're not going to make out any detail except with magnification and even then only on the largest satellites like the ISS. However, since satellites tend to orbit a couple hundred miles up there's a window of time just after dusk and just before dawn where they're illuminated by the sun while the ground is not.\n\nYour eyes are very good at adjusting to wildly different light levels. Black is an absence of light while white is the presence of light across the spectrum, yet the amount of light being reflected by the black letters on a newspaper lit by sunlight is actually *more* than the amount of light reflected off of the unprinted white areas in a moderately lit room. Your eyes do a good job of adjusting to this.\n\nWhat this means is that in order to see satellites clearly you need to be somewhere where there's not a lot of other light, and you need to be looking at the right time of night.\n\nIf you want a leg up on finding satellites, check out [heavens above](_URL_0_) for predictions of especially bright satellites that will be coming over a given region. Of particular note are \"Iridium Flares\" which come from the Iridium satellite constellation for satellite phones. These satellites have a large, polished antenna that's kept in a specific orientation, making it easy to predict where the sun will be reflected to. Being in the middle of the path that that reflection traces across the ground will give you a rather spectacular show, provided you're somewhere with low light pollution. I've seen these in suburban areas and they're OK, but out in the countryside they're really amazing to see. "
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1bttzk | what is needed to actually arrest someone? | I know basics like you need a charge but can they arrest you for suspecting that you helped a crime or just because they heard a rumor you were doing something illegal...explain please | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bttzk/eli5what_is_needed_to_actually_arrest_someone/ | {
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"Depends on the situation and the charge. For a non-criminal offense, like a traffic ticket, the cops just needs a pretty strong good reason to believe that you did the crime. Say he sees you passing cars on I-10 like they are standing still. He points the radar gun at your car. A preponderance of the evidence, as it is called will get you a ticket. (I know you aren't arrested in this case, but I add it just to be thorough.)\n\nIn a criminal case, the arresting person must have probable cause to believe that *you* committed the crime. For example, you are sitting outside a bar bleeding from you lip and nose when the cops arrive for a disturbance call. The bouncer points at you and says you started a fight as well as four other members of the bar staff. To the arresting person, that pretty much shows probable cause that you were the one fighting. The cops can arrest you. \n\nFor felony charges when there is no risk of the offender disappearing, and the cops didn't actually see the crime committed, they will get as much evidence as they can to convince a prosecutor that you did the crime. If the prosecutor does not feel that he can convince a grand jury that you committed the crime, the cops will try to gather more evidence. Once the prosecutor feels that he can get a grand jury to accuse you of the crime, a warrant will be issued for your arrest and the cops will come get you or ask you to turn yourself in. \n\nTo be accurate in this, however, a warrant is still issued for misdemeanors, however, the warrant is usually written after you have been taken into custody. If not, you get to go to the cop shop the next day or two and get booked and charged. "
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51sh8v | why are there some international disputes that cannot be solved any other way than military action rather than diplomacy? | Basically curious as to why we still have war, and if it's due to certain conflicts that can't be solved otherwise. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51sh8v/eli5why_are_there_some_international_disputes/ | {
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"The only thing that can't technically be solved by diplomacy is something like an invasion or hostile action. The rest CAN but usually isn't because one side or the other has no interest in discussing anything, they just think they are justified and right.",
"Sometimes one side refuses to engage in diplomacy, because they have no interest in changing their position, and they don't believe they would lose a war if one happened.\n\nIf the other side disagrees, thinks the issue is extremely important, *and* thinks they could win a war, then they might start a war rather than simply give up on the failed diplomacy.",
"Diplomacy works if both sides respect the agreement and/or there are other parties that can enforce it. More times than not, these requirements aren't met and the only way to go is with military action. ",
"Because one side has no interest in diplomacy. If a country invades, telling them not to isnt gonna work if they just send back your representative.\n\nDiplomacy only works (usually) with the threat of force (even if just the hidden \"we are big enough to cause problems/have allies that will\" kind. \n\nFor example, china wont invade japan because even tho they are small and relatively powerless (military wise) they arr backed by america, who is anything but. \n\nThus china has to try diplomacy, if japan had no backers and china invaded, they would have no way to force china to negotiate (save international pressure, and that really comes down to military force in the end)"
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2882cf | why is father's day celebrated on different dates in different countries and not one universal date like christmas. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2882cf/eli5_why_is_fathers_day_celebrated_on_different/ | {
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"Observances like Fathers' Day, Mothers' Day, and so on are set that way to that they always are predictable and always fall on Sunday simply because Sunday is commonly seen as a day of leisure in our culture. Celebrating Fathers' Day on a weekday (when most people work) wouldn't make much sense. Same as Secretaries' Day is always set to be on a weekday because it's generally observed at work.\n\nChristmas' date was set a long time ago (1400-1800 years ago, depending on which source you go with and which Christian tradition you follow) and, since it was determined by a religion that spread out all over the word and ostensibly celebrates the date of someone's birth, that date would be the same every year.\n\nEaster (and all the dates calculated based on Easter) are weird simply because the Church didn't want laypeople to be able to figure out when Easter would fall so the Church was the only source of that date. The calculation were actually secret for quite a long time."
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2t44f4 | why do all other monkey and ape species except for us seem like they are walking around with prolapsed anuses? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2t44f4/eli5_why_do_all_other_monkey_and_ape_species/ | {
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"We walk upright and have butt cheeks.\n\nWe're the only animal with inconvenient pooping methods.",
"It's called sexual selection. Naked butts are more sexy than hairy butts. That is because the hair does not get in the way of the females displaying their red colored butts, which signal they are in estrus. \n\nIn females, the first swellings of the sex skin occur between the ages of 7 and 8, and gradually increase in size until the female chimpanzee is about 10 or 11 and begins to be mated by males, which constitutes her first estrus. The changes in the sex skin are significant to the observer because they reflect hormone changes and the probable time of ovulation; the swellings are also a visual aid to the male chimpanzee, who can easily tell a great deal about the reproductive condition of the female. The female estrus cycle has a great influence on both male and female social behavior.\n\nBesides a naked butt makes it less likely that stinky stuff will stick to the hair near the butt. It is said that the breast of human females resemble the butt. Perhaps blushing on the face resembles the red coloration the female chimp's sex skin. :)"
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46cy3q | phone speakers are so incredibly tiny, but have an incredibly loud sound, and is usually pretty clear too. how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46cy3q/eli5_phone_speakers_are_so_incredibly_tiny_but/ | {
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"Believe it or not, some of the sound you hear only exists in your mind. \n\nSee the **Missing Fundamental** entry at Wikepedia\n_URL_0_\n\n*Most common telephones cannot reproduce sounds lower than 300 Hz, but a male voice has a fundamental frequency approximately 150 Hz. Because of the missing fundamental effect, the fundamental frequencies of male voices are still perceived as their pitches over the telephone.[21]*\n ",
"One reason is that the phone cuts off most of the low frequencies, below a certain limit. With every lowering of an octave (1/2 the Hz), a speaker diaphragm has to move 4x the distance for equal volume. So by cutting off the bass they can get more perceived volume out of a smaller unit.",
"Also, phone speakers respond differently depending on the surface or environment. Try placing your phone on different surfaces. And you will notice a huge difference. If you are surrounded by stone or brick. Your phone will sound louder.",
"When there's no bass and barely any low-mids you're left with mids and highs.\n\nMost of the 'clarity' or 'brightness' comes from the high end,\n\nPhone speakers are good for YouTube videos IMO, that's about it, at least iPhones.",
"Audio engineer here. \n\nThere not. They sound horrible. Just compare them with real speakers.\n\nIt's not hard to make a small driver blast out loud shit when it's band passed to only midrange.",
"The front facing stereo speakers on my Nexus 6 sound pretty amazing. No bass of course but full stereo surround when you hold it about a foot from your face.",
"Look up the fletcher Munson curve. It's a curve that shows humans perception of volume. Humans perceive 1k to be louder then any other frequency at the same volume. If you cut out some low end and slightly boost 1k, It makes it seem like it's loud. ",
"they sound like shit have no mid to low frequencies. it takes very little energy to produce annoying piercing sounds. ",
"It doesn't? \n\nI often have to use headphones over my phone speaker to get any decent audio quality, and forget about showing friends songs my band recorded on my phone without headphones, my bass is almost left completely out of the speaker frequency.\n\nFor the record, I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, but had the same problems on my friends iPhone 6",
"I hate these askreddit/eli5 that have some some outlandish statement in them.\n\nphone speakers sound like shit, especially when loud.",
"Watch [this video](_URL_0_) on your cell phone. Then watch it through almost any other speaker. (stream to your TV, plug into your stereo, hell, even your laptop will show a huge difference)\n\nYou'll quickly see that your cell phone is giving you only half of the sound. Like, the second guy's presence seems odd, because he's doing absolutely nothing. \n\nAnother experiment, to illustrate the difference in sind perception: listen to any song while on the shitter in a quiet bathroom. Now take the same audio and try to play it in an average restaurant at dinner time. The restaurant is by no means loud, but you'll suddenly find yourself unable to catch any noise from your phone unless it's on full volume pressed against your ear hole.\n\nThis goes to show 2 points. 1, your perception of volume is heavily skewed. This is a biological advantage, (hard to sneak up on someone in silence, while not going deaf in a noisy environment) but it does throw off our desire to experience volume on a linear scale. 2, your phone tones out all the flair of audio, delivering only the easiest frequencies. "
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1ebckx | why do strangers want to follow me on twitter? | I have minimal interaction with social media (no Facebook, no online gaming, etc.), but I did sign up for a Twitter account just so I could follow a handful of organizations I'm interested in. I follow about a dozen Twitter accounts, and I've never once tweeted anything myself. Randomly, though, every few weeks I still get a request from some stranger that wants to follow me. Some are just regular looking people and some are kind of porn looking with suggestive pictures/comments.
For someone not social media savvy, why would these people have any interest in following me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ebckx/eli5_why_do_strangers_want_to_follow_me_on_twitter/ | {
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"They don't have an interest in following you, they're either ways of getting you to go to some site (like the latter group) or they're people who follow you in hopes you'll follow them so they can up their number of followers... for some reason this is valuable to people.",
"A lot of people follow people who follow them. They're fishing for followers.",
"\nRandom companies:\nA lot of the time low-paid interns are put in charge of managing a company's Twitter account. One of the easiest ways for them to show results from their efforts is by increasing their numbers quickly, regardless of how beneficial each follower really is. There seems to be an unwritten rule for many on Twitter that says when someone follows you, you follow them back.\n\nStep 1: add a ton of people\nStep 2: roughly 20% add you back\nStep 3: stop following random people you added and assume they won't take the time to do the same\nStep 4: show boss huge increase in followers 'proving' some sort of success.\n\nIt should be noted that having these followers doesn't provide much value to an account. Value on Twitter is all about actual engagement. \n\nRandom users:\nSame idea of getting follow backs. Once users attain a certain amount of followers, they're able to sell promotional tweets to companies.\n\nObviously there are other reasons, in my experience this seems to explain a lot of it.",
"Thanks, all. That makes sense."
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709o3t | scientific model, economic model, mathematical model. what is model? | I can't wrap my head around the word "model". | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/709o3t/eli5scientific_model_economic_model_mathematical/ | {
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"A simplified description of how something works. A real-life system has a *lot* of detail in it that we can't really duplicate much of the time, so we develop models which we *are* capable of working with that approximate the real-life system and seem to fit the data we already have rather well.\n\nFor example, a macroeconomic mathematical model of inflation will allow you to experiment with what a 1% rise in interest rates will do compared to a 2% rise in interest rates. It won't be perfect, but if the model is decent, it will likely give you a better idea than if you didn't have anything.",
"A simplified description of how something works. A real-life system has a *lot* of detail in it that we can't really duplicate much of the time, so we develop models which we *are* capable of working with that approximate the real-life system and seem to fit the data we already have rather well.\n\nFor example, a macroeconomic mathematical model of inflation will allow you to experiment with what a 1% rise in interest rates will do compared to a 2% rise in interest rates. It won't be perfect, but if the model is decent, it will likely give you a better idea than if you didn't have anything.",
"Given your comments, I see that you have some issues with the question 'what is your model'. As many people have said, a 'model' is a simplified representation of a system or object. Then, we often use that model to base decisions on. \n\nHowever, the key part of 'what is your model?' has to do with the simplifications we use. For example, if we make a model of the solar system, we might make the simplifying assumption that planets are stationary. Of course, this might be useful in some contexts, but if we are trying to explain something about the movements of the planets, it is a very poor model. \n\nHence, when people ask the question 'what is your model?', they mean: what kind of assumptions have you made. Similarly, when South Korea has an 'economic model', they have made certain assumptions about how their economy behaves. They use these assumptions to base their choices on. \n\nIn some sense, we could thus say that a model is a collection of assumptions about the behaviour of a system (or similarly for objects). "
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3yslqz | how does smoking and curing meat work? | As the title says. How does it work? If I were to process say a pig on my own how would the meat taste without smoking or curing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yslqz/eli5_how_does_smoking_and_curing_meat_work/ | {
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"Without smoking or curing, the meat would taste raw. Smoking and curing are simply ways of preserving meat and reducing bacterial growth. The curing chemicals make the meat inhospitable to bacteria, and the smoke finishes the job.",
"These processes are sort of opposites, if you think about it. Curing meat is about preserving meat without cooking it. Smoking meat IS cooking it, albeit slowly. \n\nWhen you smoke meat you're basically cooking it low and slow. Really low and really slow. And that process relaxes all the connective tissue and makes taste moist (despite the fact that it's really cooked to hell and back). Because it's swimming in collagen. If no collagen is present, then you just get dry smoky meat, which is okay, too. \n\nCuring is different. Curing is basically salt and time. First, salt curing kills microbes and bacteria in your meat by removing the water in them. It also removed the water in the meat itself, making it harder and condensing the flavor. This dry meat is also less susceptible to new bacteria and microbes, because they want a moist environment. ",
"I work in a smoking factory. I'm actually the smoker(sounds like a funny title). We put items like chicken and pork in a salt and sugar mix of water for a few days. The salt and sugar penetrate the meat through osmosis.\n\nOsmosis is when high concentration substance naturally diffuses into a low concentration...basically the meat absorbs the salt internally. For bacon this takes 3 days. For chicken it is 1 day.\n\nThen we smoke it. It's basically a very slow cook. Bacon takes about 3 hours at 120 degrees C. The wood smoke and slow cooking adds immense flavor and turns the bacon a gold color."
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49k1w0 | why do babies always try to eat their own fists when they're happy? | Whenever I see a baby get exited or happy i see them stick their hand in their mouth and i have no clue why.
Examples:
_URL_0_
_URL_1_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49k1w0/eli5_why_do_babies_always_try_to_eat_their_own/ | {
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"It's not just when they're happy. They just sort of do that. my son does it all the time. \n\nEDIT: and to try to do better than the junk below: babies do this because they have a sort of odd sensation in their mouths that they are trying to put pressure on. it usually signals that they are going to start teething or they are. Their mouth and hands are how babies explore the world. ",
"Happiness and mouths go together for babies. They are too young to separate 'being fed makes my mouth feel full and makes me feel warm and happy' from 'I feel warm and happy, better fill my mouth'. It's the same as, in slightly older children, the confusion between 'I slept well and also this blanket is always there' and 'the blanket means I sleep well'. \n\nIt's a pattern-finding thing our brain does from before birth that explains why we find certain types of music comforting, or believe superstitions about black cats, and why we see faces in trees. It's the great strength of the human brain - making associations outside of immediate cause and effect allowed us to know since prehistory that sex led to babies and that seeds lead to trees - but it also has a ton of side effects. One of which is babies sucking their tiny balled-up fists with joy.",
"From what ive read, we communicate with our mouths. When babies put things in their mouths, its their way of communicating with the world around them, since they lack the knowledge to do it any other way.\n\nOnce again, this is something ive read online, im no baby expert or anything. Just my two cents.",
"Did you just google \"Babies eating their fists\"?I think youre on some sort of watchlist.\n\nEDIT: shit, i guess this makes us two.",
"There's no empirical evidence to my knowledge that they do this more when happy. They like to rub their gums on everything because it feels good, especially as they approach the age at which teeth are coming in, and fists just happen to be conveniently located at the ends of their arms. They're like built-in teethers.",
"A couple of things. Babies stick everything in their mouths. That's how they see the world. Also, that is how they show happiness. If you are close enough to a baby after making it happy it will want to stick you in it's mouth. It's a compliment."
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9mmjom | how does castor angle in automobiles help return the steering wheel to normal position after a turn? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mmjom/eli5_how_does_castor_angle_in_automobiles_help/ | {
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"Ok I tried for a good 10 minutes to type this out in a way that makes sense in basic terms. And I failed.\n\nWaiting to see how others can phrase it though.",
"You know how shopping cart wheels orient when moving forward. Thats because of castor. The same principal applies to cars. ",
"Edit: Look at [this](_URL_0_) picture. This is a front right side wheel hub with the wheel removed. You notice how all the gubbins that holds it to the car, everything above the brake disc, is leaning *ever* so slightly backwards? That's relevant below, read on. \n\nThe front wheels in a car don't steer around a completely straight up vertical axis point, the point around which they steer is angled slightly backwards. \n\n\nIf you imagine this point drawn through the wheel, it will meet the road slightly in front of the point where the tire touches the road. \n\nWhat this means is the point where the tire touches the ground is behind the point of rotation, much like the wheel on a shopping trolley touches the ground behind the point it can rotate. That results in the wheel being dragged straight, if you're travelling forward.\n\nNot that I'm recommending you try this, but if you go backwards and don't hold the wheel, the wheel will try and turn, because it's now trying to castor around the other way, the way a shopping trolley wheel spins round to face the other way if you pull it instead of pushing it. Only in a car, it can't go all the way around obviously. ",
"Not important, but \"castor\" is an oil, \"caster\" is a measurement of trail, or a type of wheel that uses it."
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20lp95 | if you were close to death from dehydration and managed to get some fresh water before dying, would it be too late to save yourself? | And if it's still possible to save yourself, how long would it be until your body is back to normal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20lp95/eli5_if_you_were_close_to_death_from_dehydration/ | {
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"It would depend how long you have been dehydrated, and to what extend your organs are damaged. In most cases, if you are conscious, you can recover. It is important to understand however, that if you were dehydrated for a period of several days, you do not want to suddenly over whelm your body with fluid. This is explained in many medical teachings such as Prehospital Trauma Life Support; If the volume of fluid (whether it be water, or blood) was lost quickly, replenish quickly. If the volume of fluid was lost over time, replenish slowly, over time. \n\nIt also helps to think of dehydration at the cellular level. When you are dehydrated, water is being pulled OUT of cells. You need to put water BACK into the cells. You can do this quicker with the use of HYPOtonic solutions, that is, solutions that have an osmotic pressure LOWER than that of your body."
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3ealyd | if wrestling is choreographed, how do they win/lose? don't they have to actually fight to really defeat their opponent? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ealyd/eli5_if_wrestling_is_choreographed_how_do_they/ | {
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"Wrestling is planned. It has storylines just like any other performance. Nobody \"really\" wins or loses anything. In professional wrestling the organizing body (WWE for example) plans out the stories they think fans will like and then the wrestlers follow the script to deliver an entertaining product.",
"Why would it being choreographed prevent them from winning or losing? They either win or lose depending on the routine they are putting on. They win when they are told to and they lose when they are told to.\n\nIt's not like a sport in that you get money for winning. All wrestlers are paid handsomely to perform. ",
"Wrestling is predetermined, I believe that's the best word for it. They know before they go out to the ring who is going to win, and usually how too. They turn up at the arena and someone backstage tells them \"Joe, you're losing to Frank tonight, you're the second match in and have 10 minutes to do your match, and he has to beat you by pinfall.\" That sort of thing. Some guys then sit down and talk about what they're going to do in great detail in the ring, carefully choreographing every step of the match. Others instead like to just improvise and make up the match on the fly, whispering to each other under the crowd noise to communicate, or if they're veterans they might not even need to and will just naturally understand what their opponent is going to do next and work with it.\n\nNowadays (at least in the big companies) storylines are written by a team of writers, who also come up with characters and personas for the wrestlers. It's then up to the wrestler to make their part on the show entertaining enough, and their in-ring work compelling enough, that the crowd want to see more of them if they're a good guy, or want to see them get their ass beat if they're a bad guy. Usually (but not always) the more of a reaction they get from the crowd, the more the writers will have them win and appear to be \"better\" wrestlers. That means more chances to be given a run as a champion which means more money, more merchandise sold (they get a cut of merch sales), bigger and longer matches nearer the main event etc.\n\nOne thing to mention is that there's a very real level of physicality to it. They mostly pull their punches and try to make their moves as safe as possible for their opponent, but they're still knocking each other around a bunch and slamming each other on the equivalent of thin blue high school gym mats, no matter how good they are at falling over safely. Though some guys like to \"work stiff\" as it's called, having really physical matches that look much more real to the audience because they really are smacking each other around (in a competitive drinking buddies kind of way).\n\nNow, there are exceptions. Lots of these guys are big, angry, muscly dudes with egos performing live action in front of big crowds where their reputation is at stake. As a result, it's not impossible for things to get a bit too real. It's called \"shooting.\" There's a few reasons for a shoot to start. It might be that one guy thinks he's being asked to lose the match to someone really undeserving so he starts refusing to co-operate in the ring, making his opponent REALLY start forcing moves on him, or when someone accidentally messes up a move and his opponent gets pissed enough to start throwing real punches, that sort of thing. They're rare and considered really unprofessional but they do happen. One prime example is when Jeff Hardy showed up to the main event match of a TNA show high as hell on drugs, his opponent Sting rolled his eyes, hit his finishing move by force, then pinned Jeff down to the mat for a 3-count for real so that the match would be over in a minute."
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5s4tl0 | what prevents clouds with water freezing up into an ice ball and falling onto our heads? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5s4tl0/eli5_what_prevents_clouds_with_water_freezing_up/ | {
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"Clouds aren't a solid mass, they're countless billions of droplets floating in the same area along with water vapor. When they start getting cold, the water condenses into rain or snow or hail and falls. The whole thing can't freeze fast enough to become a giant ice block."
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4ca8hp | how did the illegal drugs supply-chain succeed in an extremely regulated world? how do hard drugs end up produced and distributed in a tightly-regulated and controlled first-world nation in the first place? | Illicit drugs such as heroin, LSD, or cocaine are quite tightly controlled around the world (pretty much banned everywhere) and require quite sensitive growing conditions for the raw material and highly sophisticated equipment and difficult-to-produce chemistry to manufacture in the first place.
Browsing reddit however I see that such drugs are quite in widespread use in daily life, even in a first-world nation like the US and even with drug enforcement agencies and tight import/export controls around the world and within the US.
How does this happen? How did black-market drug logistics succeed in the face of extreme regulation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ca8hp/eli5how_did_the_illegal_drugs_supplychain_succeed/ | {
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"The drugs are grown, produced in South and Central America where the governments are paid for or even straight up connected to the drug trade; they are smuggled up through Mexico and cross the border much in the way illegal immigrants do--cover of night in desolate stretches f border, through tunnels, boats, even airplanes that flit over & drop. Once in the U.S. There are whole networks of distribution controlled by cartels and gangs.",
"The plants are grown where the farmers are safe from arrest or prosecution. It is either legal or the controlling faction in that region permits it. After all, the product is only for resale somewhere else and it is a good cash crop. Similarly the processing facilities are located in safe areas. They are hidden, or protected, in any case undetected by the ones who want to destroy them.\n\nSmuggling has gone on for thousands of years. Whenever there is profit it will occur. Slave trading went on long after it was banned. It still occurs. Smuggling valuable cargo is even easier.\n\nWith free trade agreements allowing the shipping of huge amounts of cargo smuggling is even easier."
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2x9o09 | why does the word 'comrade' have a communist connotation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x9o09/eli5_why_does_the_word_comrade_have_a_communist/ | {
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"In the late 19th century, it was used by Russian Marxists and other leftist revolutionaries. After the Russian Revolution, Communist movements around the world adopted its usage. "
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3h0ae1 | why dogs always put their paw on top of your hand. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h0ae1/eli5_why_dogs_always_put_their_paw_on_top_of_your/ | {
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"Dogs are pack animals and they crave the physical contact that comes with being part of a pack. \n\nWe are their pack leaders so touching us is a comfort to them. "
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981zha | why do we need to drink water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/981zha/eli5_why_do_we_need_to_drink_water/ | {
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"Life on Earth is based on water. Life probably arose in water. Cells are mostly water, blood is mostly water. For example, muscle is about 73-74% water. Without water, blood will become sludge and be incapable of delivering oxygen and nutrients throughout the body, especially vulnerable is the brain. If water is lost and not replaced, the dehydration will stop metabolic processes, and the organism dies. A human can go 30-40 days without food before starvation sets in, but only 3-4 days without water before death occurs.",
"A number of reasons,\n\n1. The chemical breakdown of molecules themselves often requires water molecules (hydrolysis). Life relies on taking molecules and rearranging them into other molecules; this often can't be accomplished without \"loss\" of water molecules to hydrogen and oxygen that binds to the molecules to break them down.\n2. Metabolism of large molecules (e.g. proteins) and small molecules (e.g. toxins, drugs) produces waste that needs to be excreted to avoid accumulation of potentially toxic chemicals: Your kidneys cannot produce urine without water. If you don't drink water you can't produce urine. If you don't produce urine, you accumulate electrolytes that cause heart rhythm disturbances, as well as acids and toxic nitrogenous wastes that cause cellular dysfunction. Then you die.\n3. Insensible water losses: These are the \"losses\" of water that can't be easily measured (i.e. you can't just measure the volume of water loss the way you can measure how much someone urinates).\n 1. Sweating: In order to regulate your temperature, you sweat, which then evaporates and cools you. If you don't drink water you can't sweat. If you can't sweat, you get hyperthermic. Then you die.\n 2. Respiration: In order to breathe you have to have a respiratory tract, the tubing that goes from your nose and mouth to your lungs. This tubing must be constantly moisturized to replace the moisture lost by evaporation with each breath. If it isn't moisturized, the cells in your airway will shrivel and die. Then you can't breathe. Then you die.\n 3. Digestion/defecation: In order to digest and defecate, you have to have lubrication lining your alimentary tract. Some of the water used in this lubrication is lost every time you defecate. If you can't defecate you either can't eat or you get horrible things like fecal impaction and stercoral colitis. Then you die.\n4. To avoid cellular shrinking and subsequent dysfunction.\n 1. Elderly people in nursing homes are particularly prone to insensible losses (see above) being greater than water intake. This leads to a phenomenon of loss of cellular volume (due to less water inside cells) and a relative increase in salt inside cells. The condition is called \"hypernatremia\" (high sodium, or Na+) but is more accurately a low water state. The shrinkage of cells can cause them to pull away/break away from surrounding structures leading to cellular dysfunction and damage. This is most obvious for nerve cells, the function of which relies on being closely abutted to sheaths of myelin. If the nerve cells shrink and pull away from their myelin sheaths, dysfunction results leading to muscle twitching, seizures, and coma. Then you die.\n5. To maintain blood pressure: You require a blood pressure to move things around your circulatory system to deliver blood to your organs. The blood pressure is produced by a pump, your heart. As a pump, the heart relies on an adequate volume of blood entering it in order to pump blood out forcefully. If that volume becomes too low because your blood does not have enough water in it, your heart will not be able to pump forcefully, your blood pressure will drop, and you won't be able to deliver oxygen and nutrients to your organs. Then you die."
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2dpm60 | how is usain bolt so fast? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dpm60/eli5how_is_usain_bolt_so_fast/ | {
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"It's probably some part genetics, and after that, a whole lot of training and an amazing fitness program. Probably some good coaching too.",
"How could someone with the name Usain Bolt not be that fast?",
"He moves his legs really quick.",
"Bolt has an unusually fast turnover rate for his legs-unseen in someone his height (6'5). Combine this with this long legs, and you get a really fast runner. ",
"I remember seeing a video somewhere saying for his height he should be unable to run that fast and that is basically his advantage. His running technique allows him to utilize his height giving him superpowers. ",
"In one of my genetics lectures they used Jamacian sprinters as an example to explain nature vs. nuture and the founder effect. Basically, most black Jamaicans are descendants of slaves so they come from a more concentrated genetic pool than black Africans etc (this is the founder effect). This genetic pool tended to be fitter than average as weak slaves would normally die on the voyage to the Caribbean or soon after arriving, and the very weakest wouldn't be transported at all. This means the Jamaican population has a higher incidence of certain genes which also lead to a better sprinting ability.\n\nInteresting, there are 10 key alleles of genes that tend to lead to better sprinting ability. Usain Bolt has none of them. So it's not an exact science where you can say \"this man has 8/10 alleles so he'll be a better sprinter than this man with 6/10 but slower than the man with 10/10\".\n\nHowever, all Caribbean countries, and all other American countries where many black people are the descendants of slaves should have the same genetic advantages. In Jamaica sprinters are seen as elite athletes like football players are in the UK and or hockey players are in Canada etc. They put a lot more resources into sprinting than lots of other countries and because it's so high profile more people try it so the people with the best natural talent are more likely to be found and given that training.\n\nTL;DR: He comes from a country where many people have a genetic advantage to be fast (due to the slave trade) and where they put a lot of money into training sprinters.",
"I am from Jamaica and track & field is as big of a school event as say college basketball or football in the US. We have Girls & Boys Champs where tens of thousands of people attend our National Stadium to watch kids engage in athletics over the course of days and where the sprint events are usually the main attraction. \n\nOf course genetics may play a role that goes back to slavery but also being a poor country there's a significant amount of the population that walks and in the country it's usually uphill so they're doing those kinds of things form childhood. In my opinion we also eat much better food, far more wholesome and organic which means to me that our bodies are better equipped to be developed. I live in Canada now so I can see the comparison between my third world country and a first world and there's many luxuries here that you don't get in Jamaica which forces Jamaicans to do more things manually. Even in school in JA, Phy Ed is mandatory and we have final exams in it so we're pushed to do physical activities because we can't afford the technologies on a wide scale that otherwise would keep us indoors and less active. I would also say there's a significant social pressure on being able to play sports and being athletic because during our breaks at school we'd play alot of scrimmage soccer and you weren't part of the \"in-crowd\" if you didn't play. You didn't even have to be good, you just had to be competent.\n\nWhile Bolt is the main man now throughout history we've had many other top sprinters and even now we still have more than just Bolt - Blake, Weir, Carter, Campbell-Brown, Fraser etc. It's not just one man but an entire nation that sees sprinting as a way of life.",
"He takes fewer steps to reach the finish line.",
"The top comment explains why Jamaican sprinters are often faster than sprinters in other countries, but it doesn't touch on why Bolt himself is so fast.\n\nRunning fast requires two main components working together: stride length and foot speed (how fast each stride occurs). A tall individual will have a longer stride than someone shorter, but shorter individuals usually have faster turnover rates. The \"sweet spot\" from my estimation for height appears to be 5'8\" to 6'1\".\n\nOf the top 25 individual performers in the 100 meter spring, the shortest man on the list is Olusoji Fasuba at 5'5\". The tallest men are Usain Bolt and Francis Obikwelu, both at 6'5\". Every other man on the list of top 25 performers are between 5'7\" and 6'4\" tall; only two other men are greater than 6'2\" in height - Asafa Powell and Ryan Bailey.\n\nFor tall runners, the struggle is often getting their turnover up to top speed as quickly as their shorter counterparts. The amazing thing about Usain Bolt is that he is able to come out of the blocks just as quickly, if not quicker, than most of the other competitors at his level; and because of his height, his stride is almost guaranteed to be the longest in any competition he is a part of.\n\nTl;dr: Usain Bolt's feet are incredibly quick and his height allows his stride to be very long. Fast feet + long stride = World's fastest man.",
"He applies left foot right foot running theory better than anyone else.",
"Genetics, lots of hard work, and probably just the right amount of doping."
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bxgpgj | how do doctors get rich? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxgpgj/eli5_how_do_doctors_get_rich/ | {
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"If you’re talking about a private practitioner then yes - they can set their own fees. You also have to consider that they are probably seeing A LOT of patients too.\n\nMost places set fees according to what the norm is in their area though. Also, if they are contracted with an insurance company they have to go by the fees that the company sets. \n\nSome other factors that can come into play would be the complexity of what service they are doing and what type of doctor they are.\n\nEdited to add some more info:\n\nDoctors can bill just about every little thing they do to insurance companies that they work with. I went to an ENT just to get my hearing checked and the EOB that I got from my insurance company had about 7 procedure codes all the way down to the small bit of scraping he did in my ear canal lol"
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4lh4m2 | how democratic is the european union? how does it work? | On 23rd June 2016, there is gong to be a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. One anti-EU argument is that it is undemocratic. Some argue that there is a democratic deficit whereas others say there isn't.
How democratic is the European Union? How does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lh4m2/eli5_how_democratic_is_the_european_union_how/ | {
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"From what I understand the EU is composed of three bodies: The European Parliament, the European council, and the European commission. Of those three bodies, only the European parliament is made up of members directly elected by the people of each country. The council is made up of the heads of state of each country. The commission is is nominated by the council, and then confirmed by the parliament. All legislation is initiated by the commission, then voted on by the parliament. The parliament may also amend proposed legislation. The commission also acts as the executive branch of the EU. The council doesn't have any other formal power than nominating the commission, but since it is made up of the heads of state it does wield quite a bit of influence. \r\rSome people think that since only one body of the EU is directly elected and that body isn't allowed to start legislation on it's own, the EU is undemocratic. Others argue that since the heads of state are elected and the commission must be confirmed by the parliament, all of the positions are a result of indirect democracy.\r\rAnother argument that the EU is undemocratic stems from how the members of the European parliament ( MEPs) are apportioned. For example the UK has 72 meps for 60m people while Malta has 5 for 400k people. When you look at meps per people, then Malta has way more political power per capita than the UK. \r\r\rDisclaimer. I'm American, not European, this is just my understanding based on the news I get here, and I have no real need to follow the internal politics of Europe, just the outcomes.",
"The EU has various institutions that all take part in the legislative process, but only one of them is directly elected.\n\n**European Council**\n\nThis consists all the heads of government of each member state. They decide on the general direction of what the EU should be doing.\n\n**European Parliament**\n\nThe Parliament debates and votes on bills. Each country elects a number of MEPs to sit in the Parliament. Countries with larger populations have more MEPs in total, but the smaller countries have proportionally more MEPs. For example Germany is the most populous country with around 80 million people and has 99 MEPs. Malta is the smallest with only 400 thousand people and 5 MEPs.\n\n**Council of the European Union**\n\nThe Council of the European Union (different to the European Council!) is another body which debates and votes on bills. Each county's government gets one vote, and those countries are represented by their relevant government minister. For example if they are debating something about education, each country will send their education minister. It's also sometimes called the Council of Ministers.\n\n**European Commission**\n\nThe part that many people think is undemocratic is the European Commission. The Commission is essentially the executive branch of government. It consists of 28 commissioners (one per country), including one who is the President of the Commission. Even though there is one per country, they don't really represent their countries. Their job is to act in the interests of the EU as a whole. As the executive their job is making sure EU laws get implemented.\n\nFirst a President is nominated by the European Council (remember that's the heads of each country), and then the Parliament votes to accept or reject that choice. Once they've accepted it, the President and each country works together to pick the remaining 27 commissioners. Each country nominates one, but the President can reject that nomination and they will have to pick someone else. Once the President has agreed on the rest of the Commission, the Parliament votes again to accept or reject the entire set of commissioners.\n\n**Legislative process**\n\nThe basic way it works is that the Commission introduces bills based on the overall direction from the European Council and suggestions from Parliament.\n\nThe bills are then sent to the Parliament and the Council of the European Union, who debate it, suggest amendments, and vote on the bill. Both have to agree to pass the bill (although in the case of the Council it's not a simple majority) for it to become law.\n\nThe main thing people dislike about this is the fact that the unelected Commission is the only thing that can introduce new bills. They think its undemocratic because they have not been directly voted into power."
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3nqv0c | why did the symbol for a penny have to change from d to p? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nqv0c/eli5_why_did_the_symbol_for_a_penny_have_to/ | {
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"I suppose it didn't strictly have to, but changing made it clearer whether you were talking about one old penny (1/240 of a pound) or one new penny (1/100 of a pound).",
"The letter d was used for pre decimal coins and came from the Roman 'denarius', a silver coin. This dates back to when pennies were made of silver. \nAfter decimalisation the new pennies were first labelled New Pence, and once everyone was use to it they used p to differentiate it from old pennies.."
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1hd0vj | congratulations eli5 on 300,000 subscribers! and thank you! | That's a lot of people asking and explaining, and we mods think that it's terrific!
We have a few requests for you all as the moderators of such an awesome subreddit. In no particular order:
* **Spread the word!** As this community grows further, the breadth of knowledge and intrigue will only increase.
* **Read the sidebar!** Maybe if it's been awhile, you can just glance over it. Or make sure your controversial comment or post fits our rather lax guidelines and rules.
* **Ask "why" questions!** This isn't a strict rule at all, but it makes for better discussion. Also, be specific instead of just saying "ELI5: some huge topic."
* **Use the themes!** They're fun.
* **Mark your posts as answered!** Please! And you can still comment on a post that is answered and add to the discussion-- it's more for the sake of the subreddit archive (and people who casually just want to see answered questions).
* **Filter the subreddit by answered/unanswered!** You'll find that down lower in the sidebar and it will surely enhance your ELI5 experience.
* **Subscribe if you lurk!** Why not?
***
I have to give a huge shoutout to /u/lucas747 for configuring /r/ExplainLikeImFiveBot. It does a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff and lucas747 has been really patient and helpful in programming it! Hasn’t addressed the problem that it’s semi-sentient yet though.
***
The beauty of this subreddit in my opinion is twofold. First, that explanations can vary from spot-on analogies to layman-friendly summaries of scientific, political, cultural, or other information. And also the fact that this subreddit isn't about OP! That's the best part. There are 300,000 people who will see your explanation, and who will have a question answered that they've never even thought to ask. That's why I personally love this subreddit. I see a question that seems so obvious, and yet upon closer inspection it is very curious. And then five people explain it in terms I can understand, each with their own spin on it. Then there's healthy (or heated!) discussion, and all of a sudden we have four comments in the top ten on /r/bestof.
Looking forward to many more explainers. Tell your friends!
On behalf of the other mods (who hopefully will leave a comment or two),
~[123421](/r/ano) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hd0vj/congratulations_eli5_on_300000_subscribers_and/ | {
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"Just a suggestion for you guys: Put the filters for answered and unanswered at the top of the page, like how it is on /r/guessthemovie. Anyways, congratulations on the surpassing milestone of 300,000 subscribers! [This subreddit is swell.](_URL_0_)",
"I've been moderating ELI5 for well over a year now, and I have to say it has been a really awesome experience so far. I love this subreddit, and I know all of the other mods do this because they love it too. And thanks to all 300,000 (and counting) of you that make it all worthwhile.",
"I enjoy seeing the questions people post. Sometimes, i feel like just replying \"google it,\" but then i realize that a lot of times, even if you do google it, the answers you find require you to either know a lot about the topic to begin with, or are so buried that you may never find the answer you are looking for, so it helps to have someone just break it down simply. ",
"Awesome. ELI5 is my favorite subreddit and the one I spend the lion share of my time. \n\nFriendly announcement. If you are ever seeking answers that are **not** simplified try out /r/answers. You might find it more satisfying. ",
"I love this subreddit. I like how the moderating isn't too strict but rules are still enforced.\n\nThere is only one thing I really wonder. How do you guys deal with questions that are asked so many times already? I don't mean questions that may have appeared on this subreddit before, I mean questions that are asked many times in just one month. \n\nFor example [this](_URL_0_) question. Then put 'quantum computer' in the search bar and you'll see that it has been asked about 24 times before and atleast 6 times in the past few days. \n\nDo you guys just remove these questions or would you prefer to let them stay? (hope that doesn't sound like \"can't you see these annoying duplicate questions?!?\" but more like \"are they ok or not\")\n\nThat is all, thanks for moderating this subreddit!",
"Thanks for posting this Anon, I have been watching the counter for the past week or so :).\n\nI just want to say that I really love this subreddit and I'm glad to be able to help improve it over the last several months. The subscribers and commenters here are really the best on reddit, and I'm just happy to be a part of such an awesome group of people!",
"ELI5: How did ELI5 get 300,000 subscribers?"
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2ti73j | how does facebook target-advertise the very product i just looked up in google/other websites, despite me being logged out of my account at the time? | **It would be really helpful if you read the text below**
This has happened on numerous occasions, but now it's getting kind of disturbing. I deleted my account a while back, and created a new one for the sole purpose of joining my college's Facebook group in order to stay up to date with homework/exam dates etc. I literally have no one on my friends list nor do I have liked any pages with the said account. And here I am watching at my "Suggested Post" containing a product by SEO-MOZ (a website about SEO marketing), just after I looked them up (learned about them from Reddit), Downloaded their free PDF, and skimmed through some of their webpages. AND I was logged out of my Facebook account when I did that. How the heck?
**BTW,** this can not be a coincidence because as I said, it has happened before. I was once looking for a SPECIFIC protective case for Samsung Galaxy Note 4, called "Spigen Tough Armor" (logged out of my Facebook account as said above), which by no means is popular enough to be separately advertised on Facebook, and here it was, in "Suggested Posts"..
**EDIT:**yay! First time reaching the front page! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ti73j/eli5how_does_facebook_targetadvertise_the_very/ | {
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"Sometimes it can access your browser cookies and look for keywords which then produce targeted advertising",
"As far as I'm aware, it's cookies they use to target advertising. It's a bit weird that it happens when you're logged out of your account though, maybe it's the session variable in their script? Don't know but you can go into your FB settings and change a lot of them to stop a lot of this crap going on. I'm also sure there will be chrome apps etc to stop this from happening. I know that with ABP they offer a service to stop all they 'like' buttons from showing up on pages that you visit. \n\nAlso, if you use the FB app on your phone then you can download an app called 'Tinfoil for facebook' (android) this is a sandbox of Facebook so you can use the app without all the tracking and data gathering. \n\nEdit: btw, you can change your settings in your browser to send a 'Do Not Track' request when you're visiting pages which should cut down on the customized ads as well.",
"Facebook gets notified when you visit a page that uses Facebook Connect (f.e. sites that use the like button). In addition, Facebook partners up with several data collection companies that store information about your browsing history. They use all this data together to target adds.\n\nThere are chrome extensions available that will stop Facebook from tracking your browsing history.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I sent a text message to a friend about Doctor Who, a show I had never watched or talked about before in my whole life. I sent a few messages asking her about the show and for the next few weeks I was being shown Doctor Who DVD sets on the Facebook ads. \n\nVery creepy. ",
"You're experiencing \"retargeting\". Here are a couple of links that explain it in plain language: \n\n_URL_0_\n_URL_1_\n\nI believe that this can be done independent of Facebook Connect – i.e., Facebook will retarget ads associated with sites even if those sites don't have \"like\" buttons. ",
"Some websites include Widgets from other sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, to add interactivity and social features to their own websites. For example, these widgets might show recent tweets by the website's organization or allow you to 'Like' the website on Facebook.\n\nWhen websites incorporate Facebook social widgets, it is known that Facebook sets a tracking cookie - the infamous *datr* cookie. This cookie is set to a unique value that identifies you, or more accurately it identifies your computer. It is set no matter whether you are logged-in or even if you don't have a Facebook account.\n\nAs you surf the web, browsing a range of seemingly unconnected websites. Each time you visit a page with a Facebook widget, you are telling Facebook the URL of page your visiting, your approximate location (through your IP address) and the value of the hidden tracking cookie. \n\nAlthough this cookie is just a unique number (and therefore often described as 'anonymous') the fact that Facebook can work out almost every site you have ever visited gives them a profile to work on. \nTherefore every website that has Facebook integration is unwittingly facilitating Facebook in tracking your browsing habits. As the number of sites with 'Share with Facebook' buttons and 'Log in using Facebook' options grows, the data Facebook is collecting becomes more complete.\n\nTo make matters worse, when you later log in to Facebook from the same computer, Facebook is able to match the tracking cookie with your username, and they also have a wealth of other information from your personal profile, your friends activities, your previous activity on Facebook, your location history (from Mobile Facebook) and so on. At this point, they can target advertising quite successfully.\n\nThis is highly controversial activity and Facebook has previously both denied it uses these techniques and claimed they are a 'bug' in their software. However, software engineers, 'hackers' and academics have revealed this behaviour by studying browser and network activity.\n\n**More Information**\n\nIf you are interested in learning more about Internet tracking, I recommend the [Lightbeam](_URL_0_) add-on for Firefox. Just a couple of hours browsing with that add-on enabled will reveal who is talking to whom, and probably scare you senseless.\n\nIf you would like to avoid this sort of intrusion, both Adblock Edge and Ghostery are excellent at improving online privacy through reducing tracking of browsing habits. ",
"Some ads on Facebook are placed via Facebook Exchange, which allows advertisers who have compiled their own user data (via tracking cookies) to show ads on Facebook. \n\nFor example, say you are on a computer that has never been logged into Facebook, and you go to _URL_0_. The site places a cookie on you, so anyone with visibility to that cookie knows you've been to _URL_0_. An advertiser can then go to Facebook Exchange and say \"show a nike ad to any user with a _URL_0_ cookie\" without Facebook ever knowing you were on _URL_0_.",
"If you are viewing on desktop, this is likely pixel or \"cookie\" based tracking via the specific browser you are using. Specifically for getting served a product you had just viewed, the site would have what is known as a dynamic product feed, which passes a specific product skew or ID when you hit that page. Once you log into Fb, the advertiser using fb or a 3rd party partner (often known as a preferred marketing developer or PMD) can retar get you using the previously gathered information.\n\nSource: in the biz - also, those impressions are going to be filled regardless, would you rather see an ad for tampons? I'd like to argue that relevant ads are a much better experience.",
"I have a masters degree, have had one since May of 2014, it's included in my Facebook profile, and yet I get Facebook Ads urging me to get a Masters Degree in the exact same field. Same thing happens with products that I search for and purchase, I'll get ads for them for weeks after. They still need some tweaks. ",
"Facebook also can read your text messages. I was text messaging my mother and mentioned a condition called trichotillomania, and the next time I was in facebook -boom- ads for trichotillomania support. Really freaky.",
"[This is the absolute worst example I've seen.](_URL_0_) \n\nA female friend got this the other day.\n\nI can't understand why they think this is appropriate.",
"I've had verbal conversations with someone in the same room as me, for example about going shopping for sweaters, went back to my computer and saw ads for sweater shops. Coincidence? Or is it possible to use the microphone on your computer or phone for targeting ads? ",
"Last week at the doctor they said I might have Exertional Compartment Syndrome. Come home to Google it and as I type in \"Ex\" it guesses \"Exertional Compartment Syndrome.\"\n\nHow the f would that be Google's first and only guess?\n\nEdit: I hadn't done any mobile searching or searching for symptoms, but I realize it's extremely hard to believe.\n\nEdit 2: After reading others' comments, I did mention it over a phone call. Is that possible?",
"A number of people mentioned how facebook does it with the Facebook connect widget.\n\nI'll address how Amazon and others show products on other website related to things you've looked at.\n\nFirst thing to understand is that when you log out of a site, you're telling the site to password protect certain features, such as making purchases. You're not telling the website to forget who you are on this browser.\n\nUntil you sign in as another user, Amazon et. al. still knows that you were the last person logged in on this computer. This is done via cookies. How does that help them when cookies can generally only be read by the site which created them?\n\nWhen you go to another site which has advertising, they display the content of the ad using html iframes. (They put another website's page inside of a box in the page you're on.)\n\nThe iframe will display a url similar to _URL_0_.\n\nThat in turn will have an iframe on it with a url similar to _URL_2_.\n\nBecause that second url in amazon, it can read your amazon cookie and figure out which user your browser was most recently logged in with and display what Amazon thinks you might buy based on what that user was most recently doing.\n\nBefore you ask, there's two levels of iframes because most websites don't advertise exclusively with amazon. _URL_1_ can easily switch out which advertiser is shown each time the page is loaded.\n\nYoutube and facebook frequently show me ads for things I *just* looked at on Amazon. This is how they do that.",
"Hey OP of you don't want this to happen anymore, I have an addon on Google Chrome called Ghostery. It blocks things like that from happening and you can actually see what it's blocking. I really suggest it!",
"I am a marketer and this whole thing still creeps me out. BUT, one of the cooler things about it is that a lot of ecommerce sites will target you for ads containing coupons if you fill up your shopping cart and then leave the site (cart abandonment).\n\nTry it sometime, fill up your cart, shop around a bit and then don't purchase. You may get emails (if you're signed up for the newsletter) or FB ads about free shipping or discounts on items in your cart. ",
"If you're using google chrome as a browser, and you're logged into your gmail account (i.e. \"all of google\")... well there's your answer. \n\nAlso, cookies",
"Here's a weird one. My father in law gave us a Moroccan tea table for Xmas. Beautiful handmade his father bought it probably 50 years ago when he was in the service. Anyway. Didn't post about It didn't post pictures about it didn't talk about it near my computer. About a week later I start getting ads for you guessed it a moroccan tea table. Since I have never seen one in real life or the Internet I can't really dismiss it as mere coincidence. ",
"That's why you use plugins like adblock or ghostery.\n\nFuck those third party cookies, tracking pixels, < iframes > , etc",
"You could do a number of things to avoid this:\n\n* Use a privacy-suited Linux distribution. Tails comes to mind.\n* Browse using the private/incognito mode of your favorite browser.\n* Use plugins like AdBlock and NoScript to control what you do, or don't see.\n* Change the privacy settings in Facebook. It won't stop altogether, but they have to (should) respect the settings you place on your account.\n* I don't know if it'd be worth it, but a claim to the BBB or other watchdog agency about this kind of tracking may get a conversation started. I guess the converse to this is they would say you agreed, by default, to the T & C of Facebook when you signed up for their service in any fashion.\n\nGL OP!",
"Privacy badger works great for browsers, also blocks some ads.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Well it's not just Facebook...\n\nTargeted advertising is kind of the way of the web now\n\nEvery website you visit stores cookies on your computer, which are visible to advertisers. They then advertise on every site based on your recent activity.\n\nIf I clear my web history/cookies because I don't want my wife to see my porno, then she buys a pair of shoes from Steve Madden, I will see Steve Madden ads on almost EVERY FUCKING SITE I VISIT\n\nAnd not just Steve Madden ads, but ads that show similar shoes to the ones she bought. It's kind of amazing really...",
"You might end up regretting this question.\n\nBasically, every website that has any connection to Facebook, whether it be a login script (even if you don't log in with Facebook) or a Like button (even if you don't click it) reports back that you visited that page. \n\nYes, even when you're not logged in.\n\nInstall Ghostery.\n\nSource: Used to be the guy placing said ads.",
"ITT people complaining about fb doing all they can so that the advertisements you see are relative to your interest and not just some random spam.",
"Can someone link to the Reddit thread about the guy who used targeted Facebook ads as a payback prank on his friend? Not only does it explain how it works, but the story is hilarious and worth mentioning. ",
"I don't know about Facebook specifically, but I can explain the general process of tracking users on the web.\n\nLet's say SpyWebsite wants to spy on your web browsing.\n\nSpyWebsite is famous website so it has little buttons on almost every website. These buttons are legit: they allow you to like something or share something or whatever. Now, you read an article on blog A about pizza and blog A includes the SpyWebsite button. When your browser loads the blog A page from _URL_8_, it also has to load the button from _URL_7_\n\nAt this point, SpyWebsite sends your browser a cookie. A cookie is a simple little text file which associates a value to a key. The cookie from SpyWebsite might be something like 'id=1542551262'. Cookies work as the following: some domain sends it to your browser, and every time your browser makes a request to this domain again, it sends the cookie back.\n\nSo, your browser has this cookie 'id=1542551262' and somewhere in the SpyWebsite servers, there is a database to which is appended something like:\n\n id=1542551262 | 2015-02-14T09:09:02 | _URL_8_ | Keywords: food, pizza, ...\n\nNow you have finished with blog A, so you go on redditing and stuff and you go to blog B, on which SpyWebsite have ads placements. When your browser loads _URL_0_, it also loads stuff from _URL_7_. Your browser remembers, it has cookie for _URL_7_! So it sends back the cookie: 'id=1542551262'\n\nSpyWebsite takes the ID, look at its database, and find this line:\n\n id=1542551262 | 2015-02-14T09:09:02 | _URL_8_ | Keywords: food, pizza, ...\n\nSo it goes \"hey this guy likes pizza. Better deliver an ad about pizza\". And then you have an ad about pizza aside the content of blog B.\n\nHow to prevent it\n=============\n\nMost browsers have an option to disable third-part cookie. That is, when your browser loads _URL_8_, it will only accepts / sends back cookie from / to _URL_8_ and no other domain. [Disable third-part cookie on Firefox](_URL_2_). Note that the behaviour of browsing without third-part cookie is not the same with all browsers (it seems that some browsers doesn't accepts cookies from third-part domains, but sends the cookies back if it exists).\n\nUnfortunately, cookies aren't the only way third-part domain can identify you among multiple websites. They can use your IP, but that's not really reliable since multiple users might share the same IP and some ISP use dynamic IPs (IPs that change every 24 hours or so). But they can also use your *browser's fingerprints*. When your browser make a request to a domain, it sends a lot of information about itself: the browser's name, its version, the OS it's running on, and so on. Furthermore, technologies like Flash and JavaScript can be used to obtain a lot more information: your screen resolution and the complete list of fonts installed on your computer, for example. Go to [_URL_5_](_URL_4_) to discover your browsers's fingerprints.\n\nOnce horrified by the fact that one can track you only thanks to your browsers's fingerprint, you might want to prevent websites from running JavaScript or Flash, since they're are great sources of information about your configuration. [NoScript](_URL_3_) is an extension that blocks JavaScript and allow you to progressively whitelist websites you want to be able to run JavaScript. As for Flash, on Firefox you can configure it so that it asks for your permission everytime a flash content wants to play: Tools - > Add-ons - > Plugins - > Choose 'Ask to activate' for Shockwave Flash.\n\nYou might also want to totally block third-part domain from even displaying their buttons and stuff on websites. [Ghostery](_URL_6_) is an extension that does that. Good old [Abblock Plus](_URL_1_) does a good job too, as a side effect of removing ads.",
"I can't explain how this all works but it is very annoying given that I am trying to adopt a baby, therefore looking at baby items online and I keep getting advertisements for pregnancy... I cannot get pregnant and it **REALLY** bums me out.",
"Your cookie crumbs leave a trail of where you been.",
"Use AdBlock. I have not seen an ad in ages. Why doesn't everyone use AdBlock? People in Sweden usually have a big \"NO ADS\" sign on their letter boxes AdBlocking that real life too.",
"What's scarier than this is that several times now I have seen Facebook advertising me things that I've had CONVERSATIONS about out loud but never looked them up online or mentioned them in text on my phone or computer. Creepy!!! ",
"Facebook keeps track of you *even if you don't have a Facebook account*. They'll just put a cookie on your machine and make you \"random user 58384883859\" or somesuch, while still happily keeping track of every click, every search, etc, for years and years. And then if one day you finally do sign up for FB from that machine, well, all the better; they're ready to feed you the perfect ads from your first visit to your timeline!\n\nCreepy doesn't even begin to describe it. ",
"10/10 would highly recommend spigen tough armor for s5. Purchased mine on Amazon for like $20.",
"By matching your IP address to accounts logged in from this IP and sending ads to the account rather than the IP,no matter what account are you using or how many times your computer IP has changed due to the Dynamic IP addresses",
"It can really ruin the surprise aspect of gift shopping...or engagement ring shopping. ",
"Must be via webcam because I keep getting emails for Viagra and penis enlargement",
"I can actually answer this one with authority! Yay! But I'm a little late to the party...bummerrrr\n\nI used to work in Online Advertising and Social Media...\n\nThe answer is really simple and a little scary. It really has nothing to do with Facebook and everything to do with the cookies in your browser. When you open up a web page that has images those images are stored in your browser and the information from your activity (You downloading those images) is tracked by companies like Ad Roll.\n\nOther companies that use Ad Roll (I'm sure there are others but this one is huge) would talk with a representative and give them certain criteria as to when to show their ads. For example, \"Show my ads when someone has looked at this website\" or \"Show my ads when the following search terms were used\" or \"Show my ads on Competitor's site\"\n\nIf you pay an additional amount AND create an ad that is within Facebook's dimensions, the company we used would place those ads in your news feed after you had fulfilled the criteria of being on a competitor's site or whatever.\n\nI hope this was a good explanation. It's a little simplistic and managing these ads was sort of a pain in the butt...but believe it or not...they actually do work and raise visibility for ecommerce websites.\n\nTL;DR Cookies are yummy for advertisers.",
"If anyone's interested in finding out everything Google knows about them for the purposes of advertising, check out _URL_0_",
"C is for cookie, it's for tracking you and me.\n\nC is for cookie, it's for tracking you and me.\n\nC is for cookie, it's for tracking you and me.\n\nOh, you should really clear your cookies so they can't control the ads you see!",
"This isn't just Facebook. Most sites can acquire the technology - also it's not just cookies. If you cleared your cookie - a data broker or ad network can see your IP address on the same few websites then re tag you as if you never cleared your cookie. \n\nAs blockers and the like are not super effective, sites are starting to proxy the intrusive services as if it was coming from the site with the content you want to see this prevents you from blocking them. Also it's possible to collect user data then expand on it with multiple sources. ",
"SEO-MOZ has FBX (Facebook's Ad Exchange) code embedded on their site. When you visited, you loaded the code along with the rest of the page, and got tagged as a visitor. That may include dropping a cookie on your machine, though not necessarily.\n\nWhen you logged into Facebook, Facebook's advertising server saw that you visited SEO-MOZ. \n\nSEO-MOZ runs ads on Facebook and has likely specifically set up a 'retargetting' ad campaign (or at minimum FB Ads sees you as potentially interested in SEO-MOZ) in their ad manager that tells FB Ads to show ads to people who visited their site within the last X number of days",
"Many websites include Facebook's own code in the form of the Like or Share buttons. When a website includes this code, they have to get it from the Facebook servers, the request for these resources include information about the website you're currently on. In your example, you visited a SEO site, the site requests the Facebook widgets, Facebook serves the code to the site at the same time it notes the SEO domain as well as your IP address. When you go on to Facebook, they look up all of the sites your IP address has been to and serves you ads accordingly.",
"The real question is why the fuck they do this.\n\nYeah, bro. I know that's a cool product available at amazon. Because I just bought that shit at amazon. Thanks for the hot tip.",
"They use cookies and it depends on how much the company pays per word/ click to the ad groups. ",
"This is something called \"re-targeting\". I work for a company that creates software that tracks this very phenomenon (amongst other things). A lot of people get a little creeped out by this, but try to look at it this way: if you're going to get advertised to, wouldn't you want it to be for products you'r interested in?\n\nThe way companies do this is through your cookie data, and search data. None of your private information is being distributed, its just in the form of a very long number (lets call it your cookie id.) Advertisers pay companies like mine to track the efficiecy of these re-targeted ads to better understand how well they work. ",
"We are watching thru your window. DON'T LOOK! ",
"There's been a lot of posts about tracking cookies but these days they don't need cookies to track you. There are a bunch of stats about your computer and browser that can be used to identify you. In fact installing a cookie blocker is an identifying trait. There are also forms of storage besides cookies so cleaning them out might not be enough.",
"It's called retargeting, they take websites you've already been to and they get to bother you until eventually convert. "
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4jj0ae | total internal reflection in fibre optics | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jj0ae/eli5_total_internal_reflection_in_fibre_optics/ | {
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"The glass fiber provides a medium for the laser light to travel through. The laser light bounces (reflects) off the boundaries of the glass fiber while staying inside (internal to) the fiber. It does so in a way that retains almost all of the incident energy (total). Ergo, Total Internal Reflection. \n\nFun fact: The light has actually traveled quite a bit further than the actual distance of the fiber by way of these reflections. But not enough to delay the signal substantially. ",
"Total Internal Reflection is how fibre optic wires carry light, without letting it escape. \n\nThe mechanism is down to what's called 'refraction' or in other words, the bending of light as it moves between different materials, in this case glass and air. \n\nEveryone's seen [this](_URL_1_) happen in a glass with a straw, this is down to refraction. \n\nYou can use this property of refraction as detailed in [this](_URL_3_) diagram. You alter the angle of the light until eventually it doesn't escape the surface and keeps reflecting inwards. That's total internal reflection. \n\nThe best way to see this effect for yourself is in water, under the water. \n\n[If you look straight up](_URL_0_) out of the water, you can see out, see the sky. It's not a totally clear view, but you can see out of the water is the point. \n\nAs the angle you look out of the water becomes shallower and shallower [you start to be able to see less of the outside](_URL_4_). \n\nIf you keep making the angle shallower still, eventually you can't see out of the water at all. [All you see is a reflection of the bottom of the pool](_URL_2_). \n\nWhere the water meets the air becomes like a mirror once light hits it at a shallow enough angle. This is Total Internal Reflection in action. "
]
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2751nq | why is there a lot of hate for dr. phil? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2751nq/eli5_why_is_there_a_lot_of_hate_for_dr_phil/ | {
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"Mostly because hes the john madden of \"psychology\" \n\nHe says obvious things. Like Oh you're fat? What you need to do is eat less ok? ",
"For me it's personal. \n\nDoes a show on Kids playing too many video games. Mother watches it and complains that I play too many video games.\n\nDoes a show on kids doing drugs. Mother watches it and gets all, are you doing drugs asky.\n\nDoes a show on 'A', Mother watches it and tells me to stop doing A, even though 'A' is fucking normal and just fine behaviour, but because Dr. Fucking Phil says its bad, now 'A' is bad and no longer allowed in my house.\n\nFuck Dr. Phil",
"Some people really dislike the fact that quite often his show is used to sell something (NOT including commercials).\n\nHe'll have a step-father who has an out of control step-daughter and at the end, he'll say that he's offering to send the girl to a wellness center focused on therapy and drug rehab, and btw, for you people in the audience, a link to the center can be found on _URL_0_.\n\nTwo parents will be on his show with a story about their son who is getting married to a girl they hate and Dr. Phil dispenses his advice, then tell the audience that these tips and more can be found in his new book, \"Dr. Phil's guide to Family Healing\", which can be found in major retailers as well as on his site, _URL_0_\n\nA husband complains that his wife has gotten fat and he doesn't find her attractive any longer, so Dr. Phil's wife, Robin, actually steps in and helps her get a makeover so she feels sexy, while Dr. Phil lectures the husband a bit on his attitude. Oh, and the beauty products featured on the show can be purchased on Robin's new online store featuring tons of easy to use makeup and cleansers. A link to her site will be featured on _URL_0_\n\nAfter awhile, to some people, it feels less like you're watching a daytime show intended to help families in distress and more like you're watching an hour long infomercial that tells you that you can get healed, too. \n\nJust go to _URL_0_ and give him money today!\n\n",
"Because he's a sanctimonious prick.",
"Also, he no longer has a license to practice. \nHe is a relationship counselor that's divorced.\n He is really nothing but a fancy Maury. \nThe guy is a disgrace. ",
"He's basically the Nancy Grace of psychology.",
"He puts verbs in his sentences.",
"The show exaggerates on many situations and feels like the news media, in which it's only in it for the views. Not reality.",
"He doesn't treat people's mental illnesses as mental illnesses! Someone comes to him for help, with severe depression. He says \"Stop it! Stop being sad!\" NICE JOB DOCTOR. THAT'S GOING TO SEND NEUROTRANSMITTERS SIGNALING THE \"HAPPY\" EMOTION RIGHT TO THEIR BRAIN, PRICK.",
"Don't take relationship advice from someone you wouldn't fuck."
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4jssqr | how do epipens work | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jssqr/eli5_how_do_epipens_work/ | {
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"An epipen, or epinephrine auto injector, is a device to quickly deliver a dose of epinephrine to combat anaphylaxis. It is a spring loaded needle which, when pressed against a body part, will fire into the body part (through clothing if necessary) and deliver the drug.\n\nIt is a \"worst case scenario\" treatment - you use it if a person is having a life threatening reaction as the device delivers a lot of the drug and is very painful.",
"Piggybacking on this question, if adrenaline increases heart rate and blood pressure, wouldn't that increase swelling and send more of the allergens through the body faster? How does it open up airways? "
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4n93se | water in a vacuum. | In [this video,](_URL_0_) they put a glass of water into a pot and vacuum all the air out. It looks like it's boiling at first, but then they talk about it turning to ice? What is going on here? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4n93se/eli5_water_in_a_vacuum/ | {
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"Well, the lower the pressure of the air is around water, the lower its boiling point is. \n\nSo when they make the air pressure that low, the water has a boiling point that is very very low. \n\nWhen they add the pressure back, it would presumably freeze because the boiling temperature when back to normal. ",
"\"Boiling\" doesn't mean \"hot\". It just means \"turning into a gas\". At very low pressures, water will vaporize even when the temperature is relatively low. Here's [the phase diagram for water](_URL_0_). Notice that at room temperature (roughly 300K), water will change from liquid to gas at pressures below roughly 2 or 3 kPa.\n\nHowever, when something evaporates, the molecules with the most energy escape first, meaning that whatever is left un-evaporated is colder overall. This is why sweating cools you off. The same is true in this situation: The molecules of water with the most energy became a gas, so the water left in the glass had a lower temperature than before it started. You don't see this effect in situations where you're boiling water for cooking, because you boil it by adding heat, and not by decreasing the pressure.",
"There are two things going on. (Well, more than that, but mostly two)\n\nFirst, liquids boil into gases when individual molecules get enough energy (heat) to break free of the other molecules in that liquid. They need enough energy to push their way into the air. In a vacuum, there's no air pressure to push against, so it takes very little energy for the liquid water to fly apart into a gas.\nMore air pressure means more heat is required to change from liquid to gas (that's why you have to boil an egg longer at higher altitudes, water boils at a lower temperature on a mountain than at sea level.)\n\nAlso, in a vacuum (or anywhere really), gases expand to fill their container. As they expand, the *total energy* in the gas stays the same, spreading the heat more thinly. This means the gas temperature gets colder. It's also notable that the hottest particles tend to become gases first, carrying a small amount of extra heat with them when they escape.\n\nIf everything is just right, water will boil off and create a quickly expanding, constantly cooling cloud of vapor. The gas can further cool the remaining liquid as it spreads out.\n\nEdit: Resources to learn more.\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\n"
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"http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/phase.html",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_of_water"
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|
2d0hcc | why did we (usa) bomb iraq today? what does this mean for our country? | I don't fully understand ISIS/ their goals/ why we bombed them/ what this means for the USA moving forward.
Any insight would be great. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d0hcc/eli5_why_did_we_usa_bomb_iraq_today_what_does/ | {
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"Maliki ordered the USA out of Iraq, saying that they wanted to do their own thing without US involvement. In reality he wanted to cozy up to Iran and other islamic powerbrokers in his region.\nSo, he gave the USA a deadline of pulling out which we did. This immediately created the largest power vacuum on the planet and even gave fundamentalist islamic nationalists time to prepare for the US withdrawal.\nSo now ISIS came in to fill the massive sucking power vacuum and they intend to instate an islamic Caliphate covering large portions of the middle east, and they want to party like it's 1453. So, they are following good old peaceful Mohammed's teachings and killing or converting everyone inside their sphere of influence. Right now there are about 40,000 non-muslims chilling out on a mountain surrounded by over 9000 angry soldiers of the religion of peace.\nIt's actually a pretty hilarious time to be alive. If by hilarious I mean utterly tragic and near descending into World War III at any point.",
"The Islamic State (previously ISIS/ISIL) is attempting to create a unified Sunni state in Iraq and the Levant. The borders of the Middle East region were drawn over 100 years ago by the French and British and now this group is reshaping them to fit their vision of an Islamic State. \n\nThe US is bombing a limited number of targets as they have begun to advance on the Kurdish areas of Iraq. The Kurds have been allies of the US for decades and the US is unwilling to let them be overran by forces of the Islamic State.",
"The reason ISIS was bombed it's because they were at the bottom of a mountain waiting for 40,000 members of a religious minority, to behead them. They weren't \"chilling out\" up there, I know the other user was joking in phasing it like that but it's important for you to understand what is happening. \n\nImagine that an angry mob is closing in on your neighborhood to kill all of you and you run for the hills. Now these people are trapped in a mountain without food and water and they had the option to die up there or come down and be beheaded by ISIS. \n\nSo now the US has bombed ISIS at the bottom of the mountain to keep ISIS from committing genocide on this people and to let them escape. This *does not* mean that the US is getting involved in Iraq again. This was an isolated and limited operation with the humanitarian purpose of letting 40,000 people escape from their assured deaths. \n\nIt's a good thing and the only type of bombing the US should ever do. This was a *must* and I am glad we didn't let these people die up there or let them get down and be killed by these religious nuts.",
"Disgustingly similar to Masada. ",
"Because a bunch of utterly depraved subhuman scum were intent on murdering 40,000 people that had sought refuge in some desolate mountains from said barbarians intent on their genocide. These people had no food or water and were going to die in one manner or another without the intervention of a third party.\n\nThankfully the US, and Britain, is now doing the right thing and intervening.\n\nEven the anti-American pacifists are applauding this decision.\n\nPersonally, as someone who's seen precisely what these barbarians are capable of via their internet propaganda, I hope the US erases all trace of them from the face of the earth with a hailstorm of napalm.",
"We have always bombed iraq. [Our fathers did it](_URL_1_), our [fathers' fathers did it](_URL_0_), and our children will continue to do it for generations to come. Its a tradition!",
"Pretty good read and video that explains what you need to know. \n\n_URL_0_",
"From what I have been hearing throughout the day via AP / Reuters / BBC is that the Yezidi people have fled to a baron mountain to escape IS (formerly ISIL). We have airdropped some 75ish bundles of water and rations on the mountain to aide the people stuck there. Reports from the Yezidi are that many women have been kidnapped to be sold as wives, men have been killed for refusing to convert to Islam and also join IS' fight and many people including children are dying from exposure/starvation/thirst. They say there is no place to seek refuge; no trees for shade, no food or sources for water. Most of these people evacuated so abruptly that they had no time to bring even basic provisions. The Iraqi government has essentially ignored the pleas of these people so the Yezidi have reached out to the international community for help. \n\nAs far as the airstrikes are concerned, we took out some artillery posts that were aimed at a city that happens to have our soldiers and embassy. The White House has already stated that they will protect our interests (embassy and personnel), and they are following through with these strikes. it also just so happens that the Kurds are in this region fighting back against IS, and our strikes today have helped them out. I imagine now that more targeted strikes will occur that will hopefully give the Kurds the upper hand. \n\nMy hope is that through a joint effort, we are able to rescue these people. No one should have to run for the hills because a group of people is stating \"join us in our fight, convert to our religion and gives us your wives and daughters or we will kill you and take the women anyway\". I realize I am only hearing one side of the story, but something tells me that if this were not the case IS would have made it known by now. ",
"They are going to kill all these people! Lets kill all of them!",
"Watch this: _URL_0_",
"They aren't happy in their own Muslim states they want to dominate everywhere and just be unhappy.\n\nAppears to be a very hateful group/religion believing crap someone wrote in an apparent book hundreds of years ago."
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3djrds | why do people give reddit gold to admins? | Like in the Spez AMA and in every announcement or blog post, why do people give Reddit Gold to admins? As admins, don't they have already every perk of reddit gold? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3djrds/eli5_why_do_people_give_reddit_gold_to_admins/ | {
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"I don't know why people give Reddit gold to anyone. However, the possible perks are not limited to Reddit, you can use the gold on other sites too: _URL_0_",
"I suppose it's akin to buying the owner of a pub a drink. You know they don't need it but it is a sign of appreciation."
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99zvr4 | why do buildings always seem to fall apart faster when no one is in them for a while? | I mean, I understand overgrown/dying plants and getting dusty inside, but why does the structural integrity of the building seem to deteriorate when someone isn't living in the building for a few years? Like I feel like living in a home for 10 years, the buildings structure would be perfectly fine. But a home abandoned for ten years, somehow the building is nearly gonna collapse and paint/wallpaper is chipping/peeling away.
What am I missing that's happening here? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99zvr4/eli5_why_do_buildings_always_seem_to_fall_apart/ | {
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"Water.\n\nOnce the outside fails enough to let water enter, the water rapidly destroys the structure. Dust and spiders won't do any real damage, but water will level a building in just a few years. Rot wood, dissolve drywall, melt plaster.\n\nIf the place freezes in the winter, that gives water even more power to freeze in the cracks and break down concrete and masonry.",
"If a home is occupied, the occupants are likely going to notice something like, for instance, a leak in the roof, and take steps to repair the leak and clean up any water that leaked in.\n\nIn an abandoned building, these minor problems are left to fester, and it allows for what would cause little to no damage over a few days to go on for weeks or months. Or something like termites could infest the place and go unnoticed.\n\noften, houses that are abandoned are not new, too, and a roof slowly deteriorates over time, so a completely new house would likely be in better condition after 10 years of neglect compared to a house that was 20 years old when it was abandoned.\n\nI would note that homes in urban area are rarely actually abandoned, as they often have some owner who will come along and maintain it or sell it, be it the bank or the previous owner's heirs- and if they don't at least keep the outside presentable, the city might take legal action against them.",
"I've heard it said before that an empty house ages 5 years for every year it's empty. And like the other people said, there's little things that break all the time in a house that start to compound when no one fixes them. Also a lived in house usually has heat and AC, so inside it's around the same temperature year round, and there's decent air flow. An empty house will have temperatures vary a lot just over a day, all the wood swells and shrinks, which can start to pull nails out. Damp and musty air also promotes mold growth. The lack of people also allows rodents and such to move in which also do a fair amount of damage to the building. So you can see how even a short period of time when a house is empty can lead to a lot of problems down the road. ",
"People will not let things like a crack here, leak there or missing whatever persist and will complain about them. When no one is there the lack of maintenance leads to faster degradation.\n",
"So many reasons. Biggest reason is probably nature. Leave a structure unattended to and nature will over take it. The grass and trees no longer get trimmed, they quickly over take the house, sidewalk and driveway. Sun does a lot of damage, then rain and snow and ice intrude. Now critters take notice nobody is there and begin to find their way in through tiny holes, made bigger and bigger. House falls into disrepair quickly. Even just the walkway from the house to the curb, not being walked on will turn back into vegetation given enough time and neglect. Add in vagrants and After 100 years only the foundation will remain. That too will eventually whittle away although I’ve seen foundations 200yrs old that are still standing alone in the middle of the woods. Everything else is gone.",
"When smaller issues are not repaired or addressed, they rapidly become more problematic over time. The small tune-ups, fixes, repairs, etc. we do to everything around us is what keeps everything in order ",
"Lots of different factors at play. Two main factors, temperature and water. The lack of climate control will mean that materials will expand and contract with seasons. Different materials will expand at different rates, and that will cause gaps to appear. These gaps can cause the chipping of paint and wallpaper. Once the chipping begins, it will only get worse. The gaps and chips allow the big killer, water. Water will rot the wooden frame of a house if given enough time unchecked. The chipping paint and other gaps allows the water to get into places that were never designed to get wet. The outside of a house can withstand a lot of water. Now imagine that in your living room. These factors, along with wild animals and potential vandalism, are the primary reasons why abandoned homes do not last.",
"I'm not sure if I can piggy back off of this question or if I need to ask my own, but why do some buildings remain intact for the most part for centuries but some fall apart after 10 years. For example, I understand the Roman Coliseum and the Parthenon are not fully intact but for buildings that are 2000 years old they look incredible. Yet a building that was built 100 years ago and abandoned just 10 or 20 years ago will in many circumstances be worse than the 2000 year buildings still standing. ",
"All this talk of water being the enemy of a building makes me wonder, why are any buildings built with a flat roof? Generally every commercial building has a flat roof, wouldn't it make more sense to slant it, even if it was to one side so the water would run off the roof and presumably save the cost of water damage and allow your roof to last longer?",
"Several factors contribute to it.\n\nFirst is the obvious: Problems get bigger the longer they're not fixed for. \n\nThey compound. Water is a major player here as others have stated. A little leak gets bigger. Pretty quick.\n\n\nSecond: Lack of Air Conditioning / Heating.\n\nThis is something that affects modern buildings the most, because their designers expected the structure to be using those energy-consuming mechanisms to \"fight off nature\".\nAir Conditioning and dehumidifiers make it harder for mold to grow, harder for natural decomposition and such to happen. \nHeaters prevent pipes from bursting due to freezing.",
"If you want to learn more about this, read a book called The World Without Us. I found it fascinating. ",
"Typically the house would be fine until a window breaks. Then the house is left vulnerable to weather which rapidly destroys the interior.",
"I moved away for 4 years from a home my parents own. They decided not to rent it and it sat there. When I came back it was a disaster. Smelled old. I had to completely pull out all the flooring and repaint the house. I’ve been in it 3 years now and it is just barley getting the musty smell out. No one else says they smell it, but I felt like the house smelled like dirt. I replace things all the time because it was deteriorating. The foundation seems like a major issue to me now. The windows have started to pull apart from the brick. ",
"Moisture is the big killer. Once it gets past the outer seal, it can rot out the wood framing in under 2 years. Also remember that carpenter ants/woodbugs prefer softer wood to eat, which water will provide. \n\nOlder/poorly built buildings tend to have less than stellar water seals. Newer and/or better built structures can withstand a lot more environmental damage. We built a house around 4 years ago now that was never fully finished due to the owner running out of money. We overbuilt the shit out of it though. My boss went by a few weeks ago to take a look, and there isn't even the slightest smell of mildew inside, despite it never having been heated.",
"This isn't exactly responding to your question, but in certain locations where I've lived there are ordinances that businesses must keep their building temps in a band between 65 and 75 degrees at all times. I learned that buildings break down and become structurally unsound due to expansion and contraction otherwise. \n\n\nAnd, the businesses can't substantially save that much in electricity overnight as a result.",
"I'm from a town full of abandoned homes. Once somebody breaks down a door or smashes a window the home has about 2 years before it's completely beyond saving. I've seen beautiful old homes turn into a teardown after two winters. ",
"Buildings require constant maintenance. Sealants wear out in 10-20 years depending, mortar degrades around brick, plants grow and allow bugs and termites to travel. Roofs get damaged or drains get flooded and collect water which reduces the life expectancy of roofs. Mechanical equipment rust and fail. It takes a long time for a building to fall apart. Most buildings you see have a property management team constantly working to keep it maintained so all the little things that are wrong don't turn into a big thing. You don't see occupied buildings falling apart because of this exact reason. Sometimes owners who have delapadated buildings will try to sell them but stop all property management or maintenance to save money and thus the building will slowly degrade. Now add the time it takes to sell the building and it could be years before the building is sold and by the end of it, or the sale, nature has taken its toll.\n\nI am a project manager that has done numerous due diligence inspections and reports for owners and buyers of all types of buildings. The two biggest things I see are roof and HVAC deficiencies.",
"Here in arizona a building will fail faster with a shitty person living in it than empty as we have a dry warm climate. but generally having someone who cares that the roof is leaking or that a door broke means being able to fix the issue before the weather has a chance to do more damage."
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4vvtts | how can the cdma company verizon use gsm towers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vvtts/eli5_how_can_the_cdma_company_verizon_use_gsm/ | {
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"Most Verizon phones that came out this decade have radios in them that are combined GSM/CDMA and do LTE bands and such. Verizon owns a whole lot of spectrum and if needed will also rent spectrum from others selling it so that they have coverage (all mobile phone companies do this).\n\nIn other words, their phones can connect to a lot of stuff, and they have a lot of stuff, the CDMA/GSM distinction doesn't matter too much since there is plenty of spectrum. For now that is. And Verizon, and well tons of other companies keep buying more and more spectrum, its getting much more in demand."
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3deo6b | why people are saying that the iranian arms deal may be the "worst deal in history"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3deo6b/eli5_why_people_are_saying_that_the_iranian_arms/ | {
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"[Here's one interesting perspective](_URL_1_) from _URL_0_ writer Fred Kaplan.",
"Israel is unhappy about it, because Israel is paranoid about Iran attacking them with nuclear weapons, and will only be content when Iran has no nuclear capability whatsoever. The treaty lifts sanctions on Iran in exchange for more oversight of Iranian nuclear facilities and the reduction of their capability to theoretically create a nuclear weapon.\n\n\nIsrael wants it all gone, but that is not reasonable or politically viable."
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"Slate.com",
"http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2015/07/the_real_reason_israel_saudi_arabia_and_neocons_hate_the_iran_deal_they.html"
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38vsud | how do planets 'float' in space? | Not sure if float is the right word but the idea is still the same. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38vsud/eli5_how_do_planets_float_in_space/ | {
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"They don't. There is no up or down in space, so if you put something there it will just stay there, it doesn't need to float.\n\nHowever anything with mass is pulling everything else with mass towards it. This is the force of gravity, which is why we are pulled towards the center of the Earth. And also the Earth is pulled to the sun, but the Earth is also moving sideways. We are falling towards the sun, but we are moving so fast sideways that we are constantly missing it. This is what an orbit it, same reason why the moon, all our satellites and the space station don't crash in to the Earth.",
"They're not really floating. They're all falling toward the Sun, but moving sideways fast enough to miss. That's the simplest way to explain orbits I can think of."
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9l40i9 | why is the baseball season so long to, i assume, determine superiority when the playoffs consist of one game play-ins for an 8 team tournament? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9l40i9/eli5why_is_the_baseball_season_so_long_to_i/ | {
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"You'd be letting some real dumpy teams in with a 16 team bracket, and playing the world series dangerously late in the fall for a sport that doesn't work in the snow.\n\nThe one game play-in wild card match is a fairly new addition to the system, added in 2012.\n\nBefore that there was just one wild card team (best record that didn't win a division). Before 1994 only the division winners went to the playoffs."
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2meziv | anything quantum | What is
Quantum Computing
Qua ting physics
Quantum Mechanics
AND ANYTHING QUANTUM | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2meziv/eli5_anything_quantum/ | {
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"Quantum Leap was a television show that ran from 1989 -1993. It starred Scott Bakula as Dr Sam Becket. He invented a device that allowed him to travel through time and experience the past in the body of other people. Well something goes wrong and he gets trapped. Now he spends his time leaping from person to person in time and solving their problems in the hopes that his next leap is home. ",
"To understand Quantum \"stuff\", we first have to start with the [wave-particle duality](_URL_0_) and the deBroglie wavelength. The wave-particle duality says that all waves (think: light) behave, in some respects, like particles. Likewise all particles (think: electrons) behave, in some respects, like waves. Don't worry to much about *why* this duality exists -- that's a question that even experts in the field can't completely agree on -- just take that as given and we can go from there.\n\nOk, now let's start with the classic \"particle in a box\" scenario: imagine you have a particle in a box. When it hits the walls of the box, it bounces directly back from the wall. Now, if this particle was just a particle, like a bouncy ball in a box, then it'll just bounce all around randomly, right? The problem is that the wave-particle duality says we can't just pretend that the particle is a bouncy ball. We have to consider that the particle is also a wave.\n\nHave you ever tapped on the side of a half-full soda bottle? You know how the liquid inside starts to make waves, and eventually the waves look like they're not moving...you just end up with concentric circles of peaks and troughs? That's what's called a \"standing wave\". Basically, when two waves meet, their interaction is additive. When a peak meets a peak, the wave gets even higher, but when a peak meets a trough, then they cancel out.\n\nWell, if you have a wave that bounces off of a wall, then the wave will interact with itself. If it then goes across the container and bounces off the other wall, you have a series of interactions one after the other. The only way that these interactions can keep occurring and the wave remains stable is if the wave's peaks always meet with other peaks and troughs always meet with other troughs. This will happen when the distance from one peak to the next is an even fraction of the distance between the walls.\n\nThat is, the wavelength must be either the same as the distance between the walls, ½ the distance between the walls, ⅓ the distance, etc. Any wavelength between these numbers will result in the wave interfering with itself eventually leading to no more wave.\n\nOk, back to the particle in the box and deBroglie waves. Remember how I said that we can't just treat the particle in the box as a bouncy ball because it's also a wave? And remember how a wave between two walls can only have specific wavelengths? Well, deBroglie realized that the wavelength of a particle (in the wave-particle duality sense) is related to the particle's mass and speed. So saying that the wave-particle can only have specific wavelengths is the same as saying that the particle can only have specific combinations of mass and speed.\n\nWell, mass and speed are what determine energy. So this is the same as saying that your particle in a box can only have specific energies. Intermediate energies are forbidden, because that would lead to waves that have the wrong length. Thus, when you want to increase the energy of your particle in a box, you can only do so in fixed-size amounts, or **quanta**, of energy.\n\nNow, you might wonder what a particle in a box has to do with anything \"real\". It turns out that even though the particles and the boxes look different, they turn up all over the place in physics. The most important real-world example is the electrons in an atom. The electrical attraction between the negative electron and the positive protons in the nucleus of an atom create an effective \"box\" that the electron is trapped inside of, so electrons in an atom can only increase their energy in quantum amounts.\n\nFrom there, you have to realize that the energy of electrons, and the transition between different energy levels of electrons, controls everything from chemical reactions to the light coming out of the lightbulbs in your house (or even the pixels on your screen).\n\nFinally, why does Quantum \"stuff\" seem so weird? Again, that all goes back to deBroglie and his waves. The wavelength of things goes down as mass goes up. Everything has a wavelength...even *you*! But a general rule of thumb is that \"quantum\" effects only matter when the wavelength of a particle-wave is larger than the particle itself. In the case of electrons and other things which are very very small and very very light, their wavelengths are large so they behave like \"quantum stuff\". You, on the other hand, are large and heavy, so your wavelength is very very much smaller than you are. Thus, you never really get to experience quantum effects directly."
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rxdpw | what do blind people see? | Is it pitch black, or dark spot like when you close your eyes or something else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rxdpw/what_do_blind_people_see/ | {
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"The people who are blind from birth do not have a visual sense at all. Hard for us to understand, but that's how it is. They don't see black - they don't SEE anything at all.\n\nPeople who lose their vision later in life also say that it's an absence of vision rather than blackness.",
"There are some really interesting case studies you should read, a lot of them by Oliver Sachs about blind people regaining their sense of sight late in life through surgery...and being completely unable to use it. They have zero depth perception, and absolutely no ability to recognize objects, discern danger, or distance. There's an anecdote about a blind man getting his sight and immediately climbing out a 3rd story window because he had no idea how to judge height or distance. \n\nFor a blind person, they simple never developed the sense at all. Their other senses have, however, grown to be able to accomodate that, which is why they have much more refined senses of hearing, touch, and strange methods of mental pathing and imagination that I think are nearly impossible to conceptualize for a normal person because of how visually we interpret our normal lives.",
"I hope this discussion goes on",
"For people who have been blind from birth, they relate colours, which they obviously have never seen before, to ideas and theories which they have been taught.\n\nI've read from a blind person for example, that they perceive the colour brown through the idea of mud, a dark, messy, somewhat gooey substance, and through knowing the characteristics of something that physically exists, they can develop an understanding for how it looks, and the sort of things which are the same colour of it.",
"I've always wondered whether being blind is like having your eyes closed all the time or trying to see out of your arm.",
"AMA request, a blind person. ",
"More than anything, I want to know what they dream....",
"Totally blind people see nothing at all, not blackness, nothing. It's like when you can't smell due to a bad cold (to give a poor example, but probably the only way a normally sighted person could relate).\n",
"I'm more interested with what a blind person sees on LSD, DMT, Salvia, Shrooms, or other visual hallucinogens.",
"It depends on what type of blindness. In Australia, not being able to read 6/60 on the letter chart will classify you as blind, and so those people will still see light, motion, etc. but they will see it all in a massive blur, ie. they won't be able to make out refined shapes. Or, if your field of view is limited to a very small angle (depends on the country, I can't remember what it is in Aus), then those people can be considered blind as well. \n\nThere is a certain time when we're infants which is really important to developing our vision. The ability of the brain to adapt (our neurons) is called plasticity, and while we still have plasticity when we're older, it's nowhere near the critical levels as infants. For those that don't take in any visual information at birth, they probably won't have the ability to regain sight later on in life because they haven't developed the proper mechanisms at a young age - they won't see at all.\n\nOther types of blindness can include cataract (if it gets severe enough), which is the lens fibres getting harder and becoming less and less clear. People with cataracts experience different things, depending on the type of cataract, but most will notice a yellowing of images, blurriness, loss of contrast, glare, poorer night vision, or fading of colours.\n\nAgain, it really depends on the cause of blindness. Blindness is just a term describing many means of vision loss. ",
"Close your eyes. What do you see? Sort of an orangey-red color, right? Now open one eye. What does the closed eye see? *Nothing*.",
"Let me ask you a question. You are a human, and you have the senses of smell, touch, taste, hearing, and sight. I am an alien, and I have the senses of smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight, and *blorp*.\n\nWhat do humans *blorp*?",
"It would also depend what causes the blindness. Is it a problem with the specialised cells in the retina? If so what is the problem? leber's amaurosis? a condition causing retinitis pigmentosa? is a an optic nerve problem? or is it a problem within the brain that is causing the blindness? ",
"Along the same lines of what language/sound/voice do deaf people think in? It's a weird concept to grasp.",
"A number of people have already answered the OP's question, so I don't need to add much about the fact that people who are blind from birth literally just don't see anything.\n\nBut...one super interesting phenomenon is what happens to the occipital cortex in blind people. The occipital cortex is the part of the brain that interprets the things our eyes are seeing, and \"tells\" us what we're looking at. It pieces together input from the outside world and forms the images that the rest of us \"see\". \n\nIn blind people, the occipital cortex still exists; it's not like they're born with big chunks of their brains missing. And it turns out that the brain is really good at adapting. Since, in blind people, it isn't being used to interpret images, the brain actually remaps other senses to all the unused space in the occipital cortex. This is why blind people often have heightened hearing or sense of touch. With today's technology we can literally see the way the brain adds neural connections so that there's no waste.",
"There are blind redditors out there fyi. I remember one who surfs reddit by listening to the computer reading the frontpage out loud. Maybe he can answer you better.",
"They \"see\" what you see with your left eye when you close it.",
"Put your hand in front of your face. They see what you see between your eyes and your hand. This was the way some famous blind person once described it.",
"Is anybody thinking of Lilly Satou from Katawa Shoujo while reading this?"
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au6ssp | how does matt stonie eat so much, so fast? where does the food even go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/au6ssp/eli5_how_does_matt_stonie_eat_so_much_so_fast/ | {
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"He has practice and his stomach is very big.\n\nAnyway, the stuff he eats can look pretty big and intimidating, but once it's all mashed together, chewed and swallowed, it gets compacted pretty well. Years of competitive eating results in a big stomach capacity, just like filling a balloon to its limit and letting the air out will result in having a bigger balloon than you started out with."
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||
1v7amj | how is a company's equity valued | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v7amj/eli5_how_is_a_companys_equity_valued/ | {
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"Part assets, part prospects, part coffee groundings.\n\nAssets: You can reliably ascertain what assets a company has, and what loans they have outstanding. You may perhaps debate the *value* of said fixtures, bit not their *existence*.\n\nProspects: This concerns deals in the near future that are being actively purchased. Maybe not all of them will come to fruition, but there is enough information available to make a fair judgement on the overall shape of things that will happen in the near future.\n\nCoffee groundings: this is where pure speculation kicks in. Predicting the future is difficult, especially when it concerns the .. uh .. future. This part of value assessment is usually filled with rosy predictions on how in five years time, the product or service in question will be used by X percent of all adults world wide, and therefore, you should pay a premium *today*. I'll leave it to your gullibility to judge the value of such a statement."
]
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||
15msaz | what causes the need to pee? | I was thinking this yesterday while on a plane and unable to get up to go pee- what actually sends the signal to our brains that we have to go?
Is it like a gas tank where when the bladder gets full it sends a signal? Where is the "neuron" (excuse my ignorance if this isn't even close)that actually sends a signal? Does a large bladder compress something that then sends a signal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15msaz/eli5_what_causes_the_need_to_pee/ | {
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"It's been a while since I've studied it so I can't elaborate too much. Basically after we reach about 200mL of urine our bladder stretches too much and we feel the need to pee. I was taught that every 50~100 mL of urine will re-trigger this feeling until your bladder can't stretch enough and is forced to contract which causes you to pee. \n\nThe nerves are called the pelvic splanchnic nerves which is part of the inferior hypogastric plexus. \n\n_URL_2_\n\nSource: Working on my masters in exercise physiology\n\nEdit: If you want to read about [the plexus](_URL_1_) or the [Splanchnic nerves](_URL_0_)"
]
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"http://symptomnav.adam.com/content.aspx?productId=101&pid=1&gid=003142"
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bj8a4q | why did the us military stop using amphibious aircraft altogether? | I understand the main reasons are extended range, aircraft carriers, and increased capabilities of non-amphibious aircraft operating in amphibious environments. That said, it still seems like a logical feature to have, especially for search and rescue aircraft and larger amphibious seaplanes which could resupply vessels at sea while being larger than what a carrier can handle for increased payload (i.e. a C-130 seaplane). So why did they stop using them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bj8a4q/eli5_why_did_the_us_military_stop_using/ | {
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"Planes that are just planes and boats that are just boats are both significantly better at their jobs than a plane pretending it's a boat or a boat pretending it's a plane.\n\nA supply ship can move several thousand tons of goods to a fleet. A supply plane can bring a dozen tons per trip. You'd spend your life flying back and forth and back and forth.\n\nFor search and rescue, you generally can't land on open seas as the water is too rough so a plane isn't going to help there. A helicopter will be much better at just picking someone out of the water.\n\nA boat plane can perform many jobs decently to poorly, specialized equipment each performs a specific job excellently which is far better if you have the capacity for the specialized equipment\n\nUniversal is not good",
"One word : helicopters.\n\nHelicopters are the modern go-anywhere do-anything version of seaplanes for the US military. The jobs that were previously done by floatplanes are now done by helicopters - scout, SAR, ship-to-shore movement etc. And helicopters are much more practical for getting stuff onto a ship - all you need is a landing platform. Every (ed:USN) ship large enough to have a helicopter fight deck now has one, even if they don't have the capacity to operate a helicopter.\n\nAlso the role of long range reconnaissance can be handled by normal land-based planes since there's no need for them to be able to land on water when there are thousands of helicopters around.\n\n > larger amphibious seaplanes which could resupply vessels at sea\n\nThat never really worked out in practice. Even a large seaplane can't really carry a whole lot of supplies and then you have the issue of transferring the cargo from the plane to the ship. Far more practical to have a cargo ship with a small landing platform and then use a helicopter to move the cargo.",
"But it's not a logical feature to have. \n\nSearch and Rescue aircraft : The vast majority of S & R aircraft are helicopter, so they can stay over an area, scanning for survivors and bring them aboard with a crane. Landing an helicopter on the sea would be impossible in most situation because of waves and wouldn't make them better at their job. Now planes for S & R are mostly there for searching, meaning they want a long range and low altitude to spot people, which mean large planes. If you make them able to land on water, that add weight, which decrease the range. But worst, try landing a 70 tons aircraft on the sea not too far from survivors. Too close and you risk to kill them, to far and how can you get to them. On a clam see ok, but in an heavy sea what kind of boat you want to have on your C-130 that can be deployed and go get survivors? Or you want to use those 4 meters propellants to approach the survivors? \n\n & #x200B;\n\nAs for suppy. A logistical ship of the USN carry about 6 190 tonnes of supply, while a C-130 can carry 33 tonnes at the very maximal. You would need 506 trip of a C-130 to carry as much supply as one logistic ship. In addition, the C-130 have a range of 3,800 km, which mean you would need more than one trip to reach some of the ship you want to resupply."
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