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7o7khw | the phenomenon of shooting stars and the small trails they create. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7o7khw/eli5_the_phenomenon_of_shooting_stars_and_the/ | {
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"Shooting \"stars\" are small pieces of space debris that collide with Earth.\n\nSince Earth is sweeping through space at 70,000mph, these little rocks and metal bits are coming in *really* fast. Fast enough that they start compressing the air in front of them and heating up until they emit bright light.\n\nUsually they're immolated in the process and reduced to a powder, but some of the bigger/sturdier ones can survive the ride and land as meteorites.\n\nThe trial is the streak of superheated gas and dust they leave as they're roasting their way through the air at hypersonic speed."
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43w652 | how do game developers make an old game hd? | For example Final Fantasy IX will have a PC/Phone remake soon with supposed better graphic with HD. So how is it possible to make a 2000 released game with better graphic? Do they have to make the game from scratch or do they have the old codes? Thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43w652/eli5how_do_game_developers_make_an_old_game_hd/ | {
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"The code will largely be the same, they can just redo the models and textures in higher resolutions.\n\nThey mightvalso use a newer engine, in which case *some* of the code will need to be changed, but if they built their code well, most of ot can be re-used.",
"I would suppose it depends on how old the original game is and how it was written to begin with. It could be that, in some cases, they would have to rewrite the game from scratch using the original source code as a reference. Probably if you were HD-ifying a REALLY old game for a REALLY new platform, this could be the case. However, if it's a more recent game, it's entirely possible that the newer game engine the company uses that can do better graphics is just an \"upgrade\" to the older engine the game ran on^1 and, thus, all they'd really need to do is just pop the source code into the new engine, make a few syntax updates if necessary, and then load up the assets directory with higher res models and textures. And, I guess, if the newer models would move differently (e.g, a more realistic Protagonist should move a little more realistically), they'd have to update all the relevant code for that too.\n\n--\n\nNotes:\n\n^1 I can't source it but, as an independent game developer on my free-est of free time, I'd definitely consider it ideal to not reinvent the wheel every time hardware or library improvements enable me to do more awesome things.\n\n[edit: reddit formatting is my nemesis lol]",
"With a game rendered in 3D you can re-program the game to have a higher resolution and technically make it HD. That's fairly straight forward because it doesn't require you to redo any artwork, and it means the game will appear less pixelated. That might be all they will do with FF9. \n\nBut in this particular game the backgrounds are static images rather than being 3D environments. So there isn't a way to simply increase the resolution of them. They may do some kind of post-processing to the backgrounds to make them less pixelated, but that might make them look blurry because you can't simply add detail that wasn't there before with an automated process.\n\nJudging from screenshots, it looks like that's what they've done in this new version. The characters appear much sharper than the backgrounds, which look very blurry in comparison.\n\nAs for the code, it will be largely the same as the original. They will have to update it to work on a modern PC, but they will have only had to rewrite bits of it. All the code for the core game logic probably stayed pretty much as it was."
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2x0t71 | what was the hippy movement, how did it start, and why? | I realised I actually know nothing about it other than the cliché "drugs, man." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x0t71/eli5_what_was_the_hippy_movement_how_did_it_start/ | {
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"I'm going to talk specifically about the U.S. because the hippie movement started there.\n\nIn the 1930s and early 1940s, the U.S. lived through the trauma of the Great Depression and WWII. After the war, a new era of prosperity dawned in the U.S. and there a strong impulse for everything to return to \"normal\". Also, the power of the Soviet Union increased mightily in the post-war world, giving rise to the Cold War. The Cold War led to a fear of communists and other subversives in the U.S. All this together added up to encouraging a conservative social order in the U.S. during the 1950s.\n\nIn the 1960s, there was a leftist backlash against the conservatism of the 1950s. Social issues which had been suppressed in the '50s rose to prominence. The Vietnam War particularly galvanized young leftists as it was a war being fought against communism (as part of the Cold War) and the draft was in effect. Before Vietnam, it was widely accepted that America's fight against communism was a noble cause, but now that was to be challenged.\n\nHippies were a youth subculture which emerged in the '60s as part of this leftist backlash against the values of the '50s and the social order it represented. The values of the hippies were anti-war, free love, environmentalism, and pro-drug-use. Those first two items were often summed with the slogan, \"make love, not war\". All of it challenged the Cold War establishment of the time."
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3wuul4 | what is the reason for banning assault rifles? what makes them different than a semi-automatic hunting rifle? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wuul4/eli5_what_is_the_reason_for_banning_assault/ | {
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"The \"assault weapon ban\" doesn't ban assault rifles. It bans scary looking guns. Yes, you are correct that the guns banned in the \"assault weapon ban\" are not particularly different as far as killing ability from a semi-automatic hunting rifle. \n\nFully automatic assault weapons are still legal. Banning those might inhibit the amount of people one can kill in a particular amount of time but that is not what the ban does.",
"Basically black rifles look scary and Hollywood doesn't help a whole lot. It's not an \"assault rifle\" until you use it as such therefore every single gun on earth is an assault weapon. ",
"Reloading does take time and there have been cases where a shooter was only subdued when his firearm ran out of ammo, giving an opening for a bystander to disarm him. A 20-30 round banana-clip means that a shooter can go a lot longer than if he had 4-6 5-round clips. \n\nA collapsible/foldable stock, while of little use while hunting, can make a weapon more concealable and more maneuverable in tight, urban environments.\n\nWhile the effectiveness of some assault-weapon laws might be difficult to determine, there are reasons people might think they are effective. The features of an \"assault weapon\", such as a bayonet, larger magazine, and collapsable stock, have questionable benefit while hunting but obvious impacts in urban fighting. Do you need an AR-15 to hunt?",
"I just took a hand gun class. The instructor said that high power hunting rifles are more powerful than AR-15 rifles. No one is crying about hunting rifles.",
"1. Assault weapons is a fallacious term used to describe scary looking guns that shoot the same bullets as less scary looking guns. If anything, the shorter barrels on \"carbine\" rifles are less accurate, yield lower muzzle velocity and therefore deliver less energy with shorter range.\n2. Magazines. Not clips.\n3. Cartridges. Not shells.\n"
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1xq3w1 | why do women suffer from body image issues because of "the media" while men don't seem to have these issues? | I'm a male. I see women oogling over Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, etc., but never do I feel that I need to look like these men. I'm even a little bit overweight and have no problems with my body. The problems that I do have are not psychologically based, but more worried about my health. What is it about a woman's psychology that is so different?
Edit: I mean as a whole, men don't seem to. It is very obvious that males do HAVE these issues, but why aren't there thousands of articles denouncing the covers of male magazines? Why aren't there people claiming that action hero figurines distorted their body image, as with Barbie? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xq3w1/eli5why_do_women_suffer_from_body_image_issues/ | {
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"Men do have body issues. They're just taught to not show it. There's also the remnants of the 50s, when a woman's job was to be pretty and find a good husband.",
"Some of it has to do with how much easier it is for a average looking male to get on TV than it is for a average looking female",
"Men have body issues. We just aren't as open about it.\n\nSource: man with body issues",
"This idea comes from a biological purpose, but like a lot of things in society has been ingrained and shaped by cultural forces. \n\nWomen are valued for their appearance as it indicates fertility, women with wide hips were good for birthing etc.\n\nMen are valued for their ability to provide as it indicated they could protect and raise children, and that they had good genes to pass onto their children.\n\nSo while men may not have the same body issues (they still have them, it's just that we are also raised to show no weakness so it's generally not discussed) men face a lot more pressure to 'be a man' and be strong, to provide, to show no weakness and to always be interested in sex.\n\nMen and women simply face different pressures in society.",
"While there is no shortage of 'unattainable' body types of both genders on display in media (which have caused body issues for men as well as women), there have typically been a wider range of male body types presented. While studs like Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise have always been present in popular media, so too have men outside of this ideal like Paul Giamatti, James Gandalfini, and Kelsey Grammer.\n\nTypically-beautiful men are often paired with typically-beautiful women in movies and on TV. *Non*-typically-beatuful men (like the examples I listed above) also get paired with typically-beautiful women (The Sopranos, Knocked Up, The Simpsons, The Honeymooners, etc.). Historically, non-typically-beautiful women, when they have appeared in media, have been paired with non-typically-beautiful men (Roseanne, Mike and Molly). There are *extremely* few instances of non-typically-beautiful women being paired with typically-beautiful men."
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8sogfu | how does applying heat to something actually relieve the pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8sogfu/eli5_how_does_applying_heat_to_something_actually/ | {
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"It depends upon the kind of pain. For muscle aches, heat causes blood vessels to relax and dialate. This means more nutrients are going into the area, promoting healing and carrying away toxins faster.\n\nFor other sorts of pain - like a burn or an area swollen with infection, apply heat is a terrible idea. Cooling is effective as it causes blood vessels to clinch closed -and the problem is too much fluid in the area.\n"
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54vhrg | what is the difference between the north pole and the arctic sea? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/54vhrg/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_the_north_pole/ | {
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"The arctic sea is a broad area of ocean, the north pole is a particular place (or two places really, geographic and magnetic north).",
"If you picture the Earth spinning sideways, the north pole is the very top, the south pole on the bottom. If you were to somehow stand on the north pole, instead of spinning around Earth's axis, you'd simply spin in a very slow circle. \n\nThe Arctic Ocean is simply an ocean that happens to cover the spot where the north pole is, just as Antarctica is a continent that happens to cover the spot where the south pole is. Both are just coincidences and don't relate any further."
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84oyvw | how do plants reproduce? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/84oyvw/eli5_how_do_plants_reproduce/ | {
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"In simple terms, plants reproduce through their pollen, either blown by the wind from one plant to another, or by animals.\n\nThe flowers attract animals, such as bees, to come for the nectar. While they drink the nectar, the insect brush up against the pollen and carry it with them to the next plant or flower. The pollen the are then brushed off onto a special part of the flower, much like a sperm to an egg, this results in seeds starting to germinate. \n\nMost plants release these seeds in fruits, which are picked up or eaten by larger animals. These animals would then plant the seeds, either burying them intentionally like squirrels with nuts, or inadvertently through poop, leading to new plants growing somewhere else from the original. ",
"- Some plants have flowers. Insects like colorful flowers. Flowers have nectar in them (for the insects), and pollen (for the plants). When an insect is drinking that juicy delicious stuff, he is pressing his lil' furry belly on that sticky pollen. When the insect flies away and sees another flower and goes for drink no. 2, he presses his jizzed up belly to the flower again, and the flower gets preggo.\n\n- Some other plants have juicy fruits. Some birdies and squirrels and other critters see the delicious fruits hanging from a tree. They swallow the stuff whole, because you know - dumb animals, and go along their way. Some time later, nature calls, and they drop a massive shit (frankly supah nutrious for plants). In that massive dump, a little seed has survived the colon adventure, and is ready to start grow really big and hung.\n\n- Some trees have those same pollen that the flowers have. They are like tree dicks, swinging in the air, wooshing their spermies through the wind. Other trees have little petunia vagines riding the air waves, trying to catch as many jizz that is flowing in the air. And then you have these crazy gender-neutral-fluid-trees who have both vagines and spermies, and they just do this kind of r/2meirl4meirl shake in the wind and just knock up themselves."
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1gmj5z | why and how do dogs cry? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gmj5z/why_and_how_do_dogs_cry/ | {
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"How is down to mammal anatomy. One of the characteristics of mammals is the tendency to produce vocal sound (howling/barking/snarling/moaning etc.). Such capabilities allow mammals to communicate at a more efficient and techincal level than other animals and therefore allow them to live in a more advanced social context. Such as dogs living amongst humans, dogs vocal capabilities is a vital component in the successful relationship we have with them. Their understanding of our vocal ques (angry tones/happy tones/their name etc.) allow us to communicate with them just as their more limited vocalization allows them to communicate with us.\n\nSo, and this brings us to the Why, as far as I know (from experience and I am not an expert on the subject), dogs have about the same learning capacity as a toddler. \nThat is, without the correct obedience training, like spoiling the dog or always giving it what it wants, the dog will soon recognize that by crying/whinging (dog equivalent of throwing a tantrum) he can eventually get his own way. \nInstinctively, and this probably goes back as far as to when dogs were still wild animals, this whinging noise is the noise a dog will make while in distress and/or unhappy. So if you start satisfying the dogs wants while he's making it clear to you he is in distress it will not take long for the dog to recognize that by whinging the dog is getting what it wants.\n\nSource: Zoologist/Environmental Science student / Dog Lover\n\nResources: [Here is a fascinating display of how technical and advanced mammal communication can become, even in lower beasts] (_URL_0_)\n\nEdit: Few tweaks and spelling corrections."
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3fcqm9 | why can't a citizen claim that they felt their lives were in danger by a cop and take defensive measures? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fcqm9/eli5why_cant_a_citizen_claim_that_they_felt_their/ | {
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"Those laws always state that it has to be reasonable to assume your life is in danger. With an aggressive police officer, that is not a reasonable assumption.",
"If you are asking about the United States, citizens can claim self-defense against officers. The legal standard varies from state to state- are you interested in one in particular?\n\nIn some states there is an elevated standard if the assailant is an officer, requiring actual imminent danger rather than a reasonable fear or belief (the standard for self-defense). Here are a few examples I found in responding to a similar question:\n\n*State v. Kraul*, 90 N.M. 314, 318 (N.M. Ct. App. 1977) (\"The right of self-defense is not barred simply because the other person in the affray is a police officer.\")\n\n*State v. Hutchinson*, 959 P.2d 1061 (Wash. 1998) (self-defense instruction in case involving shooting of two police officers)\n\n*Brown v. Commonwealth*, 497 S.E.2d 527, 530 (Vir. 1998) (\"It has long been held in Virginia that where an officer attempts an unlawful arrest, the officer is an aggressor which gives the arrestee the right to use self-defense to resist so long as the force used is reasonable.\")\n\n*Boyd v. State*, 406 So. 2d 824 (Miss. 1981) (reversing conviction for assault on a police officer because the trial court failed to instruct the jury on self-defense)",
"A citizen can claim that. But, it's an affirmative defense, and they'd have to show that the actions of the officer were not appropriate and put the citizen's life in danger. This will *always* require some corroboration, such as witnesses or (better yet) video evidence.\n\nSome cops are overly aggressive. But also, some people are overly defensive. The results of overly aggressive cop vs calm citizen and calm cop vs. overly defensive citizen often have identical outcomes.",
"An officer's word is their bond. Unless there is video footage proving he is the aggressor then it is your word vs theirs. Unfortunately, you will come out on the short end of the stick. His defense will most likely be that you initiated the aggression.\n\nRemember, dead men tell no tales. ",
"A) The standard of proof for you to use force against someone is a reasonable belief of \"imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death\". Lawyers will argue about what is \"reasonable\" until the end of time, but a general rule of thumb is, how is a sixty year old grandma going to view the situation. If your grandma would be scared, it's reasonable for you to be scared. A cop telling her to put her hands behind her back is not going to put grandma at fear for her life. The second part, is \"imminent\". This definition is going to have different meanings for you and for cops. For you, this means the threat must be real, and ongoing. For cops, they are allowed to use a \"reasonable officer\" standard. They aren't measured by what a normal person sees and interprets, they are measured against what a normal cop would see and interpret. \n\nB) The cop has to ACTUALLY have NO cause to use force, or threaten to use force. The problem with this is, you, as a citizen, are not privy to the same information the officer may have that GIVES them cause to use force. For example, you are unloading camera equipment from your car at the park. Another person, sees your tripod, and mistakes it for a rifle. She calls 911 to report you, loading a rifle and swinging it around pointing it at children. Police show up and point guns at you, telling you to get on the ground.\n\nAre their actions reasonable based on the information they have? Yes. But from YOUR perspective, you have committed no crimes and are being threatened with deadly force. If you use force to defend yourself, you are committing a criminal offense. A reasonable person (60 yr old grandma) would not believe that there is an imminent threat of death as long as she followed the officers instructions. YOUR lack of knowledge is not an affirmative defense for using force when you shouldn't have. An officer performing their duties DOES have that defense. This is almost 100% of the time a lose/lose for you. \n\nThere are a few case laws and cases that citizens have won, generally involving search warrants, where they used force against officers and won, but the chances of you being right, you acting reasonably, AND the officer acting unreasonably is insultingly slight, the potential payoff is so minimal it's not worth the overwhelming risk of being wrong.",
"You could but you'd better have a dozen cameras uploading video to offshore servers and then surround yourself with a human shield of lawyers.",
"\nA guy in texas killed a cop during a no knock raid a year ago and all charges against him were dropped.\n\n_URL_0_",
"As I mentioned in [a similar thread](_URL_0_), what you are legally *allowed* to do and what you *should* do are very different scenarios. You almost always should not fight back against an officer for two major reasons:\n\n* By fighting, you are likely to escalate the situation and get yourself injured or killed.\n\n* Assuming you survive, you'll probably be screwed in court. Juries tend to believe the testimony of a police officer much more than the testimony of an average citizen.\n\nThe best thing you can do is to make a recording, which you can use as evidence to protect yourself.",
"Didn't 2pac do this? Shot a cop in the ass or something?",
"The Courts have ruled at least 7 times in favor of the rights of citizens to use lethal force in self-defense against LEOs. \n \"Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.”\n\n“An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v. Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio 349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621.\n\n“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.\n\n“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.\n\n“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).\n\n“Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100).\n\n“One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” (Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910).\n\n“Story affirmed the right of self-defense by persons held illegally. In his own writings, he had admitted that ‘a situation could arise in which the checks-and-balances principle ceased to work and the various branches of government concurred in a gross usurpation.’ There would be no usual remedy by changing the law or passing an amendment to the Constitution, should the oppressed party be a minority. Story concluded, ‘If there be any remedy at all ... it is a remedy never provided for by human institutions.’ That was the ‘ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.’” (From Mutiny on the Amistad by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press, 1987, an account of the reading of the decision in the case by Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court.\n",
"Short answer... Because it's the cop (or several cops) word against yours. You will simply lose in court. Especially in most towns where the police know the judge.\n\nOr, you know, they could just beat you to death or shoot you. Not much you can prove if you're dead. They'll just make a cover story and you'll be on headlines as \"man killed after violent attack against police officer\"",
"A citizen can do that but they dont get away with it often because the cops word stands in court better than yours does",
"The no-frills explanation here is that a cop is acting on the behalf of the State, and, furthermore, in the interests of the State and society in general. When a cop is performing an action on behalf of the State, at that specific point in time, you can do some mental gymnastics and imagine that it's not really a person that's there performing an action, but rather, the State itself, through that person.\n\nSince there are laws that give the State that power, you can't claim self-defense against it, because self defense can only be claimed against unlawful acts.\n\nHowever, if you read between the lines of what i said on the last paragraph, you may say that i said you can't claim self-defense against *lawful* actions performed by an agent of the State, in which case, you'd be exactly right.\n\nWhen a police officer oversteps the boundaries of the law & his duty, taking unlawful action, you can act in self-defense, and then claim it in court.\n\nIf a cop is off-duty in a bar, for instance, and gets into a fight, at that point in time he's *not* acting as an agent of the State, and the standard rules for citizens apply. Since unprovoked and unjust aggression is an unlawful and punishable offense, you can act in self-defense and later claim it in court.\n\nBut even when he's on duty, in uniform, there are boundaries that need to be respected, and are set by law or precedent, that, if overstepped, allow a citizen to act in self-defense. A no-warrant break-in with no warning, for instance - HOW are you supposed to know that it's the police, and not a bunch of armed robbers? \n\nAlong with ALL THAT, you still have to meet the requirements for claiming self defense, actual, imminent or perceived threat of undue physical harm or unlawful actions towards yourself or others, and use of reasonable force. Additionally, standards for claiming self-defense against agents of the State may be higher, requiring actual or imminent harm instead of only perceived harm or the threat of harm. It's all pretty nuanced and hard to explain outside of analyzing an actual case.\n\nI can't say i'd recommend that, though, simply due to the fact that you're probably outmatched, outgunned, and it'll be pretty hard to argue self-defense from 6 foot under. Like many things in Law, this is very theoretical. \n\nJust because you can, in theory, do something, doesn't mean that you should, because the likelihood that you'll be found on the right later on isn't that great, and the stakes are high. Which is **exactly** why this kind of information isn't generally publicized a lot outside Law circles. Many people would see this information and think that it's probably a good idea to resist arrest or antagonize a police officer and claim self-defense when, in fact, that's not the case.\n\nBit late to the party here, but i hope you'll all find my information satisfactory. I tried to be as generic as possible, without citing any specific laws. My answer is based on general principles of public & penal law that should apply mostly to everywhere where there's a reasonably democratic and lawful society.\n",
"\"Taking defensive measures\" against a police officer sounds like a really good way to end up seriously injured or dead.. Or at the very least charged with assault or something.",
"cops act outside the law all the time. it's their own brothers that are removing a policeman's authority. the cops are only there to protect rich people because the rich are the only ones that have access to the court system. if you're poor, you *have* to run.",
"What the question here is. Why can officers shoot citizens and why can't citizens shoot officers. ",
"You can claim anything you want here in the US, and in most countries. \n\nYou have to then prove that the cops behaved aggressively before you did and that your aggression was in self defense. ",
"because the state would be falling in no time.\n\nofficially you can, in practice the cop has to REALLY step out of line, and it would appear by recent events that shooting unarmed people is not considered \"stepping out of line\", so gl with that...",
"I don't know, but I think it should be law that civilians can defend themselves against police if they feel their lives are in danger. Police and politicians should NOT be above the law, they should be treated the same as anyone else.",
"Because contrary to the popular narrative today the vast majority of the time the cops are in the right and are trying arrest somebody for a crime they committed. So you don't have the right to defend yourself from being arrested. ",
"In theory, in the US, you can absolutely claim self defense on an overly aggressive cop. As a caveat, I'm not a lawyer. Ask a lawyer where you live. \n\nIn practice, the idea is ill advised and almost certainly more dangerous than just submitting. If the cop is already aggressive, and you truly haven't done anything to warrant it, how do you think he is going to react if you physically attack him? Better get control of that gun. Even if you manage not to get shot, when his back up arrives, how do you like your chances? At that point, aggression on their behalf is probably justifiable. Put yourself in their shoes. You arrive to a scene to find a suspect wrestling with a cop. Again, even if you manage not to get shot, the situation is no good. It's probably going to be their words against yours during your trial.\n\nThe *best* way to handle the situation is to tread lightly. Absolutely assert your rights (in a polite, non-threatening way. Don't scream at him or threaten him. Nothing that might cause him or her to see you as belligerent). If it becomes clear that the cop is agitated, be submissive. I'd rather risk bruises and have a shot at filing a civil suit and retiring early than risking suicide by cop.\n\nThe **ONLY** time where I feel like being physically aggressive towards a police officer borders on being a reasonable choice is if death or great bodily harm is imminent -- damned if you do, damned if you don't. Even then, running is preferable."
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52d56f | why can't our eyes see all 12 dots on this picture at one time? | _URL_0_
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52d56f/eli5_why_cant_our_eyes_see_all_12_dots_on_this/ | {
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"The eye can only focus sharply on a very small region. Outside that small region, your vision is really quite blurry, but your brain fills in the details based on what it expects.\n\nPresumably the dots are far enough apart that you can't see more than one or two in sharp focus at the same time. Thus, when your brain fills in the details in the parts of the image you aren't focusing on, it doesn't realize that the black dots are repeating in a pattern."
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bisbbp | what exactly are the control, independent and dependent variables when using the scientific method? how do you distinguish between the 3? | I have a hard time comprehending the control, independent variable, and dependent variable. As for the rest of the Scientific Method, I have a solid understanding.
Despite having a college degree and being very familiar with the sciences (and essentially well-rounded in all other subjects; with the exception of maths), I still have trouble comprehending this basic concept and what differentiates the three terms.
Any useful feedback or helpful explanations are greatly appreciated. Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bisbbp/eli5_what_exactly_are_the_control_independent_and/ | {
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"The independent variables are what you tweak in your experiment. \n\nThe dependent variables are what get affected by those tweaks. \n\n\nThe control is what you don't do anything to. This is how you can figure out if your changes do anything. \n\n\n\nLets say I have a drug and want to see if it helps with weight loss. An independent variable would be how much of the drug I give people. And a depedenent variables would be their weight. \n\nThe control would be people in my study that dont even take the drug. \n\nFor a good experiement you *need* a control\n\nFor example, for this experiment lets say that people that took one dosage of the drug lost on average 1 pound over the trial. And people that took 2 dosages lost on average 2 pounds. \n\nBut the control group lost on average 3 pounds. Sounds like my new drug doesnt do much.",
"The general idea is that the independent variable is the thing you (the researcher) change, and the dependent variable responds to that change.\n\nSay you predict that warmer soil will help you grow bigger potatoes. Your independent variable is the soil temperature, so you might have 10 identical pots where the only thing you change is the temperature. If you're right, potato size \"depends\" on soil temperature, so your dependent variable is potato weight.\n\nMeanwhile, the control isn't a variable in itself, but a variant of the experiment where you don't change the independent variable. For our example, you might have several testing pots; 1 degree hotter than normal, 3 degrees hotter, 5 hotter, and so on, to see what temperature is best. Your control is a plant being grown at normal temperature, and it helps make sure that it's actually the temperature (and not some hidden factor) that is affecting your potatoes."
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3mq5al | why can abortion clinics be shut down if abortion is legal? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mq5al/eli5why_can_abortion_clinics_be_shut_down_if/ | {
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"It's a medical operation, and medical operations are regulated at the federal, state, and local level. Most of the time, a state will pass a law that makes it harder for an abortion clinic to operate. They can't force them to close, but they can add enough hoops and red tape to make it not worth the while.",
"Abortion cannot be banned specifically. But there are ways to get around that law. For example, the state can require that abortion clinics have to comply with super-stringent requirements like wide doors and tall ceilings, justified \"for the health of the mothers\". It would cost millions of dollars to renovate the clinics to comply with these standards. Most don't have the money, so they have to close. And even if they were able to do it, the legislature would just pass even more stringent requirements \"for the health of the mothers\" and force them to renovate again and again until they're bankrupt.\n\nThis is a sideways way of banning abortion without directly banning abortion. The problem is that even a blatantly-illegal law has to be declared illegal by the courts, and the courts work slowly. In the meantime the law has to be enforced, and the clinics have to close.",
"Why can restaurants be shut down if eating food is legal?"
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ddcgox | what is the difference between narcissism and extreme vanity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ddcgox/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_narcissism/ | {
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"Vanity is associated with pride and boasting. To be vain is to concentrate on yourself with disregard of others. Look at me, I'm so awesome...\n\nA narcissist is a completely different beast. Not only is a narcissist always right, always perfect, but also the only one who matters at the expense of everything else. Nothing is important unless it's self serving. They actually lack empathy. They can pretend, but it's fake, it's a tactic just to serve themselves. They will console a widow if only to garner favor with them later. They are astoundingly manipulative and will guilt you, shame you, and completely dominate and control you.\n\nThere's several subreddits for people who have survived abuse from narcissism. Survived. They are survivors. The effects of interacting with one, even briefly in your life, can have forever lasting effects on your psyche. If you dare, just go look at one of these support forums, if you have any sense of empathy at all, what you see should horrify you. You will see fear, paranoia, guilt, trigger warnings on everything, and total unfiltered rage. Narcissists can ruin you as a person. Forever.\n\nWe all joke about sociopaths and psychopaths without much thought. Truth be told, \\~1-3% of the population are socio- or psychopathic, having little to literally no capacity for empathy whatsoever, but they do make for functional members of society, police officers, politicians, managers, business owners, and executives. Being one of these things doesn't make you a killer or a criminal, in fact, it can make you fiercely loyal and endearing to your family or the things you hold dear.\n\nNarcissists are probably about the worst that can conceivably come out of society. They're fundamentally flawed people. Broken from conception. You don't learn to become a narcissist, you either are one or you aren't. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities. There's no example of how narcissists can play a positive role to society. Like a bad dog that was born with a bad temperament, we should apologize to them that they were ever born, and euthanize them. Just an unfortunate luck of the draw for them. You may very rightly label my statement here as absolutely extreme, and you're totally right. Go find you a narcissist. Try to walk away from that one.",
"One is a psychiatric diagnosis. The other is not.\n\nThat may sound like I’m being glib, but it cuts to the heart of the matter: both of them are personality problems, but once a personality problem becomes so bad that it interferes with your ability to interact with society in a healthy way, then it becomes something a psychoanalyst will give a diagnosis for. If your egocentrism annoys loved ones, it’s a flaw. If your egocentrism prevents you from holding down a job, maintaining a healthy relationship or appropriately caring for a child in your responsibility, then it’s something that a doctor needs to diagnose."
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2si2mq | do different satan names mean different things? | Is there a difference in the personalisation/traits between different names of Satan (e.g. Satan, Devil, Baphomet, Beelzebub, Belphagor etc.)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2si2mq/eli5_do_different_satan_names_mean_different/ | {
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"From what I can tell the different names only tell a different story of who satan is. \n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"Some of them have been mashed together into one generalized \"bad guy\". In older versions of the Old Testament there were passages that described them as gods worshiped by tribes in conflict with Israel. ",
"Satan is a prince of hell.\n\nDevil refers to a personification of evil.\n\nBaphomet is a pagan god (who isn't really comparable to Satan in any way) and is only considered evil or synonymous with the other terms due to how the Catholic church prosecuted non-Catholics during the 14th century. The satanists eventually adopted him, despite not technically being satan*.\n\nBeelzebub is a derivative of a Hebrew phrase for \"lord of the flies.\" This refers to Lucifer* in the Hebrew bible.\n\n*Lucifer is a prince of hell.\n\nBelphegor is a derivative of a Hebrew phrase for \"lord of the gap.\" This is a prince of hell.\n\n\n\n\nAlthough in most Abrahamic religions (including Satanism), the various princes of hell are often interpreted to be different sides of the same person (the general term being Devil), much like how God and Jesus are seen as different sides of the same entity. So all of the names/terms are fairly interchangeable unless you want to go on a pedantic rant.",
"Well, yes. Lucifer doesn't refer to the Devil as the Devil, it refers to the Angel that fell to create him. Lucifer means \"Morning light\" or \"falling light\" and was supposedly one of the Archangels that fell because God wanted angels to serve humans.\n\nSatan is the Abrahamic Devil. He is Lucifer when after he fell, and is supposedly the bodily manifestation of everything wrong and not of God. ie temptation, wrath, envy, greed, lust, pride and general sin.\n\nDevil refers to the generic term for the Evil counterpart to God. There is the Abrahamic Devil, Satan. Zoroastrianism has Angra Mainyu, who is the principle of destruction/evil. Buddhism has Mara, the tempter. And Hinduism has no central \"evil figure\" but by and large recognize that many of the deities have evil aspects, Khali is a destroyer and while necessary isn't necessarily good.\n\nBaphomet is a again, a specific \"devil\" like being. As far as I can find, he was a Pagan God that the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping, hence why he is seen as evil in Christianity. But in reality seems to be more in line with what we see as God, known as the \"sum total of the universe\" both male and female, capable of good and evil, just from a different religion.\n\nBeelzebub and Belphegor are two of the Seven Princes of Hell. Each one having their own sphere of influence that aligns with one of the 7 Deadly/Cardinal Sins. Though this contradicts the earlier writings that claim that Satan is Lucifer after he fell by saying that they are two different beings, but it's not the first contradiction.\n\n* Lucifer: pride\n* Mammon: greed\n* Asmodeus: lust\n* Leviathan: envy\n* Beelzebub: gluttony\n* Satan: wrath\n* Belphegor: sloth"
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5oggnp | how is it possible to do a mri of a beating heart? how does the movement not mess up the images? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5oggnp/eli5_how_is_it_possible_to_do_a_mri_of_a_beating/ | {
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"You use something called a gated technique. This is basically just the act of synchronizing the scan phase with an ECG monitor (heart monitor). This allows the machine and its software to divide the cardiac cycle (a complete heart beat) into discrete segments. It then scans at each of these fixed points over several heartbeats, capturing data as the heart goes through its cycle over and over again.\n\nAfterwards, it can combine all that data together to create complete images of the heart's motion over time. Add in a contrast agent and you can even assess how the blood flows through the heart chambers during these cycles.\n\nOr you can adjust it so that it scans at the same point on the cardiac cycle so that the image produced afterwards will have a still image of the heart at that moment in the cardiac cycle."
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5hxtq2 | why do college's 'expel' people for rape claims without doing any research into the matter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hxtq2/eli5_why_do_colleges_expel_people_for_rape_claims/ | {
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"Most schools do research and take claims from other students and police but alot of schools want to distance themselves from the matter entirely, waiting for an investigation takes along time and if the schools allows the student accused of rape to stay it could be viewed as the school not taking rape seriously, resulting in alot of other students on campus to protest and such, over all just PR stuff",
"IANAL, but as a condition of federal funding, colleges are required to investigate sexual assault claims brought to them by students and take appropriate actions to protect their student population.\n\nThis results in the schools defaulting to more draconian measures (that are within their auhority, regardless of the merits of the accusation) as to not risk loosig their federal funding."
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bpl5dc | how does a dosimeter work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bpl5dc/eli5_how_does_a_dosimeter_work/ | {
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"There's many different types, but the simplest is a film dosimeter. The radiation will hit the film and cause a reaction to it. Then someone can look at the film, see how often it was hit and give an amount of dose that was received.\nElectronic ones are similar, but instead of a film, it's some silicon, like a transistor. The radiation will change the behavior of it and that can be measured as a certain dose.",
"There is a difference between dosimeter and detector, but that line is a bit blurred, and the jargon is often thrown around interchangeably. There are a wide variety of both types, each requiring an explanation of their own. These include:\n\nDosimeters:\n\n* Semiconductor/diode dosimeters (cheap, sturdy, easy to read)\n\n* Optically stimulated luminescence \"OSL\" dosimeters (commonly used for personal dosimeter badges)\n\n* Thermo-luminescent dosimeters \"TLD\" (often used as an independent means of measurement. Useful for measuring dose distribution, since they're so small and light-weight)\n\n* Film dosimeters (useful when you want to measure the dose distribution over a larger area)\n\nRadiation detectors:\n\n* Ionization chambers (The highest precision detectors available. Used for reference dosimetry in e.g. radiotherapy)\n\n* Scintillators (signal is energy dependent, so you can measure radiation spectra)\n\n* Semiconductors (can achieve extremely good energy resolution)\n\n* Bonner-spheres, bubble detectors (specifically for measuring neutrons)\n\n* Geiger-Müller tubes (used for measuring radiation leakage)",
"Not very eli5 answer but it's a complex subject.\n\nA very popular type right now is called the Optically Stimulated Luminescent Dosimeter.\n\nIn an atom electrons exist in certain shells. Those in the outer shells are the most weakly bound electrons, called valence electrons. The OSLD is a crystal made of one primary material but is \"doped\", basically means contaminated or not pure, with another.\n\nWhen radiation excites the valence electrons they jump up into the conduction band, which is what allows electricity to flow through a conductor. They then de-excite but become trapped by the \"doped\" material. When trapped the radiation energy is effectively \"stored\".\n\nWhen bombarded by a laser beam the electrons are freed from their traps and return to the valence band, causing energy to be emitted in the form of light. The emitted light is collected and read to determine the radiation dose received.\n\nBenefit of the OSLD is because the laser is only freeing a fraction of the total trapped electrons, it can be checked multiple times. Compared to the thermoluminescent dosimeter, TLD, which uses heat to free the electrons effectively resetting the dosimeter after one reading."
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l12e1 | what exactly makes one computer better than another? | Whenever I go to buy a computer, I end up confused about why one is better than another. Please explain to me what the specs mean.
i.e. Processor: 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor 2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz, Memory: 4GB Single Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz, Hard Drive: 640GB4 SATA hard drive (5400RPM), Video Card: Intel HD Graphics/HD Graphics 3000 with up to 1.6GB Dynamic Video Memory
What does any of that actually mean in terms of performance? What would be considered good? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l12e1/eli5_what_exactly_makes_one_computer_better_than/ | {
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"The easiest way is to compare the specs to something that you already have. I'd think that that is a fairly decent laptop (barring the Intel Integrated graphics, that's usually a sign that it will suck at gaming). My general rules are that more Ghz are better. My lame laptop has 1.5 Ghz with 1 core, while my gaming desktop runs at 3 Ghz with 2 cores. More Ram = Better. My lame laptop has 512 mbs (1/2 gigabyte), and my gaming computer has 4 gigabytes. Your hard drive is entirely up to your tastes, and will only affect performance in loading stuff. Intel Graphics card = really bad for gaming. My lame laptop has some sort of crappy intel card, while my gaming computer has an 560 GTX. A good desktop graphics card comparison is here: _URL_0_",
"Long, bear with me:\n\nProcessor is the brain that connects everything. It determines how fast your system can send commands back and forth between parts, and also does some of the thinking. Newer processors can do more per second so can make your computer run faster, easier. The GHz is it's \"speed\" rating. Hz stands for Hertz, or 'times per second'. (G stands for Giga, meaning Billion). There's a lot of extra information but you can get by with looking at the \"brand name\", ie Intel Core i5 is not quite as good as the Intel Core i7, generally. One with 2.90 GHz (2.9 billion times per second) is generally faster than one with 2.30 GHz (2.3 billion times per second).\n\nMemory is pretty much what it sounds like. 4GB or 8GB is how much stuff it can remember at once. Stuff in the 'memory' is stuff that's currently being used. Think of it like your desk. Stuff in the Memory is on your desk, while the rest is in the drawer (Hard Drive). Your desk is only so big, so it can only have so much stuff on it. 8GB (8 billion 'bytes' of data) is obviously more than 4GB (4 billion). DDR3 and DDR2 are kinda like \"generations\" of the memory. DDR2 like Playstation 2, DDR3 like Playstation 3, for example. It also has a \"speed rating\" like 1333MHz, and that tells you how fast it can get stuff in/out of the memory, or on/off your desk.\n\nHard drives are like your bookshelf, that holds all your books that you're not currently reading. They're shaped like CDs though. 640GB tells you how much stuff you can put on it (640 Billion 'Bytes' of data). Because regular hard drives contain these \"CD\"s, it needs to spin it to get information from one part of the CD, and then when it needs info from another part, it has to wait until that part comes around again. RPM stands for 'rotations per minute', so 5400RPM tells you it goes around 5400 times a minute. One with 7200RPM will spin faster, and it will find information faster.\n\nGraphics has memory too, and it's kinda like it's own little computer with a processor and stuff. It's memory tells you how much stuff it can work with at once, and they usually have a main 'graphics chip' which is branded by the manufacturer. Something like an nVidia brand card, might have a gtx480 chip, or it might have a gtx580 chip set. This is kinda like the generation/model number. Think Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 again. Later generations have more power in them, generally.\n\nAs far as what is \"good\"; I would say if it does what you want, at the speed you want, for the price you want. You can always get more performance if you want to spend more money. It's kinda like a car. Sure a porsche might be a great car, but it's expensive and doesn't help you if you need to take 6 kids to hockey. An SUV might be better for that, even though it's not as fast it can still be good and it will be cheaper. Your best bet is to probably look at reviews online, or ask some of your more computer-obsessed friends :)\n\nHope that helps.",
"There are good posts here already but here is my try to make a simple answer: \n \n- Processor is the brain of the computer that calculates everything you do on it. \n- Memory is the fast short term memory where the computers store the information that it uses for the moment. \n- Hard drive is the long term memory where the computer stores large information but has a slower access (movies, music, etc). \n- Video Card is the eye, it measures how good things look on the screen \n \nYou need to be sure what you want to use the computer for when you are looking for a new one. \n \nIf you want to play games, look at the requirement specification for the most advanced games. You want to be above the recommended option, not the minimum. A good video card is required, even for the simpler games so don't think you can play games on any computer. \n \nIf you only want to surf the Internet and send e-mails. You don't need that much, read the reviews. \n \nIf you are using it for heavy programs, you need high specs. Graphical programs (Adobe etc) needs good graphic/video cards. \n \nDesktops are cheaper and more durable than laptops. Buy this if you plan to use the computer at the same place every day. \n \nWhen buying a laptop you need to pick between size, price and performance. You can only pick two. \n \nShort summary of stuff I would look after in a new gaming computer: \n- Processor: i5 or i7 \n- Memory: DDR3 1333 MHz (4-8 GB, it's cheap) \n- Hard Drive: 120+ GB SDD for windows and SATA 7200RPM 500+GB for other stuff \n- Video Card: Not sure what is good right now. Check the reviews but something that can run directx 11 with good performance and to a decent price. Probably ATI. ",
"The easiest way is to compare the specs to something that you already have. I'd think that that is a fairly decent laptop (barring the Intel Integrated graphics, that's usually a sign that it will suck at gaming). My general rules are that more Ghz are better. My lame laptop has 1.5 Ghz with 1 core, while my gaming desktop runs at 3 Ghz with 2 cores. More Ram = Better. My lame laptop has 512 mbs (1/2 gigabyte), and my gaming computer has 4 gigabytes. Your hard drive is entirely up to your tastes, and will only affect performance in loading stuff. Intel Graphics card = really bad for gaming. My lame laptop has some sort of crappy intel card, while my gaming computer has an 560 GTX. A good desktop graphics card comparison is here: _URL_0_",
"Long, bear with me:\n\nProcessor is the brain that connects everything. It determines how fast your system can send commands back and forth between parts, and also does some of the thinking. Newer processors can do more per second so can make your computer run faster, easier. The GHz is it's \"speed\" rating. Hz stands for Hertz, or 'times per second'. (G stands for Giga, meaning Billion). There's a lot of extra information but you can get by with looking at the \"brand name\", ie Intel Core i5 is not quite as good as the Intel Core i7, generally. One with 2.90 GHz (2.9 billion times per second) is generally faster than one with 2.30 GHz (2.3 billion times per second).\n\nMemory is pretty much what it sounds like. 4GB or 8GB is how much stuff it can remember at once. Stuff in the 'memory' is stuff that's currently being used. Think of it like your desk. Stuff in the Memory is on your desk, while the rest is in the drawer (Hard Drive). Your desk is only so big, so it can only have so much stuff on it. 8GB (8 billion 'bytes' of data) is obviously more than 4GB (4 billion). DDR3 and DDR2 are kinda like \"generations\" of the memory. DDR2 like Playstation 2, DDR3 like Playstation 3, for example. It also has a \"speed rating\" like 1333MHz, and that tells you how fast it can get stuff in/out of the memory, or on/off your desk.\n\nHard drives are like your bookshelf, that holds all your books that you're not currently reading. They're shaped like CDs though. 640GB tells you how much stuff you can put on it (640 Billion 'Bytes' of data). Because regular hard drives contain these \"CD\"s, it needs to spin it to get information from one part of the CD, and then when it needs info from another part, it has to wait until that part comes around again. RPM stands for 'rotations per minute', so 5400RPM tells you it goes around 5400 times a minute. One with 7200RPM will spin faster, and it will find information faster.\n\nGraphics has memory too, and it's kinda like it's own little computer with a processor and stuff. It's memory tells you how much stuff it can work with at once, and they usually have a main 'graphics chip' which is branded by the manufacturer. Something like an nVidia brand card, might have a gtx480 chip, or it might have a gtx580 chip set. This is kinda like the generation/model number. Think Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 again. Later generations have more power in them, generally.\n\nAs far as what is \"good\"; I would say if it does what you want, at the speed you want, for the price you want. You can always get more performance if you want to spend more money. It's kinda like a car. Sure a porsche might be a great car, but it's expensive and doesn't help you if you need to take 6 kids to hockey. An SUV might be better for that, even though it's not as fast it can still be good and it will be cheaper. Your best bet is to probably look at reviews online, or ask some of your more computer-obsessed friends :)\n\nHope that helps.",
"There are good posts here already but here is my try to make a simple answer: \n \n- Processor is the brain of the computer that calculates everything you do on it. \n- Memory is the fast short term memory where the computers store the information that it uses for the moment. \n- Hard drive is the long term memory where the computer stores large information but has a slower access (movies, music, etc). \n- Video Card is the eye, it measures how good things look on the screen \n \nYou need to be sure what you want to use the computer for when you are looking for a new one. \n \nIf you want to play games, look at the requirement specification for the most advanced games. You want to be above the recommended option, not the minimum. A good video card is required, even for the simpler games so don't think you can play games on any computer. \n \nIf you only want to surf the Internet and send e-mails. You don't need that much, read the reviews. \n \nIf you are using it for heavy programs, you need high specs. Graphical programs (Adobe etc) needs good graphic/video cards. \n \nDesktops are cheaper and more durable than laptops. Buy this if you plan to use the computer at the same place every day. \n \nWhen buying a laptop you need to pick between size, price and performance. You can only pick two. \n \nShort summary of stuff I would look after in a new gaming computer: \n- Processor: i5 or i7 \n- Memory: DDR3 1333 MHz (4-8 GB, it's cheap) \n- Hard Drive: 120+ GB SDD for windows and SATA 7200RPM 500+GB for other stuff \n- Video Card: Not sure what is good right now. Check the reviews but something that can run directx 11 with good performance and to a decent price. Probably ATI. "
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3rsl29 | what consistently makes that fresh vacuum smell every time i vacuum the carpet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rsl29/eli5_what_consistently_makes_that_fresh_vacuum/ | {
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2slkq7 | why do we find accents sexy? is there a scientific or biological reason for this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2slkq7/eli5_why_do_we_find_accents_sexy_is_there_a/ | {
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"I would guess because they sound exotic to us, different from the usual",
"I think it totally depends on the accent of course. We love certain european accents. But I think that most Americans don't really find middle eastern or asian accents to be particularly sexy. ",
"I think this is an over generalization. Not everyone thinks accents are sexy or appealing.",
"I have a theory that I came up with when I was baked like a potato. It is in our genes to seek for people that are not our relatives for mating and reproduction purposes. I actually remember reading a study in which people were offered to rate people based on their appearance and their willingness to have sex with them. Pictures were made that resembled the siblings of the tested. The tested found people who looked like their siblings to be less attractive on average. \nIf a person has an accent, it is likely that they are far from where we live. The probability that they are not our relative is high, therefore the probability of healthy children is higher. This makes the parner look sexier in our mind.",
"Though there is an evolutionary imperative to widen the gene pool, it remains the case that some accents are deemed attractive and some unattractive. I believe this is cultural.\n\nI'm a Brit in the USA. Here, my accent (the BBC English accent) is generally seen as attractive (possibly because it is used in US media to portray intellect) - but in my experience, there is a French cultural tendency to dislike the same accent. I would conclude, based on that, that attractiveness of an accent is likely rooted in cultural associations with said accent. ",
"Who are \"WE\"? I don't find different accents sexy.",
"I don't know but Colombian chicks sound like they only want to fuck. ",
"Well, it depends on the accent, right? Personally, I find Italian accents very attractive but I don't think Korean accents, for example, do much for me. I think it's primarily a cultural thing and my guess is that there isn't much as far as biology goes to explain it. I can't imagine it's anything more than psychology.",
"I can't remember if he address this specifically, but James May has a [video](_URL_0_) about Accents on Brain Squeeze's YouTube channel.",
"I would imagine it's just because of cultural associations we have with accents. A British accent might sound refined or intelligent, a French accent sophisticated or sexy, American accents rugged etc. etc. Mostly there are class connotations to accents, with some associated with 'rural' areas, and then simplicity, a 'country bumpkin' kind of thing.\n\nIt could be that some accents are more [euphonic](_URL_0_) than others, which might have some hard-wired element to it, but I would be surprised if it wasn't culturally determined. (though it could also be a personal association, like the accent of an early crush, for example).",
"Do most british people find american accents attractive in the same way most americans find british accents attractive?",
"I'm in france currently, and the women LOVE my American accent on french, and despise the british accent on french. I would imagine it's quite similar, but they must see brits trying to speak french too often?",
"ITT a lot of speculation about gene pools when people should really be saying, \"I don't really know.\" I don't have a better answer to give, and while I could give my theory (let's say some voices sound more musical and rhythmic, and our brain likes music), it's not justified enough for an ELI5.\n\nI'd await further judgement until someone provides a source for a reasonable study.\n\nIn the meantime, I'm wondering if there's anyone (particularly female in this case) who finds something like a British accent (generally well liked) unappealing and **why**. Maybe this line of questioning would lead us all on a better theory than just throwing darts against a board.\n\nEdit: honestly didn't think anyone would see this. Thanks for humoring me. From the responses I've read, it makes me think there is no particular answer. It looks like a preference, like music. Some like classical, some like dubstep, and it can change over time. My next step is to research why people prefer certain music.",
"The Malaysian or Singaporean take on English is a surefire way to butcher the language.",
"Because mysterious things are sexy, and people who have accents come from other cultures and are therefore mysterious. ",
"Ok, so the first thing to say is that everybody has an accent, as the technical definition of 'accent' is '[a way of pronouncing a language](_URL_2_)'. So if you speak, you have an accent. You may not think you have an accent, but that generally just means that you have an accent that's not geographically locatable (e.g. General American or RP). \n\nThe second thing to say is that your premise is kind of flawed from the start, in two ways I think. First, 'why do we find accents sexy' suggests that *all* accents are viewed as sexy, and that's definitely not the case. Here's an [article](_URL_4_) from Coupland and Bishop (2007) which shows that in terms of something like 'social attractiveness', some accents are rated far higher than others (e.g. Brummie way down at the bottom, as has been noted below). Other attitudinal testing of accents suggests a fairly robust patterning of urban varieties being viewed as ugly (and by extension less sexy) than rural accents (which tend to do well on friendliness and so on). \n\nThe second is that we don't find accents sexy/unsexy per se (this is what's known as the inherent value hypothesis - that languages/varieties have some sort of inherent 'sexiness' or 'harshness' or whatever; they don't, these values emerge through association with the people who speak that language/variety). Instead, we find the *people* who use particular accents sexy/unsexy. \n\nOr probably more accurately, language attitudes (and I'd argue that '(un)sexiness falls within the purview of 'attitudes') are not about language, but about people. So if we take a canonical 'sexy' accent like, say, Irish, then it's more about romanticised notions of Ireland/Irish people that are viewed positively which then colour peoples' attitudes towards Irish accents. \n\nConversely, people have really negative views (within the UK at least) about Glaswegian and Birmingham English, primarily because the cities in which these varieties are spoken are predominantly working-class, industrial, cramped and with high levels of urban poverty and so on. Naturally, the associations engendered by that context are consequently negative and these extend to the varieties. You tend not to get that with RP or General American or Southern Standard British English. \n\nOf course there are exceptions - for every sexy Irish accent there will be an unsexy Irish accent. And despite the belters directed at Birmingham English over the past how ever many decades, Cillian Murphy has single-handedly managed to reinvent Brummie as a 'sexy accent' in *Peaky Blinders*. But the general rule holds I think.\n\nThere is a body of work which looks at vocal attractiveness (see [here](_URL_3_), [here](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_5_)). But this work tends to look at fairly fine grained suprasegmental features like pitch, rhythm and timbre than segmental features like consonantal and vocalic variables (which are the features which most distinguish one accent from another). FWIW, I don't really buy into the biological explanation therein, primarily because so much of what we find 'attractive' or 'unattractive' is learned. There may be some correlations between, for example, low pitch and higher attractiveness among males, but this could be a learned behaviour rather than a biological imperative (and there's some evidence from the child language acquisition literature that suggests that children learn exactly this kind of division of 'male=low pitch/female = high pitch). But I'm getting out of my depth in this area.\n\nTL:DR To answer your question, no, I wouldn't say that there is a biological reason for viewing one accent as more sexy, since the sociolinguistic and language perception literature suggests that such attitudes are culturally constructed.\n\nEDIT: [Here's](_URL_1_) the breakdown of the ratings from Coupland and Bishop. \n",
"Primatologist here! You're getting a lot of speculation. However, many of the other more promiscuous primates do tend to mate more often with unfamiliar animals than with conspecifics from their own groups. Even in the less promiscuous species like gibbons who serially pair-bond, you get mate-swapping when two pair-bonded happen across each others path. Basically the evidence shows primates like mating more with unfamiliar individuals. And most folk here are on the right track, that researchers believed* this has a positive effect on genetic diversity. And that this could be a proxy/model for human behavior. But all we can say for why is that they do it, and seem to like it.\n\n\nLinks later. May take a day, super busy work day, and plans tonight, but I'll try. ",
"Exotic is sexy.\n\nFrom an evolutionary standpoint, exotic means better chance of gene diversity.",
"We do? I find accents annoying as hell.",
"Accents are not inherently sexy...cockney is the farthest thing from erotic I can think of",
"We do? I'd say accents in Latvian sound un-sexy.",
"I'm sure this has already been said, but there is an innate tendancy for humans to find novelty exciting... so something that \"isn't the same\" becomes more appealing and attractive, because it's more exciting. \n\nIn psychology, the phenomenon is described as \"novelty\" and \"arousal\" (in this case, meaning a state of heightened emotion, not only sexual in context. For example a child having a temper tantrum is in a high state of arousal). There's a pretty good article [here](_URL_0_) that talks about how that relates to what people find attractive. \n\nBasically, if something is TOO novel (or different) people are usually frightened of it and *cant* like it, but if something is TOO familiar we get bored and *don't* like it. Things that fall in between those two states (fear of unknown, and boredom) are usually the things that people like best; things new enough to be exciting, but not so new they might be dangerous. I think a different way of speaking the same language you're used to hearing is a good example of different, but not *too* different. ",
"In linguistics, there are no pleasant or unpleasant accents. In real life, there obviously are. I used to live in Thailand, and listening to many Thais pronunciation of English began to piss me off after a while, even though the Thai language itself is rather beautiful. I now teach English to lots of Spanish and Italian people, and generally I find their accents much more pleasant. This is strange because actually Spanish speakers of English tend to have great difficulty with vowel sounds, whereas Thais (whose native language has more vowel sounds even than English) were generally much clearer pronouncers of English.\n\nWriting this now, I can't put my finger on why. I was going to say that the linguistic distance between Germanic and south-east Asian languages might account for Asian accents sounding \"too\" exotic. But then German speakers of English are renowned for having a harsh, over-aspirated accent, and they're close to home. French and Spanish are full of nice soft sounds; Italian has that tricksy rhythm. Perhaps this is something to do with it. If your native language has a repertoire of soft sounds equal to or exceeding English, perhaps your accent sounds hazier and kinder to the ear. Thai - full of short sounds and unpronounced endings; German - gutteral, throaty and aspirated.. Maybe they make the accent harsher, blunter, and more difficult on the ear.",
"Truth! I can honestly say most of the chicks I've gotten has been because of the Jamaican accent.\n\nSource: am Jamaican",
"If you think accents are sexy, try being an Indian in USA. \n\nI have a neutral accent but some friends still mock me with the cartoonish sing-song. ",
"Southerner here. Whenever I travel I often times get stopped by strangers just to talk, but it's not because they think its sexy. I think they just want to hear it because it's different and it's not something they here very often.",
"Aussie male here . I don't know what part of England where they talk like this but I met these girls that used to say \"oh that is well fit mate\" and their accent was so fuckin hot. Also girls with Spanish, French and German accents have like an illegal head start in terms of hotness.\n\nAll Girls with American and Canadian accents cause me to cringe when they talk. Im sorry but they are really painful to listen to. ",
"I dunno, but on nature, and procreation reasoning, it would make sense for a species to want to spread its seed as much as possible and as far as possible. An accent would be an easy way to tell the other person is from a different land.\n\nTL:DR Hoes in different area codes",
"To a foreigner, American women *sound* like porn stars in bed.",
"I think as an American it's because we don't encounter foreign accents as often as other countries may (e.g EUR countries) so I think the accent literally being \"foreign\" to us and unique is what make it more unusual and intriguing. \n\nNow regarding accents within the US, I pretty much can't stand them. Northeastern ones, to me, are the worst, especially Boston & Philly (sorry to family I have in Philly). Southern, deep southern (aka Redneck) might possibly be one of the worst of all though. Texas ones might be kinda sexy (when coming from an attractive person, lol).",
"There are a few main theories, but the shuffling of genes isn't really the best one in my opinion (_URL_0_. Biology). It's more of a culture reasoning I believe. You are taught throughout your life that Americans are tough, Brits are classy, Spanish are romantic, etc. \nMany girls I know are not attracted to Indian, Chinese, African etc. accents. There is no reason why the attraction is based on access to different genes. Socially we deem those society's or cultures below us in North America, and therefore don't find them as attractive. At least that's what my pseudo-racist anthropology prof in university told me \n\nTL;DR Accents depict stereotypes positive or negative and people find the positive one sexy",
"speculation: prevents inbreeding by promoting diversity of gene pool",
"Does anyone find a German accent sexy?",
"Most Americans think British accents are either posh like Benedick Cumbersnatch or cockney like Dick Van Dyke",
"Because anything that is different is refreshing.",
"Could be incentive to mate out of your group. Animals can have accents too. ",
"Cultural factors outweigh any biological impetus. Sociobiological or functionalist explanations for culturally-influenced sexual behavior are all bullshit.",
"ELI5 answer: Research by Bem says your brain finds things that are new to it exciting. Specifically, it finds exotic things erotic. I am speculating that this applies to speech patterns/accents as well.\n\nLonger answer because a lot of speculating is going on and I would like to help people out here: _URL_0_",
"Echoing the gene-pool comments... A study was done in which women were more sexually attracted to the smell of men who later tested to have a more varied gene pool than their own compared to the other males. I assume this falls along the same lines.",
"Opinion. A lot of it has to do with cultural influence. A man with a British accent is sexy because a lot of media says so. Think James Bond, other actors, film stereotypes etc. Russian accent isn't sexy because it has been associated with a \"brute\" stereotype. I don't particularly find the gene pool idea correct. Otherwise more westerners would find Asian accents attractive. ",
"A follow-up on the same topic: is there a prevailing foreign opinion regarding the \"American accent\"? It seems here that most people are expressing an affinity for Spanish or French speakers and a negative opinion (very generally speaking) of Russian, for example.\n\nDoes having an American accent in Europe work for you or against you? Curious about Europe in particular since we seem to have such strong opinions about their accents.\n\nWhat about the rest of the world? South America, Asia, Africa, Australia? Anyone have a take?\n\nEDIT:\n\nObviously there are pretty big differences between someone from Alabama vs. Boston vs. Minnesota, but a broad swath of the country speaks with a similar-enough accent.",
"It subconsciously signals to the body that this person has foreign DNA and thus good for genetic diversity.",
"humans like differences and uniqueness. that is a biologically proven fact. for example monkeys when given \"accessories\" such as a hat or glasses will become immediately more noticeable to female monkey's. ",
"DO GIRLS FIND INDIAN ACCENTS SEXY? ",
"Coming from an anthropogical background I would suspect it's due to an inherent understanding that you two biologically are more different say then someone living in your tribe. \n\nThere are many things we subconsciously look for in a mate all relating to how fit an individual is. For men there is the golden hip ratio- which is the ideal ratio that men find attractive and this relates to childbirthing abilities. \n\nWomen who have not been on birth control prefer men with more rugged jaws and features- while their counterparts women on birth control select less chiseled men- making a tradeoff for kindness, empathy, and cooperation. This is speculated due to observances in primate colonies where dominant males have top females and lower males must settle with the rest. However, when a rampant disease struck one of the monkey colonies being studied in this particular article the dominant males were killed and restructured the colony. Females then began choosing males who cooperated with the group. \n\nEvolutionary biology is fascinating!!! ",
"We find accents different than ours attractive because it is our mind's motivation to mate with someone from a different gene pool, thus resulting in the greatest amount of gene crossing-over and higher rates of offspring adaptability.",
"We find accents sexy? TIL.",
"Are you sure that we do? I do not.",
"Bonnie Simms French accent and voice in Dragon Age Inquisition does things to my willy that I can't control. I'm a Londoner so I hear enough French but her voice does it for me.\n\nA bloody video game character.",
"Biologist here - many studies have shown that the genetic strength of a population is directly correlated to it's heterozygosity. This is one reason that inbreeding and incest has been so strongly frowned upon in many cultures as it has a propensity to produce homozygous genotypes across ones genome. This leads to an increased risk of genetic diseases (which tend to be recessive and therefore only present in homozygous recessive individuals - this is because dominant allele diseases tend to get selected out of gene pools quickly as the organism does not pass on it's genes), as well as, a reduced ability for the organism to adapt to changing conditions (this second point isn't really an issue for humans anymore as we artificially control our environments). Getting back to the point at hand, foreign accents can act as a proxy for identifying individuals who have significantly divergent genes such that the risk of homozygosity in offspring is reduced, or in other words, you get healthier babies.\n\nTldr: accents act as a proxy for divergent genetics which produces healthier babies ",
"I'm inclined to think it's just based on preconceived notions we have about certain nationalities. I'm also inclined to think that hearing someone speak in their second language is much more endearing... there's an element of vulnerability to it.\n\nMy examples are completely anecdotal- take them with a grain of salt. I speak three languages at a native level, due to being of mixed nationality. However, my first is English (Australian), so the others may occasionally suffer some tiny nuances from English (e.g. structure, tendency towards one word over a more typically-used, tendency towards more forml and correct speech over colloquial, etc.). When I speak in Portuguese and Spanish, some comment that my language is very matter-of-fact and much more exact. I believe this is because English has a larger active vocabulary, mainly in the use of adjectives and verb tenses. An example: in Spanish and Portuguese, people will rarely say \"I have eaten breakfast today\", but will use \"I ate breakfast today\", etc. Another example: the adjective \"regal\" exists in Spanish and Portuguese, but I've come into situations where highly educated people have debated amongst themselves whether or not it exists. On the other hand, some people have said that they find me \"sweeter\" in these languages precisely because of those differences. I dunno... Similarly, my boyfriend is a native Portuguese speaker, but when to n English school and therefore speaks it near perfectly with almost no accent. He does, however, make the occasional error, and I find it very endearing. I think it's a combination of seeing the labour of love in speaking to someone in another language and being willing to make errors and be vulnerable in order to communicate... I think it's a beautiful thing.\n\nThen on the negative side, I just can't deal with the Californian female-type accent. It sounds so exaggerated, high pitched, too many brainless \"crutch words\" (like, like, like, y'know, yaaaaaah, oh my Gaaaooood\". I bristle just hearing it. Of course, I am well aware that not all Californian females are like this- it's a ridiculous premise, I know, but it's a bias that I've internalised, albeit wrongly so. Sorry to Californian females, I know you're not all like that at all. Blame TV, perhaps? :)\n\nMy 2 cents.",
"Because it's a signal toward genetic diversification that would yield optimal results for our species.",
"I'd like to see what percentage of women are attracted to accents compared to men being attracted to accents.",
"I don't think just any accent is sexy. To me there is nothing sexy about a woman with a southern drawl, I don't care how hot you are, you just sound slow and dumb to me, even if you aren't. Sorry. :)",
"There is considerable evidence that we unconsciously seek out partners who are genetically different from us to prevent gene degradation from inbreeding. Source is the book \"Sex at Dawn.\" Logically, an accent indicates to us that a person is not from the same place that we are. Therefore, (from the perspective of a pre-industrial person) they're likely genetically difference from us. Therefore they help our kids not have Hapsburg jaw.",
"I would like to believe it's part of an evolutionary mechanism to promote diversity in the gene pool.",
"My girlfriend is Chinese, she has been over here for 8 years but she still has a slight accent. I love it and im not sure why, its cute..but alot of people say Asian accents sound unintelligent. I have had people surprised that she is in lawschool and speaks 6 languages.\n\nEDIT : Here is the USA",
"Because you focus on the accent, it provides extra attention and interest, so that somewhat hotwires the attraction mechanism. Also I'm making all of this up.",
"How about we don't explain sexiness to 5 year olds?",
"I have a speech impediment, is that sexy?",
"Biologist here! If I had to make an educated guess I'd say there are potentially two reasons (that I can think of, maybe more).\n\n1. We associate certain accents with something appealing. \n\n2. Accents are good indicators of genetic disparity, appealing to our instinctual drive to diversify the gene pool.\n\nHere I'll clarify:\n\n1. As an American I find British accents to be appealing. This is likely because the British are associated (in the USA at least) with class and intelligence. We may also find the French accent to be appealing because we associate it with romance, Australian accents are associated with ruggedness, etc. This attraction likely has more to do with the listener than it does the speaker.\n\n2. We want to mate and share our genes with similar people, but not so similar we may share too many genes. An accent indicates they are pretty far removed from our family's gene pool and may make that person a good mate choice. \n\nI don't know if there have been any studies on either of these opinions, likely there has been, but these are what I think of when the question was asked. ",
"People generally want what's exotic. Your around the same thing everyday of your life, then something new and strange comes along. You find it intriguing, you find it cool. You want that. ",
"My theory is that we **don't** find accents sexy... we find sexy people sexy. To elaborate:\n\nMost of the accents we hear that we think of as sexy are either being spoken by a television or movie personality who make their living partly through their looks and their ability to speak clearly, OR by a tourist/immigrant whose accents add an exotic and/or well-traveled veneer to an already attractive package.\n\nYou think Liam Neeson, Ewan MacGreggor, and that cute French waitress have sexy accents. They don't. They are already sexy. I predict that you wouldn't find the exact same accent sexy on an unattractive person.\n\nFurthermore, some accents aren't sexy to you no matter what chiseled god or curvy godess is speaking them. I doubt your average New Yorker finds an Alabama twang alluring. Most Swedes probably aren't mesmerized by working-class Polish.\n\nI think certain accents are alluring when spoken by certain people, and that's about it.",
"RealPrincessPrincess, Simple. It's different. When I moved to Birmingham, England from Wales, I was different and people became interested in me more than the same guy down the road, does that answer it for you? :) ",
"We find accents sexy for reasons that are primarily socio-cultural and not biological. We find accents sexy because of what we associate them with.\n\nIf finding accents sexy was primarily biological, we would expect to find almost all accents sexy on some level. But we don't. No one has ever gotten laid because of their Minnesota accent. Not once in history. \n\nIf finding accents sexy was primarily biological, we would also expect accents to be universally appealing. But that's not the case either: you get no points for speaking French like an American.\n\nAccents are sexy because we have *cultural associations* for them. If you hear a \"sexy latin accent,\" you associate it with everything else that is sexy about that culture. Some people have positive associations of gentility for a light southern accent. But almost everyone has a *negative* association for more \"backwoodsy\" Southern accents. \n\nAlso, have you ever heard a *new* accent? One for which you have no cultural association? Or even just someone who talked with weird emphases? It doesn't sound cool or sexy. It just sounds weird. \n\n**TLDR: This isn't a biological thing. It's just cultural priming.**",
"It's because your brain recognizes patterns that are resemble you as being genetically similar to you. If you see someone who has the same eyes color, hair color, skin color, facial structure as you, you will register that as a \"I am very similar to this person\" pattern.\n\nAny trait that is different from your own signifies a genetic distance from your own. Even if accent is not a genetic trait, it can signify that this person is different genetically because they originate from a distant place, which means they are less likely to be related to you.\n\nTherefore, distance and differences are interpreted as genetic diversity which is strengthening to the genetic makeup of potential offsprings.",
"We as humans find variety to be sexually attractive. For example, a man's refractory period (how long it takes between successive ejaculations) is significantly shortened when he is presented with a new or novel partner.\n\nPerhaps this concept of novelty could be applied to accents that differ from the norm wherever you live.\n\nSource: I have a degree in Psychology and have taken a course in Psychological Aspects of Human Sexuality",
"Status association. British accents in popular media are always conflated with privilege, refinement, and intellect.\n\nIt is not inherently attractive but for people who portray their interactions through the lens of popular media it could have a connotation with being traveled and exotic.\n\nTL;DR: Conditioning and Association its not biological or scientific it is purely social.",
"I think to some degree it makes it more likely that the potential mate isn't related to you, which makes your gene combination more diverse. ",
"I'd be more interested in why we find some accents attractive and others not so much. Most English speakers would agree that a Latin or French accent sounds attractive/exotic, while a Chinese or Indian accent is a complete turn off.",
"what about accent being an evident sign of genetic difference? I'm just speculating, of course, but here is my logic: \n\n1. mutts have the best health as defective genes don't repeat;\n2. we want to make sure our children will be mutts;\n3. we search for the other biological parent to be as different from us as possible;\n4. accent indicates difference in genetics. \n\nwhat do you think?",
"Where do people think american accents are sexy?",
"\"You like dags?\"\n\"Ohh, you mean doegs!\"",
"Variety is the spice of life. I mean, I know that's not 'scientific' but it's true across nearly all facets of life.\n\n",
"Makes the chick more mysterious. Where did she grow up? Certainly not where I've lived. And what do we know about things we don't know about? We are intrigued by em. ",
"My guess? That because they have an accent we know that they're far enough removed from us genetically to mate with to some extent without danger of inbreeding. \n\nSource: I think accents are sexy and siblings are gross",
"Could be linked to genetic diversity, and the biological need to differentiate the gene pool.",
"Simplest answer I can give is that its something different. Imagine eating cheese pizza your whole life then one day being introduced to other varieties. Many of them seem extremely appealing and maybe some you really like. But what many people don't know is that the accent isn't allways appealing forever. I've heard of many incidents where people marry someone who they think has a sexy accent and it eventually loses its appeal.",
"It's not that the accent itself is considered \"sexy,\" it's simply something new and exotic that catches our attention easily. People get bored easily and when something new, or unheard comes along, it becomes very interesting and, as in the case with accents, sexually appealing. "
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"http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/accent.cfm",
"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209020491",
"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00311.x/abstract",
"http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p5514"
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23raj1 | why do batteries sometimes leak acid and/or corrode when left in electronics for extended periods of time and what actually happens that destroys the electronic's leads? acid eats it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23raj1/eli5_why_do_batteries_sometimes_leak_acid_andor/ | {
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"Alkaline batteries produce hydrogen gas inside the battery cell when recharged. This pressure pushes out a strong base (which is corrosive just like acid). This forms white fluffy stuff when it reacts with the air (Potassium carbonate).\n\nRecharging batteries can be caused by two unequally charged batteries lined up in a row (set in series). This is why you should never use different brands of batteries together, or only replace some of the batteries.",
"I refer only to Alkaline Batteries right now:\nThere are two possible ways how a batterie discharges\n1. Usage\n2. Self-discharge\n\nA byproduct from this discharge is Gas! This Gas usually stays in the Battery because its metal canister will hold the gas in it. When the battery is old the metal will start to corrode (like any other metal!) and will let the gas out through a small hole and through this hole the BASE (and not Acid!) from the batteries will come out! This Base will make Salt and this Salt can destroy your Electronic Leads.\n\n\n",
"As mentioned in this thread, gas will build up inside acid batteries over time, which can cause \"fun\" stuff to happen. Also, something about sulfation in lead acid batteries from the batteryuniversity:\n\n > What is sulfation? During use, small sulfate crystals form, but these are normal and are not harmful. During prolonged charge deprivation, however, the amorphous lead sulfate converts to a stable crystalline that deposits on the negative plates. This leads to the development of large crystals, which reduce the battery’s active material that is responsible for high capacity and low resistance. Sulfation also lowers charge acceptance. Sulfation charging will take longer because of elevated internal resistance.\n\nSo in short, dont leave rechargeable batteries too discharged for long periods of time (several months at least). It may lead to sulfation, depending on what type of battery you are using.",
"I learned this the hard way with my Game Boy Advance.",
"Dammit. I asked this question recently and got a stupid answer that left me feeling worthless:\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"You can clean the white powder buildup with a metal brush. Just don't inhale or get it in your eyes. The device should work fine once you expose the metal underneath. ",
"The chemicals in batteries are stable around a certain voltage. For alkaline AA batteries, this is around 1.5 Volts. Using energy from them lowers the voltage, but so does storage (at a much slower pace). While the voltage slowly dips over time in storage, the battery chemicals become more unstable and break down, this makes it much more acidic and then it corrodes through the battery.",
"PSA: If you get that corrosion built-up in your electronics, you can clean it up with by rubbing it with vinegar on a Q-tip after scraping off the excess. I have saved some expensive pieces thanks to this one weird trick.",
"I had an Apple wireless keyboard which had 2 Duracell batteries. Same type, same year, same charge. They corroded and made the keyboard useless since the batterycompartment was melted shut. \n\nI contacted Duracell which researched the keyboard and gave me full damage restitution for the Apple keyboard.\n"
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6r7ugd | how is a phone able to be charging and using the battery at the same time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6r7ugd/eli5_how_is_a_phone_able_to_be_charging_and_using/ | {
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"Think of electricity as water. If you fill a tub of water faster than you drain it, it'll still fill just not as fast. As long as your phone isn't using more electricity than the charger is providing it, it'll charge.",
"The current required by the phone in order to run is less than the current supplied via the charging cable. You are not actually using the battery and charging it at the same time, the phone takes the power it needs to run from the mains and uses the rest to charge the battery. It's not possible to charge and discharge a battery at the same time."
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2pu7uh | why do singing voices change so dramatically over time? | Granted, new styles of music develop over time, but great singers today sound extremely different from great singers in the 40s and 50s (not saying one is better than the other). How is it that voices change that drastically? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pu7uh/eli5why_do_singing_voices_change_so_dramatically/ | {
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"Typically people's voices do not change, it's more that what is popular at the time changes. There are still singers that have that rich, smooth voice that you expect from earlier performers, but they typically don't get as popular in today's markets as they did 60-70 years ago (in your example).\n\nAnother reason is that language changes over time. American English in the 1940s and '50s was much different that it is today, not just from changes in vocabulary, but from changes in inflection (how specific words are said). If you listen to a Frank Sinatra song, then listen to a modern cover, there are changes on what words are emphasized, and what syllables within those words are emphasized. People's voices do not change, but the way they speak, and by extension the way they sing, does.\n\n"
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2589gw | is the internet infinite? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2589gw/eli5_is_the_internet_infinite/ | {
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"No, by whatever metric you're using to measure the \"size of the internet.\" Arbitrarily large (in theory), but not infinite. Pretty much nothing in the universe is infinite except for the universe itself.\n\nIn case you haven't seen the phrase before, \"arbitrarily large\" just means that there's no limit on how big it could get. That's not infinite, though, it's just saying that there's no upper bound. I can keep adding numbers together for as long as I want, there's no limit on how big my result will be. My result will always be a number, though, so it's not infinite.",
"No. The internet is like a big library. It cannot be infinite because you would need infinite people to write the books and an infinite amount of space to store them",
"The number of URLs is potentially infinite, because they are generated by humans doing things like searching. \n\n_URL_1_ \n_URL_1_a \n_URL_0_ \n_URL_0_a \n\nAnd so on. "
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40xkwc | how can canada legalize marijuana when they are part of international treaties that forbid exactly that? | The Liberal policy means that Canada will have to amend its participation in three international conventions:
The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, as amended by the 1972 Protocol; The Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971; The United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40xkwc/eli5_how_can_canada_legalize_marijuana_when_they/ | {
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"To which treaty specifically are you referring?\n\nThe Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is the \"big\" one I'm aware of it an it's only for narcotics. Strictly speaking, marijuana is a narcotic, but modern usage of the term narcotic doesn't usually include it.",
"Assume there was a treaty (not even gonna bother to check). What would any country do if that treaty is broken. Stop trade with them? That would probably only damage the country that is upset? Go to war with them? haha. Treaties are handshake agreements at best. Nothing comes from them but good press.",
"As a sovereign country, we can tell anyone who complains about broken treaty promises to shove it up their ass. The consequences of such an action will depend on how far other countries are willing to try to 'hurt' us via restricting trade and/or other political avenues of applying pressure up to an including declaration of war depending on the treaty being broken and how much this affects these other countries.",
"Treaties honestly dont mean that much.\n\nWhat country is going to stop Canada from doing so? No one cares enough. So even if its against the treaty it doesn't matter.",
"Almost all countries break certain treaties. Russia has broken dozens of treaties, so has the US, Germany, France etc... \n\nTreaties are always a flimsy piece of paper and they can be broken without repercussions as long as the offence isn't serious. Even serious breaking of a treaty results in a restriction on trade, which hurts the country placing the restriction rather than the one receiving the restriction."
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bg7afa | why do women have millions eggs if they only use a few hundred in their life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bg7afa/eli5_why_do_women_have_millions_eggs_if_they_only/ | {
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"From the time women are born, they no longer make eggs. They are born with millions, but lose thousands each month until puberty, leaving them with around 300,000 viable eggs at puberty. Each month, at least one egg is either impregnated or shed. They die off quickly, but they are given so many to ensure a woman has a chance to reproduce."
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3odkct | why don't the republican leadership kick the members of the tea party movement, and the freedom caucus out of the party? | I know in other countries (i.e. Canada) you can get kicked out of a political party for trying to "hijack" the party. Why are some republican's complaining about them doing this to their party, but doing nothing about it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3odkct/eli5_why_dont_the_republican_leadership_kick_the/ | {
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"Two reasons:\n\nThere are a lot of people in the Republican party's base who agree with the Freedom caucus.\n\nThen the Republicans would no longer be the majority."
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2710sm | why do we have certain dreams that are 'repeated'? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2710sm/eli5_why_do_we_have_certain_dreams_that_are/ | {
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"Since neurologists still aren't sure why we sleep, and are still theorizing about why we dream, nobody really knows the answer to this.\n\nOne of the current theories about dreams are that our minds create simulations, and then run them. This helps us prepare to make decisions quickly in situations that we have not yet found ourselves in. (or that we believe we may be able to handle better in the future)\n\nBut again *nobody* knows.\n\n_URL_0_",
"To be fair, I HAVE wondered from time to time if there's not an ounce of truth in some of those dream interpretation theories.\n\nI've had weird, repetitive, even symbolic-type dreams that could only make sense to me....and I'm as skeptical a type as you'll find. \n\nI'm not averse to the idea that our minds process that which is important (even if we're not aware of why). Seems to make sense. Our conscious minds don't always know how to deal with what matters. \n\nFabulous things, brains.\n\n",
"Why did you mark this as explained if there are only two posts? ",
"Dreams are to solve your waking problems.\n\nI have dreams that I remember every single night. There have been many times I have woken up and felt that a dream had addressed a problem, or prepared me to approach it. \n\nYou're the one who actually creates the dreams. You have control over what happens, a lot of what you dream is actually something you want to think about. \n\nHave you ever been so obsessed with a thought that even after you fell asleep, you started dreaming about it? Dreams are influenced by what you have to think about.\n\nThe repeated dreams are when you have a problem and you are revisiting it. Sometimes there are dream locations you haven't visiting since childhood and you revisit it. Often a way of yourself to understand a problem you haven't since you were a child.\n\nThat said, dreams are very dependent on the person. Some people who are very reflective end up having more powerful dreams than those who aren't.\n\nSource: Dreams a lot.",
"I dream almost monthly about losing 1 or all of my teeth. Always a different way but man I wake up and go brush just to make sure they haven't decided to evacuate."
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8j9jla | if fish are cold-blooded how do they move so quickly in ice-cold water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8j9jla/eli5_if_fish_are_coldblooded_how_do_they_move_so/ | {
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"There are different methods depending on the fish species. Some are adapted to the colder water, their body's proteins most efficient at the lower temperature. They can idly swim and save energy for short bursts of speed when needed. Combine that with colder water often holding more oxygen and it can be quite the system. \n\nSome fish, such as tuna and some sharks, have a form of warm-bloodedness. They use the heat created from moving their muscles to raise their body temperature above the surrounding water. The fastest fish in the world use this method. It's also why tuna steaks are such a deep red. "
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edl60i | difference between salt water from the sea vs. electrolyte water? |
It’s always been said that if you’re stranded in the ocean, don’t drink the water because it’s salt water and will dehydrate you faster.
However, electrolyte water sold in stores is good for the body because it contains salts which, if you’ve learned about osmosis in the body, helps retain more water than just drinking plain water. The salts put more salt into the body, which causes more water to be retained in the body to balance that.
So, why exactly is drinking salt water from the ocean bad for you? Is it because it contains more salt than water, which would prevent your body from ever maintaining a true osmotically balanced water retention in the cells? (But then if there’s more salt than water in the ocean, then why can’t you just float in the ocean)? How is drinking water with electrolytes (Gatorade, nun tabs, electrolyte pills) any different from drinking water from the ocean.
I’m sorry if my knowledge of biology is completely flawed. It’s the main reason I ask this question, to mend the knowledge gaps and learn :) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/edl60i/eli5_difference_between_salt_water_from_the_sea/ | {
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"It's less a question of composition, but more a question of concentration. Your body simply can't handle all the salt in sea water--you can die in something like 2 days from drinking it. It's not toxic, it's just too much. Lots of other animals can handle it just fine such as seagulls and your kitty cat. Seagulls have special organs for secreting extra salt, and your kitty has very efficient kidneys, which means that they can actually live off of it. Humans aren't so lucky.\n\nElectrolyte water is a mixture of salts, but at a lower concentration that is appropriate for your body.\n\nOf note is that in sea water, you get many trace salts--super low concentrations, but required for good health. This is why it is important to eat sea food periodically, even if that's just kelp. Sea salt, as opposed to table salt, can be good for this as well. You will not get these trace elements from your electrolyte mix.",
"Ocean water has a dangerous amount of salt- about 35 grams per liter, which is almost 4 times our other bodily fluids. Compare that to Gatorade which has only about 450 milligrams per liter. \n\nIf you drink sea water, your kidneys will try to filter this extra salt by the passage of urine. This process requires a lot of water and will lead to dehydration. Dehydration leads to low blood pressure which means not enough oxygen gets to your organs and results in organ failure, death and the great beyondlessness.",
"Salinity is typically given as a percentage, or grams of salt per thousand grams of water. Sea water is typically 3.5%, or 35 grams of salt per liter of water.\n\nBy comparison, saline for washing wounds is 0.9% salinity, which matches the salinity of the human bloodstream, at 9 grams per liter of water.\n\nNow, I add salt to my tea and hot chocolate to improve the flavor, so I've done this math a few times. A cup of water is about 250 grams, so any amount of salt under 2 grams would be safe to drink. A pinch of salt is typically 0.3 grams, so adding a pinch barely affects the salinity of a cup of water.\n\nAs for why salt water is bad, excess salt is shed by the filtering organs through urine, so it both places a strain on the organs and removes extra water from the body. That's why it causes severe dehydration, because the body can't concentrate salinity into urine at a rate much higher than 1%, so 3.5% salinity sea water causes a lot of water loss to compensate. It isn't a problem in normal conditions, which is why bacon and salted meats aren't generally considered a problem."
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3mkrbh | how did the us help isis grow? | I have heard time and again that the US CIA had helped fund ISIS with weapons and supplies at one point in time. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mkrbh/eli5_how_did_the_us_help_isis_grow/ | {
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"I think you are talking about when Ronald Reagan gave 15 million dollars and guns/tanks/war supplies to Osama Bin Laden. "
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6sut32 | why do human mothers tend to experience a self-esteem dip for three years after giving birth to a child? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sut32/eli5_why_do_human_mothers_tend_to_experience_a/ | {
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"The act of having a child produces large hormonal changes in women, many of which can permanently change a woman's psychology. \n\nThe article in question attempts to draw a link between the major developmental milestones at 3 and how it impacts the mother. Essentially, the age of 3 is when most in the medical field consider a child to be \"not a baby or toddler any longer.\" Some women can perceive this as a \"loss\" of having a baby. ",
"Hormones.\n\nThis is one of the reasons why doctor's actually suggest not even planning a second until your first child is at least 2 years of age.\n\nI note that for some women it gets worse with every child. My mom had 4 kids.. she was getting really bad.. I was the oldest. She wanted more but the doctors told her not to have more warning her that if she did her moods could be so bad that rather than just having postpartum depression she would likely get postpartum psychosis - which is commonly a cause of women killing their children for no reason.. they just snap because of mood.\n\nWhy it all happens is hormones mostly, but compounded by stress."
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27fg8w | what happens to bodies of people who don't have money to pay for a funeral? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27fg8w/eli5_what_happens_to_bodies_of_people_who_dont/ | {
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"The state disposes of them. Can't have bodies lying around.",
"The state will pay for a very basic cremation or burial. Look up \"Hart Island\". ",
"Each state has a different amount of moneys set aside for something like this. \n\nSource: I'm a licensed funeral director",
"they are buried by the state, usually in a marked but un-named grave. they have a name for plots and graveyards like that though i can't recall what it is.\n\nthe notion of being buried \"in a pine box\" comes from the olden days. pine is a soft wood and relatively cheap, which is why paupers funerals used them.",
"Aside from being unpleasant to look at, dead bodies lying about are a public health hazard, whether from the scavengers they attract, the hordes of insects, or the bacteria and other microorganisms that grow / emerge when it decomposes.\n\nI remember reading about [Mohammad Habib](_URL_0_) an 80-year old who was a body collector in India (having started at the age of 12 and who, at the time, had no plans to retire). He'd get the call to go out and dispose of a body, try to identify whether they were Hindu or Muslim, and then dispose of their body appropriately (cremation or burial, respectively).\n\nHe was also unpaid, surviving on whatever the police gave him for his services and donations from the public at large.\n\nAnyway, ELI5, you have to do *something* otherwise it's going to be a problem for the living (and not in a zombie sort of way, either).",
"I know my local mortuary school will embalm for free if you can't pay. Just know that it's being done by students.",
"There's a documentary on youtube that's sort of about this. \n\n**It's pretty graphic, so don't watch if seeing dead, naked, and or partly decomposed people might bother you** (the video is not censored, and within the first minute you see one guy who qualifies for all three.). \n\nIt's called [A Certain Kind Of Death](_URL_0_) (I think I might have found it on Reddit originally, but I don't remember.)\n\n",
"The county paid for my mother's cremation ",
"Ive always wondered this as well, good post.\n\nI wouldnt want to leave my family with the burden of cost, could i just tell them to not claim me or whatever and force the state to foot the bill in my disposal? \n\nI dont care if im buried or burned or thrown in a ditch, i just dont want my family to have to pay for expensive funeral costs.",
"I found this documentary on the topic: _URL_0_",
"I was a gravedigger for years - we have a Potter's Field that is designated for \"county\" burials that we get paid a fraction of what a regular burial costs. Regular burial is overprices but on the county burials we actually lost money.\n\nThe casket is basically paper mache (sp?) and it's put into a basic concrete vault for burial. There isn't grave-side service because the burial process when we do it in-house is pretty ugly...we dig a hole butts-to-nuts next to the next person (often scraping right up alongside the previous burial) and have an I-beam setup contraption that we pretty much rigged together ourselves with cables and a basic hydraulic. \n\nOftentimes, the ground is flooded (it's bad land for burial) and oftentimes we have to ride the vault down the hole like a surfboard in order to keep it straight. Then we dump the dirt on top of it with a dumptruck - we put up some plywood around the hole so we could take care of overspill and try to make it look tidy, but we honestly don't spend much time on it because we're losing money.\n\ntl;dr Preplan if your burial is important to you."
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2aji6o | how do platelet rich plasma treatments help in a healing process? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2aji6o/eli5_how_do_platelet_rich_plasma_treatments_help/ | {
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"Not a doctor, but my wife had this therapy to recover from a nasty Brown Recluse spider bite. The injections and topical cream (which we started calling her Wolverine healing factor medicine) helped heal her wound amazingly fast. \n\nShe literally had a hole about 1/4\" deep from the spider venom and it would have taken months of therapy and weekly packing of the wound with gauze and other painful treatments to just get the wound to heal enough so it wasn't open. The medicine started working immediately, you could see the difference within days. Now, my wife has an obvious scar from the wound but you would never guess how deep it was before treatment."
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4a54p5 | what do the numbers on the ends of a runway mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a54p5/eli5_what_do_the_numbers_on_the_ends_of_a_runway/ | {
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"The numbers tell you the magnetic direction of the runway. For example, a runway that points north will indicate the numbers \"36\" for a magnetic heading of 360. A runway that point south will indicate \"18\" for a magnetic heading of 180. A runway that points west will indicate \"27\" for a magnetic heading of 270. A runway that points east will indicate \"09\" for a magnetic heading of 90.\n\nTypically you would add a zero next to the number you see on the runway and it will tell you the direction the runway points. "
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6a5gqm | what produces gravity? is it like the rotation of an object or is it like the mass of it? gravitons? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6a5gqm/eli5_what_produces_gravity_is_it_like_the/ | {
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"Very basic ELI5:\n\nMass attracts other Mass. For example if you and another person were in space with no other force interfering you would slowly start to move towards each other. This is true for basically all things that have mass.\n\nThis attraction force depends on the total mass, though. Therefore in reality attraction forces between most things are almost completely negligible since they have such a little pull, the earth however is massive and thus has a very high attraction towards other objects.\n\nThe rotation of Earth actually works against the pull, a similar way that you get pressed towards the right if you circle left in a car."
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27fjik | how does dating work? what are men supposed to do? | So say you have someone's phone number. Then what? Everyone says "it will come naturally" but I don't know what the fuck they are talking about. I'm 23 and I feel like someone was supposed to explain how this works. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27fjik/eli5_how_does_dating_work_what_are_men_supposed/ | {
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"First: Do some research:\n\n * Find a few good restaurants in your price range on Yelp and see if they require a reservation\n * Find a few good spots around town for a walk, a picnic, and a few other activities\n * Find a good coffee shop in each major part of town\n * Find a good pub that is quiet and romantic\n * Learn a few good recipes (ie. 2 pasta, 1 for steak, 1 for chicken, 2 salads, 3 appetizers)\n\nNext:Call the girl (keep away from texting and emailing)\n * Ask if she'd like to go out. If she does, find out when she's free and take her for dinner, a walk and a drink.\n * Bring her some flowers -- not too fancy, but something small. No roses though -- they're over-played.\n\nOn the date itself, just be yourself. Don't over-think things -- if you hit it off, great. If not, play it cool and stay friends with her if you want. \n\nFor the research part, keep a text file somewhere and keep an eye out for good spots around town. Ultimately, have fun. If you're going back to your place at any time, clean the bathroom. :)\n\nDating can be fun. Personally, I like to go to a deli and pick up a good loaf of bread, some meat, cheeses, olives etc. I bring a cutting board in a backpack with a knife or two, a good blanket and some beer or wine. \n\nHope this helps! \n\nedit: formatting",
"First date? Go out for coffee, a beer or whichever drink you prefer. Don't overdo it. The \"just be yourself\" thing is a cliché but mostly true, except when you're just looking for a one-night-stand. Sometimes you'll be disappointed and sometimes it'll be awesome, not all dates work out, too bad, try again.\n\nExtra info: Expect to hold in your farts subconsiously and when the date fails, you can find happiness in letting those farts escape.",
"Wherever you end up taking her, the best thing to have in your mind is not to worry about impressing her. \n\nIn fact, turn it around and have in your mind that she needs to be the one impressing you. \n\nYOU are the catch. \n\nBe yourself, you'll know if shes a cool chick if you can just chat and laugh about anything. ",
"Smile... let the other person talk. Talk about what they are talking about. Dont just talk about your self... Come to think of it, after being married for almost 10 years and having kids, i dont know how to date.... lol\n",
"get drunk and then text her, works every time",
"I think a lot of people here have given some great advice, however it's dating advice for people who date and are confident in dating. Just the thought of going to bar or going to get a drink with someone 1 on 1 scares the crap out of me. If your asking these kind of questions I'm going to assume that you may not be so confident or experienced in these matters. I think the trick for someone who may not be able to hold a 1 on 1 conversation very well or at least have the confidence to hold said conversation is to find a mutual activity you and your potential date have. For the sake of example lets so you and your date love wine, so for on a wine tasting course or something along those lines. It will allow you to build confidence with holding 1 on 1 conversation with said person however will also give you a safety net of the fact you are doing something together that will provide plenty of talking points. ",
"As a lady (I'll assume you're straight), I agree that dinner is a good first date. I wouldn't go to a movie or a music venue, because it's harder to talk. Someone mentioned an art museum... that might be a good idea. You're first just trying to see if you'd even get along. \nAnother tip you can do is find a coffee or pastry shop close by, but don't mention it when asking her out. If dinner is going really well, you can extend the date by getting dessert/coffee. If it's not going well, then just part ways at dinner. This may just be personal preference, but I'd say don't bring flowers. Or any kind of a present. You're paying for dinner, right? That's enough.\n\nOf course, all that is after you even ask her out. If you're stuck at the \"I have someone's phone number and I don't know what to do\" stage, I'd say to just put yourself out there and call or text her and set up a date! ooooor, wait till you're in person and set up the date. Don't worry about being too formal at this stage. First dates are just about compatibility, not about formal courting. \n\nIt is super tough asking someone out, but if you've got her number, you've already got your foot in the door. anyway, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, or whatever. Good luck! "
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76xgiw | how come most stereotypes are considered as offensive, even though most of them are based on factual invormation/data | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76xgiw/eli5_how_come_most_stereotypes_are_considered_as/ | {
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"It assumes that all people are the same. That an entire people can be summed up by having the same attributes. We are not the Borg."
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c4pcsv | what would realistically happen to society if life was discovered on another planet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c4pcsv/eli5_what_would_realistically_happen_to_society/ | {
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"Not sure if there is a concrete ELI5 answer. I bet it would involve some kind of religious uprising. From my understand most religions agree that their god made us and specifically Christians believe God made us in their image. To inject life from another planet would turn theology on its head. Or, like flat earthers, would deny the evidence as fake and stick to their beliefs. Either way it would have an irreversible affect on our society."
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1dii65 | why do all smartphones (at least in the eu) have a common micro-usb charger but iphones don't comply with this? | In the EU isn't there legislation which requires all phone manufacturers to have a universal charging adapter?
Why is it that iPhones are the only phone brand which doesn't comply with the universal USB charging adapter? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dii65/eli5_why_do_all_smartphones_at_least_in_the_eu/ | {
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"The other end of the iPhone's cable (which is supplied with the iPhone--phones that use a micro-USB connector may not even be required to come with a cable in the box) plugs into any USB port or USB charger, so this is a non-issue."
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vsc3t | what exactly does it mean for a territory to not be an actual part of its owner's country? (ie: us territories that aren't ratified states) | Also, did US territories have the option to become ratified states when they were acquired?
EDIT: Thanks for all the answers! They were very helpful. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vsc3t/eli5_what_exactly_does_it_mean_for_a_territory_to/ | {
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"Since the Spanish-American war, which left the U.S. with a bunch of territories, these territories are separated into \"unincorporated\" and \"incorporated\" territories. \n\nIncorporated territories fall under the same jurisdiction as any U.S. state, and its citizens enjoy the same benefits of the law. \n\nUnincorporated territories are simply land held by the U.S. and selected parts of the Constitution can be applied. (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.)\n\nThese \"unincorporated\" and \"incorporated\" territories are also separated into \"organized\" and \"unorganized\". Organized territories have some self-rule and government over themselves. \n\nI do not believe they had an option to become states when they were aquired, that is a decision for Congress. \n\nAll U.S. territories are under U.S. military protection. ",
"They're like your dog. You totally consider him to be part of the family, but that doesn't mean he's allowed to sit at the dinner table. ",
"Basically everyone that lives there is granted US citizenship, but they cannot vote in elections.",
"Why don't some existing US territories (i.e. Puerto Rico) attempt to attain statehood?",
"Hey, puertorrican here. It's pretty much the same, and yes, we can become a state, and imo most people here want that (there'll be a referendum in a couple of months with regards to this, so if you want to know PM me), but not me. With our current situation we get billions in federal funding from the US without losing our national teams and everything. I'd just like to add that even with all the funding we get, we're really fucked up... I mean really fucked up. This years it's been pretty stable and it's getting better, but since it's election year, suddenly, there's plenty of money. It'll probably get worse since they'll have to recover from all the spending they've done this year, probably from loaned money which they won't be able to repay. I just hope I'm wrong, because I don't know much about economics, just basic stuff. Anyways, sorry for the rant. A couple of things not mentioned here, yes, we can't vote in the presidential elections, but we do get to vote in the primaries, and we have 24 delegates here, all of which Romney sadly won."
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n0enz | why is separation of a nation's military and police so important? | Is the military supposed to act as a counter-balance in case the Police force goes rogue?
What would happen if the Police Force goes against the wishes of the local/national government? Would the military be called in to take on the police?
Inspired by this quote from BSG - "Commander William Adama: There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. "
The more I think of it, the less sense this quote makes to me. In such a scenario, ALL people would not become enemies of the state...only the criminals. And aren't they (criminals) considered 'Public Enemies' anyway? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n0enz/eli5_why_is_separation_of_a_nations_military_and/ | {
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"No, treating criminals as public enemies equivalent to opposing military forces is a *really bad idea*. \n\nThe problem is that police don't only arrest criminals. Having the military do policing could only serve to perpetuate the bad ideas that are already far too common among police. If you don't cooperate, you're probably a criminal. If you got arrested, you're almost certainly a criminal. You can't question cops, you're just a civilian. These are horrible attitudes, and we don't need them to be ingrained any more than they already are.",
"The military and the police in theory are supposed to have very different philosophies.\n\nFor example, the police should have philosophies like \"innocent until proven guilty\", while the military have philosophies like \"shoot first, ask questions later.\" Police officers want to \"protect innocents\", while military want to \"end conflicts\". Military leaders generally accept \"all's fair in war\", while police leaders assert things must be done \"by the book\".",
"No, treating criminals as public enemies equivalent to opposing military forces is a *really bad idea*. \n\nThe problem is that police don't only arrest criminals. Having the military do policing could only serve to perpetuate the bad ideas that are already far too common among police. If you don't cooperate, you're probably a criminal. If you got arrested, you're almost certainly a criminal. You can't question cops, you're just a civilian. These are horrible attitudes, and we don't need them to be ingrained any more than they already are.",
"The military and the police in theory are supposed to have very different philosophies.\n\nFor example, the police should have philosophies like \"innocent until proven guilty\", while the military have philosophies like \"shoot first, ask questions later.\" Police officers want to \"protect innocents\", while military want to \"end conflicts\". Military leaders generally accept \"all's fair in war\", while police leaders assert things must be done \"by the book\"."
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9h8y47 | if surface area has no effect on fricton, why are some wheels so wide | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9h8y47/eli5_if_surface_area_has_no_effect_on_fricton_why/ | {
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"While the friction is the same, the composition of the tires can be made differently for a tire with a larger contact patch (wider tire). A small narrow tire has to carry the weight of the car on a very small contact patch, which means the tire has to be stiffer and harder and must be run at a higher pressure to avoid wheel damage, and won't deal with the imperfections of the asphalt very well. A wide soft tire can carry the same load on a much larger area, allowing it to be of a softer composition and to be run at lower tire pressures without risk of damage or rollover. Therefore the tire will conform to the road or track much better than will a harder tire at higher pressures, and the larger contact patch will ensure good contact with the asphalt.",
"Bigger tires can be made of softer material without wearing out quickly. Bigger = stickier. Smaller = harder. Drag racing tire vs. Skateboard wheel",
"Tires don't work just by classic friction. The rubber of the tire conforms to irregularities in the road to provide grip. This effect generally greatly exceeds the force provided by friction alone, unless the surface is very smooth. ",
"\"Surface area has no effect on friction\" is a simplification we tell Physics 101 students to help them grasp the material better. In the real world, it's not so simple.\n\nWe're taught that friction is a function of the *coefficient of friction* times the normal force. The coefficient of friction is some constant that depends only on what the two surfaces are made of. But that's not always true. When you're dealing with compressible materials, like tires and asphalt, the coefficient of friction is not a constant. It's a function that depends on pressure. It actually gets smaller as the pressure increases, so to get maximum friction you want lower pressure. Lower pressure means wider tires.",
"/u/AirborneRodent is basically right, although he doesn't explain the fundamental misunderstanding:\n\nThe force of friction between two objects changes based on whether the objects are sliding across each other or not. (Rolling is not sliding.)\n\nThe force of kinetic (sliding) friction is not dependent on surface area, just like you learned in school.\n\nStatic friction, which is what matters when a wheel is rolling, is more complicated to model than kinetic friction, so it isn't taught in high school or even most college physics classes. Suffice it to say that it very much does depend on surface area between the materials, what racing people refer to as the \"contact patch\".\n\nA larger contact patch between road and tire can generate more grip for braking, accelerating, and cornering, so race cars tend to use wide, non-grooved tires if possible."
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5bwzka | if meds are to be taken 2 every 6 hours, what's the difference in taking 1 every 3 hours? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bwzka/eli5_if_meds_are_to_be_taken_2_every_6_hours/ | {
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"It's about the concentration in your system. 1 pill every 3 hrs doesn't provide the same effect as 2 taken at the same time. One person pushing a rock up a hill and taking turns with someone. Or two people pushing together. Which works better?",
"Student in pharmacy here : some meds need a minimum plasma concentration to work while other needs high concentration. \n\nThe first kind (minimum concentration) are called time dependant. For them, you have to take a smaller dosage every hour so that the concentration never goes below the minimum effective concentration. (For example, if a time dependant antibiotic has a concentration too low, you might help create a disease resistant bacteria by killing only the \"weak\" bacterias and thus creating an environment where only the resistant ones can survive)\n\nThe second kind (big dosages) are called concentration dependant. So you give them in high dosages but it doesn't matter if the concentration goes to zero before the second dosage because the only important part is the maximum concentration.\n\nIn your example, it could be for many reasons. First, it's easier to take it less time each day AND the dosage given doesn't give secondary effect so they give you 2 pills every 6 hours. Second option, it's a medication concentration dependant so if you took it every 3 hours, the maximum concentration would've been useless.\n\nP.S. : it's more complicated than that, but this is the basic"
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15bdpa | from what i understand, the point of the filibuster is essentially to talk a bill to death. how/why is this legal and why don't they put a time limit on how long people can talk in congress? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15bdpa/from_what_i_understand_the_point_of_the/ | {
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"Any governing body, from a student council to the UN has procedural rules they agree to follow. In the case of the US Senate, they have decided not to have time limits, and to require 60 votes to end debate. It is legal because the Senate gets to make its own rules, and nobody has bothered to change them.",
"The problem isn't that people can keep talking... it's that they no longer require the person to *actually* keep talking.\n\nThey can just sit around and express their intent to without actually having to do anything. So everyone does that because it doesn't take any effort, anymore.",
"Congress is broken into two parts, the Senate, and the House. The House has no filibuster. They get time limits because they are such a large governing body. \n\nThe Senate is supposed to be the elite politicians from each state. It is smaller and affords the right to anyone who is elected to that high a level the right to speak for as long as they want. If it's their turn, you cant shut them up. They are the highest advocates for their state, so it's really hard to silence them.\n\nThis can be used strategically to stop bills. If you talk until the Senate has already voted to stop working. It's like ending the semester without turning in your final project. You have to start over the next session. So the new bill could be different, or they might not have the political will to keep pushing the issue, whatever. \n\nIt's a tactic, one based on a sacred principle. It's hard to stop, and some people argue that it let's that one hero stand against the entire will of the nation on principle. Like in some bad movie where some hero gets elected and has to stop an oil pipeline or something and they find a neato loophole. Yay! It used to be very dramatic too!\n\nWhat used to happen was you actually had to talk, and it was hard. Youd have to stand too. Old guys would be thought of as troopers for doing on something if they thought it was important enough. It put the spotlight on them and it either made them look cool or it fucked up their political career. Now it's a rubber stamp and everyone goes home. It's not heroic/stupid anymore. It's business as usual. "
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1zdo64 | weather forecasting. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zdo64/eli5_weather_forecasting/ | {
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"Since you did not state a question I am assuming you mean: how do they forecast the weather?\n\nThe most easiest answer (without going to deep in explaining how exactly) is they measure the weather at giving intervals and by comparing these measurements and applying equations of fluid dynamics and thermodynamics they can predict how the measurements will be in the future: a weather forecast. You can find more info on this [here](_URL_0_). They do this by selecting a model that applies to the measurements and since weather forecasting has been done for centuries there are a lot of models who are accurate (enough) to allow forecasting.\n\n \n\nBesides that there are also several other techniques: one of the easiest is just looking at the sky. This does not give you a forecast for next week, but it does give a good indication for the coming hours. Also taking into account the weather of past days can give you insights of how the weather will be coming days.\n\nSince weather is basically all about air pressure, reading a barometer can also give you an insight of the coming weather by measuring the pressure during intervals.\n\nThere are some other methods, but this gives you a good idea of how current weather forecasting works :)"
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yzyh1 | doping | What is it and why did Lance Armstrong gets his Tour de France titles taken away because of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yzyh1/eli5_doping/ | {
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"Doping is the practice of taking banned, performance enhancing drugs or having banned, performance enhancing procedures done to you. For example, taking anabolic steroids will give you bigger muscles but they are banned. Similarly, if you take some of your blood out, filter away everything but the red blood cells, wait a while for your body to recover and then reinject those red blood cells, you will have better stamina and that procedure is banned."
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av1tvv | why do infrastructure projects in the united states take longer and cost more in the united states than in western europe or japan? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/av1tvv/eli5_why_do_infrastructure_projects_in_the_united/ | {
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"I assume you are talking about publicly funded infrastructure projects. Not sure how it works elsewhere but the US has a lot of mismanagement of public projects issues. There are a host of reasons why this happens, lack of funds, overpaid bureaucracies, vampiric siphoning of funds from private contractors,\netc. It seems like we are in an era in which all public projects are sort of half-assed unless there is a possibility for an immediate return on investment, like a war.",
"Politics and systemic inefficiency, in the long and short. So-called states rights represents one of the biggest stumbling blocks to large-scale infrastructure projects. Because of how our political system is structured, one state can effectively kneecap an infrastructure project. The grand scale infrastructure projects which were completed in the past were done in a time when there was a much broader view of what unenumerated rights and federal powers meant in the framework of a national context. ",
"The U.S. has multiple layers of environmental reviews that must be done before the first shovel can be sunk into the ground. These tend to take years on larger projects. During that time, the scope of the project will usually change, meaning the original estimate does not encompass the expanded project, and inflation has also brought prices up. Many jurisdictions have prevailing wage laws, which state that any worker on that project must be paid the equivalent of a union worker for the same work, so labor costs tend to be higher. \nAnd most importantly, the cost for the plaques with the Senator's name who heroically voted for the project is quite high. Bronze ain't cheap, especially when bought with tax dollars. ",
"Look at a map. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe US (and Canada) are HUGE. States and provinces are larger than many countries. So any large infrastructure project will naturally be much much larger in scale. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nFurther, the other aspect of having such a large country is that regional interests (i.e. a road in Kansas) mean very little to most of the population. It's a lot harder to fight for the right funding to execute these projects since so so many regional interests must be balnced."
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x7nq0 | why does it seem like no matter what city the olympics are always protested? | Perhaps I am wrong, however, it always seems like no matter the location the Olympics bring a lot of controversy and protests, why is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/x7nq0/eli5_why_does_it_seem_like_no_matter_what_city/ | {
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"It messes with that city and its economy in a massive way:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSummed up: \n\n* It provides a huge boost to the city's economy, but its very short and often results in more money being spent to host the games then the games will generate.\n\n* Super big stadiums and other buildings are rushed into existence but often go unused after the games, just gathering dust and costing money.\n\n* In London the residents of the area are being kicked out of their homes to make room for Olympic structures. ",
"The thing people are protesting often isn't the Olympics themselves. People around the world watch the olympics, so people with causes take their chance to get in front those cameras to broadcast some of their message, or protest to the world."
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4go21h | why are fizzy canned drinks in thin cans, while non fizzy canned drinks in thick cans? wouldn't fizzy canned drinks need to be in thick cans to prevent then from exploding? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4go21h/eli5_why_are_fizzy_canned_drinks_in_thin_cans/ | {
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"While I've never noticed, my guess would be fizzy drinks change in pressure and need a can flexible enough to change with it, and since always pressing outward, even the thinner wall is strong. Versus the non fizzy drink doesn't have the pressure pressing outward, so can needs to be thicker to keep from puncturing or crushing due to lack of being completely full of air and pressure.",
"The carbon dioxide is able to keep the cans solid enough for transport, as it is able to press against the walls.\n\nUncarbonated drinks however, do not have this pressure, and with thin walls would be very squishy and crushable (Cans would get squished and possibly burst or something). To counter this, they need thicker walls."
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2873bz | why is arachnophobia so prevalent although only about 5% of spiders species are lethal to humans? | Does evolution plays a role in this, and how? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2873bz/eli5why_is_arachnophobia_so_prevalent_although/ | {
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"text": [
"I don't know which spiders are poisonous or to what degree. I'm much safer if I assume they're all dangerous and act accordingly. Same with snakes.",
"Australian arachnophobe here. The most logical explanation I can offer is aesthetics.\n\nFor example, I have a family of [redbacks](_URL_0_) living in my rusty old BBQ, and although I know these little buggers can kill me, they don't bother me at all.\n\nConversely, the [huntsmen](_URL_2_) and [wolf](_URL_1_) spiders that also live in around my house scare the living shit out of me, even though I know that their venom is only capable of causing me mild discomfort.\n\nTl;dr: Scary looking spiders are scary. Deadly ones, not so much.",
"Comes down to evolution. Humans generally have a fear of snakes and spiders ingrained in them because the humans that had no fear were more likely to be killed by them. Today we all have a slight fear that we can get over while others fear is more severe.",
"I think when something costs little but could give a huge benefit, it will stick around. It's not like a mild preference not to be around spiders costs us much-- there isn't much to eat-- it's not like being afraid of cows or sheep, so parents aren't going to work hard to ensure their child over-comes their spider fear. \nFrom what I understand, we have a genetic capacity to learn fear of dangerous things. A child still needs to be taught it. I read about an experiment where they put a snake in with a mother chimp and her baby. The mother freaked out and the baby learned to fear snakes. They showed that video to another chimp and it learned. Then they photoshopped in a banana instead. The chimp watching the video did not learn to be afraid of bananas and probably just thought she was an idiot. It makes sense that having the capacity to learn to be afraid of harmless things is not a helpful trait and evolution weeds it out, but having the capacity to learn to be afraid of harmful things, even if they are rarely harmful, but when they are can kill you, is a helpful one. Having the need to be taught it makes a lot of sense-- an Inuit kid terrified of spiders is wasting his energy, but the Brazilian who is deathly afraid of spiders has a notably better chance of staying alive.",
"I can't speak for everyone, but the Arachnophobia movie fucked me up for life.",
"Movies, just like jaws fucked me up for years, I am a great swimmer but I panic when I can't feel the bottom.",
"Because fears and phobias are not necessarily connected to logic.",
"Your freeze flight or fight instinct doesn't distinguish the thing you're seeing consciously. Spiders are a combination of fear triggers: long and angular legs, dark colours, darting and erratic movement. Your [amygdala](_URL_0_) noticed those little things and went \"this is fast, I can't predict it, I don't know what it is, get ready.\" The amygdala also plays a role in associating emotion with memory and fear gets a prominent attachment, so people can feel unease just looking at a picture of a spider. \n\nThat and a lot of kids inherit their parent's fears. We learn through social interaction how to behave and this helps with survival of the species. My mother is deathly afraid of spiders and despite rationally knowing they're (mostly) harmless, I still panic a little.\n\nSpiders are also fuckin' everywhere. all. the. time.",
"Please cross this to /r/askscience . They're much better at givig real answers.",
"Arachnophobe here. Those who are afraid of spiders should try checking out /r/spiderbro.\n\nAt first it's going to be creepy seeing spiders on your front page, but after a while you enjoy seeing them. It hasn't completely cured my phobia, but I no longer run for my life if I see a spider.\n\nDISCLOSURE: Walking into a spider web will still continue to be the scariest thing in the world and make you think you're covered in spiders. Can't help with that shit.\n\nEdit: dun goofed",
"You guys who claim that the fear of spiders, snakes and such is inherent in humans due to evolution should start providing evidence, and preferably cross-cultural research. Otherwise this is just a compilation of anecdotal evidence. ",
"Lethal or not the expression \"Once bitten, twice shy\" rings true for me. I was bitten once and my arm swelled up so bad in pain I almost went to the ER. Took three hours for my arm to stop burming. Have no idea what kind of spider so I lump them all together.",
"While true spiders have been discussed here, tarantulas are an oddity. Theres millions of tarantula keepers out there (myself included) and still a large number of them fear the smaller spiders. We relate them as the 'mammals' of the insect kingdom, most are big, hairy and colourful.\nTheir characteristics are what draws our curiosity to them, eventually keeping a few before creating full blown collection within a few years, like pokemon.\nTarantulas venom is not lethal, theres only 3 species that may kill a child if bitten on the neck. They have large fangs that will cause mechanical damage, and an allergic reaction will cause a 2 week fever, cramping and swelling. Most species are built to overpower smaller prey and wouldn't resort to using venom every time.\n\nThe tree dwelling old world species ( Asia, Africa) are built to look menacing when threatened due to their venom. I have several of these species **[SPIDER IMAGE WARNING]**\n\nThis is my tree dwelling Venezualan Suntiger from South America:\n_URL_5_ _URL_0_\n\nAnd this is my tree dwelling Oldworld Gooty Ornamental from india:\n_URL_1_\n\nNew world species ( Americas) are more inclined to flick hair at you and retreat if disturbed. The hairs feel like fibre glass or stinging nettles and the only real damage we could receive is from the sheer size of their fangs, a reluctant last resort. They're curious with their environment and using their hairs to detect and read the surrounding before make a conscious decision to fight or run, usually the latter.\n\nAnd our gentle giant Whiteknee from South America:\n_URL_3_\n\nAnd lastly our Purple star burst birdeater from Ecuador ( S. America):\n_URL_2_\n\nSome more of our collection can be seen here:\n\n**[WARNING SPIDER IMAGES]**\n_URL_4_\n**[WARNING SPIDER IMAGES]**\n\nBut that's not all of them...\nHappy to answer any questions! =)",
"Firstly, far far far less than 5% of spiders are potentially lethal to humans. There are around 45,000 species of spider currently described, and thought to be many more.\n\nThe number of species that could kill a human is probably between 20 and 50. Though many of those that could kill most likely never have as due to a lack of opportunity (few encounters), a lack of defensiveness/willingness to bite, and a lack of effectiveness of venom delivery apparatus (small fangs).\n\nEvolutionarily, these deadly species are unlikely to have much of an effect on humans. But we must consider a few more things.\n\nFirstly, death from the venom isn't the only thing to worry about. Extreme pain/paralysis of a limb can be detrimental, and bites that go necrotic can result in sores that can subsequently become infected. So in the wild environment we evolved, a spider doesn't have to be deadly to be worth avoiding.\n\nSecondly, we evolved from much smaller mammals/primates, and a natural wariness may have been more useful back then, and simply have persisted.\n\nTrue (i.e. debilitating/extreme) arachnophobia is of course not a rational response to spiders and is clearly maladaptive, no matter how dangerous they are/where you live. Furthermore, many indigenous people in areas were dangerous spiders are prevalent use spiders as part of their diet.\n \nThough it's never been proven, I believe the prevalence of extreme arachnophobia in 'western' countries is a result of an evolved/genetic cautionary response combined with a lack of much exposure to spiders resulting in a super-normal/irrational response. I believe the same has occurred with snakes too. \n\nSo in short, like all things, it's most likely an interplay between genetics/evolution and culture.",
"5% might easily be enough, especially if that figure was larger in Africa (for the majority of the lifetime of our species, we lived in Africa and Africa only).",
"because fucking spiders are creepy as shit with their little twitchy legs and 8 eyes and legs and crawling on you in your sleep, lurking in your corners and not saying anything. fucking creepers man, get a life.",
"Have you considered how many African spiders are venomous, specifically in areas where early humans lived?",
"Here's a bowl of M & Ms, only 5% are lethal. ",
"Can I piggyback on this? Why do I have no problem letting other bugs crawl on me, but if I know there is a spider in the room I can't handle it? Why is my brain like, \"It's cool, bro. That one only has 6 legs. Totally normal.\"",
"5% are lethal? So you're telling me there is 1,700 species of spider that can kill me with one bite? That doesn't even include scorpions and other bugs.... Everyone get indoors and duct tape the windows",
"because they are creepy as fuck.",
"Nesse (evolutionary theorist) calls this the \"smoke detector principle\".\n\n > A smoke detector (the kind that homeowners install in their ceilings) may be calibrated to minimize (irritating) false positives, or to minimize (fatal) false negatives. Not surprisingly, they are deliberately (and wisely) calibrated to minimize the more costly false negative error, which inevitably results in the occasional irritating false positive. Analogously, natural selection has shaped perceptual, cognitive, and emotional systems to minimize the likelihood of making whichever form of error is most harmful to reproductive fitness. Consequently, these mechanisms have predictable biases, and regularly favor the alternative, less costly, form of error.\n\nBasically, it has been advantageous to err on the side of caution by developing \"hypersensitivities\" to stimuli like spiders.",
"Only 5% are deadly, but don't spider bites still hurt and can't they even cause rashes, bumps, etc? Let's ignore the fact 5% sounds huge to me in terms of \"if this bites you it can kill you\". What would a normal house spider bite do?",
"I think that an actual fear of spiders is really very rare. A phobia is different to misinformed prejudice.",
"We fear what we do not know/comprehend. All fear is fear of the unknown. ",
"spiders are (one of) the most inhuman looking creatures\n\nive heared thats the reason humans are so scared about it",
"Spiders have a habbit of seemingly appearing out of nowhere and into our peripheral view without warning which can startle most people. Some people stay freaked out, some realize there isnt any real danger and go smack it with the closest thing they can find.",
"I'm pretty convinced that this is taught. Because I am zero percent afraid of them and I taught my kids to not be either, and they aren't. ",
"5%? Try 0.0015%. 7 deadly species (Redback, Black Widow, Brown Recluse, Chilean Recluse, Sydney Funnelweb, Brazilian Wandering, MAYBE Six-eyed Sand). 43,678 known species. \n\nEDIT: Thanks for the Gold, strange benefactor. ",
"My theory is that they have an incorrect amount of legs. I feel we humans are used to seeing creatures with either 2 or 4 legs, ourselves and our house pets and livestock. Spiders just have too many legs and it looks weird. This same theory could be applied to snakes. No legs and therefore weird to us. I feel that being afraid of both makes and spiders are two of the most common fears that people have. There is no science in my explanation, simply fun thinking. ",
"I think part of it has to do with how very different they are from us. Most people think mammals are cute. Fewer think reptiles are cute. Fewer still think spiders and insects are cute.\n\nWe as mammals can (at least to a degree) understand other mammals in terms of behavior. They are more familiar to us. Reptiles aren't as easy to read; insects/spiders, less so.\n\nThose are my thoughts anyway.",
"Phobias are not necessarily rational.",
"I think it's mostly cultural conditioning.\n\nit's the same reason why people freak out when they see a rat, but think squirrels are cute. ",
"How many spiders would you have to see before you come across a lethal one? \n",
"5% is 1 in 20. If you played DnD, you'd know rolling a 20 isn't that rare. \n\nAlso most spiders aren't lethal but even safe spiders carry dangerous bacteria. My daughter was put in the hospital for two days for a bite on the neck. It wasn't any poison that was the problem but infection. \n\nCats aren't poisonous either but their bites can be extremely dangerous too because of pathogens. \n\n\n\n\n",
"Too many legs, too many eyes, Hairy and just scary as fuck. ",
"There is no species of spider that is lethal to humans, almost every story you've heard about spiders is either an exaggeration, media exaggeration, or they asked someone that didn't know what they were talking about. \n\nNews media regularly ask entomologists about spiders, entomologists are experts on insects, arachnologists are experts on spiders (as well as all other species of arachnid) and entomologists usually have no idea what they're talking about\n\nThere is no spider in the world even classified as \"dangerous,\" the few spiders that can hurt you (and there are very few) are considered medically significant but that's several steps below dangerous. Black widow and brown recluse are among this category but even then their prey are insects humans are slightly bigger than the average mosquito\n\nThe likelihood of actually being bit by a spider is practically 0 and most of the things people consider spider bites are not, it's unlikely to bite you even if you're trying to make it bite you. In all honesty spiders are some of the most helpful creatures around because they take care of insects and insects will bite you and can carry diseases\n\nSpiders are awesome\n\nAs far as people being afraid of them: probably because spiders have a rather jerky method of moving and have an uncanny valley effect on the average person, that combined with the fact that spiders are excellent hunters of their chosen prey makes them seem scary when they arent",
"The movie Arachnophobia came out on VHS when I was four or five. That's why. ",
"They have too many legs.",
"I swear, spiders are not of this earth.",
"I like to think it's an old gut reaction to when our ancestors lived outside and died from spider bites. We learned to fear all of them as a safety measure.",
"I think some of it has to do with conditioning. My dad is an entomologist, and I grew up with bugs. I have no fear of spiders, but I do respect them. I have a spider bro who lives in my pantry, and we have a mutual understanding: I don't sweep him, he eats those little black beetles I dislike.",
"Because their fang-to-head proportion is scary. If spiders had no fangs they wouldn't be scary at all. Just kinda....gross.",
"More like .0003% (12 out of 40000) of spider species that can seriously harm a human. Of those twelve species, perhaps 5 or 6 could give a lethal envenomation, and even then, death is quite rare.",
"This thread makes me so glad reddit doesn't do embedded images. All of these links are staying blue.",
"How is this a question? it's because they're FUCKING SCARY, THEY DRINK THEIR PREYS BLOOD AND THEYRE EVERYWHERE YOU THINK YOURE SAFE. SHOWER? NOPE! BED? YOU EAT SPIDERS IN YOUR SLEEP! ",
"I know a guy who maintained UAVs over seas. He told me about camel spiders. I have been terrified of them since and I have an entire ocean between me and them. \n\nI'd link a picture, but I'm afraid they'll eat me through my phone.",
"Way less than 5% are lethal to humans. Only about a handful of species are lethal and there are 1000s of species of spiders. ",
"I know that the spiders are not dangerous, it's just that they're disgusting.",
"I'm not afraid of spiders because they may or may not bite. I'm afraid of how they move, their creepy legs, walking into one of their webs and having one on me, ect......",
"Probably because 5% of spider species are lethal to humans.",
"Because 100% of spiders are icky and creepy looking to humans. I don't care if it will kill me or not.",
"Arachnophobia is prevalent like many other fears, almost as much as the REAL percentage of the population that suffers from arachnophobia (between 3.5 to 6.1%, although it REALLY varies depending on the cultural region). \nA person who is afraid of spiders WILL make sure that his surroundings (in particular his home) is free of spiders (or to his knowledge), at all cost, but where did this fear really come from? Well, since, as you said, only 5% are LETHAL to humans, still most of them are venomous, and humans, like most animals, are not made \"picky\" when it comes to fears, which could have started with the witness of a spider actually killing a human, having spread the word about it. It is easier for us to remember a general shape, than a particular color, or even a particular size, we just fear the general figure of spiders. \n \nThis comes with irrationality, and could have come from the spread of the fear more than the awareness. Just like other fears, arachnophobia CAN develop even before birth, but the general playing factor is birth AND early life of a human. Children are born with a basic trigger to fear, which is LOUD noises (which is a big reason for the fear of thunders and things like that). One of your parents having had one (or even more) encounter(s) with a spider, with you close to him able to see what was the tirgger of that fear, followed by a \"scream of terror\" (Loud noise), could easily have been the \"irrational\" reason why you have that fear of spiders. \n \nHumans have many psychological facts that are still very not-precise and very trivial, and can often vary from person to person, but some natural fear triggers could be the reason why so many are afraid of them. \n \nAlso, as a side note, I would like to mention that the proportion of the population actually afraid of spiders can be bigger in some cultures than others. Some south american countries and other Asian ones, use spiders and other arachnids as food, and therefore the percentage of population afraid of them is considerably lower. Maybe your question is biased due to the amount of people (using the internet) share so many cultural aspects that it might have made you think that the percentage is higher than you think.",
"ELI5 answer: Because to humans they look scary, the creature's name associates with scary in our minds, the feeling of something crawling on us often causes us discomfort, and we have inherited this fear because it has been grinded into our thought patterns for untold generations, all of whom feared spiders for the above reasons.",
"When I was a kid I was scared of spiders. Then I learned that they eat flies and mosquitoes and all those bothersome summertime pests and I started being cool with them. I even tried to convince, fruitlessly, my mum to leave alone the cobwebs in my ceiling.",
"Because it's not right for something to have that many legs",
"Too many eyes, too many legs, and they bite. ",
"5% is kinda high bro",
"I always thought it had to do with evolution. Same as our fear of snakes. I like to believe we are descended from small rodent like mammals who used to live underground and above ground. I feel like back then spiders were probably a lot larger too, so we were hunted on by spiders and snakes. Naturally the ones inclined to get the fuck out when they saw such creatures were more likely to survive, instilling some sort of instinct into us.\n\nOf course, I've never seen a cat run from a spider or snake, so maybe they've moved past it or I'm just so much farther from the truth with my speculation than I'd like to believe.",
"Because spiders are creepy. ",
"I've never been scared of spiders, or snakes for that matter. There are lots of small crawling creatures that are more disturbing that than spiders are, like centipedes, cockroaches, and earwigs.",
"False negative rate. Think of it this way: if you see a spider, and it's not poisonous, and you are scared and avoid it, the cost to yourself is very low. If you see a spider, and it's poisonous, and you don't avoid it, you suffer a very high cost. It is thus mure efficient to use resources to avoid all spiders than to risk encountering a poisonous spider and not avoiding it (a false negative). This is often considered behavioral economics.",
"People are afraid of spiders because NOPE. I'm out of here. Just NOPE.",
"\"phobia\" means irrational fear. The fact that only 5% of them are lethal is a rational argument.",
"Because those little fuckers are scary as fuck.\n",
"For me, the 'walking with monsters' series explained it very well.\nFrom the beginning of life in the ocean, there was a very distinct difference and 'feud' between fish (the ancestor of mammals, reptiles, birds and stuff) and arthropod (the ancestor of creepy crawlies,\nIn the ocean and on land in the era of oxygen rich armosphere, the arthropods were a foe to be reckoned with (the species could grow much larger with their 'passive lungs' than nowadays; as big as minivans), and fish and amphibians were hardwired to fear creatures with more than a couple of limbs.\nThat hardwiring is still present in the most primitive parts of our brain, that's why the fight or flight reaction is almost always triggered when faced with a sudden encounter with a creature that is so genetically removed from us humans such as spiders and milipedes and such. ",
"Because it's one of the most alien creatures we can meet in nature - it's completely different from us. We have four limbs - they have six. We have soft flesh - they have hard, furry exoskeletons. We have two eyes - they have much more. Our bite is behind flesh - theirs is not. Plus, it fucking HURTS to be bit by a spider no matter how lethal it is, and if the spider breaks flesh, there's a chance of infection - which, up to a few centuries ago, WAS lethal. ",
"It's *5%*??? Oh gosh, we're all dead.",
"\"Only about 5%\" is actually quite a lot when you consider they are almost invisible and need only bite you once",
"People are afraid of things they don't understand.",
"5% of spiders are lethal? Jeesh in now much more leary of spiders now. ",
"Because spiders are creepy with their eight hairy legs and eight eyes. And the way they move, either like a loping person on stilts or a little eight legged race car. SHUDDER!!",
"Why the fuck did this become a conversation about moths? We're talking about spiders here people! Fucking real shit. What the fuck needs that many legs and eyes??? The goddamn devil, that's what. Think about it. ",
"Am I the only one who likes spiders? Sometimes in the bathroom I'll find one scampering up my arm and it doesn't gross my out at all. I just guide it onto a bit of toilet paper or something and set it down somewhere so it can go where it wants. \n\nThey're incredibly useful animals to have in your house because they eat all the insects. \n\nAlso, [they saved Scotland](_URL_0_). They really are a noble animal that teaches the virtue of persistence and not giving up. ",
"In the words of Damon Baird: \"Well, you see, that's 'cause humans are hard-wired to react to things that scuttle and... okay, I'll shut up now\"",
"The 'areas' of the brain responsible for fear and disgust are often next to each other, and a reaction in one 'area' can bleed through to the other. This creates a situation where things we find disgusting can gradually become the object of phobias, spiders are an excellent example, but there are others like homophobia which can occur. \n\nI once knew a girl who had developed a phobia of oranges because she found their external texture disgusting. ",
"They Look Goddam evil. ",
"Oddly enough my nephew is absolutely phobic about spiders. He literally will faint or vomit if he even sees one. Even in a photograph. He once ran naked out the shower because he saw one in the bathroom. He's a great kid but spiders terrify him. \n\nMy own son is now 7 and once when he was about 18 months old we were planting carrot seeds in the garden together when a huge hairy garden spider jumped onto my hand. I jumped out of my skin and ran around the garden screaming my head off and then thought that it was bad because I might give him a phobia. \n\nSo I took him to the front door and directed his attention to a spiders web. I was telling him 'oh look at the clever spider, see the web he's built' and it worked too well. \n\nIt totally backfired on me because he's now obsessed with spiders and keeps bringing them to me and dropping them on me and expecting me to admire them. I consider it a partial success I suppose! At least he's not scared of them.",
"I think it's worth mentioning that phobia is defined as being an irrational fear.\n\n[a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"Just a theory, but spiders look unlike most other creatures we typically encounter on land. So, it makes sense that we would take an extra second to notice something that seems out of place/ out of the ordinary.",
"[Because legs, teeth and eyes.](_URL_0_)",
"Because spiders are icky.",
"To keep it short and simple:\nSpiders are fucking scary, homie.\nSource: I'm an arachnophobe.",
"One time I was lying in bed around 10:30PM in early October. All the lights were off in my room except the glow of a laptop. I slowly started to drift off in front of the screen.\n\nAs my mind entered into the first few moments of sleep I immediately started dreaming about having a thumb wrestling session with an un-named challenger. The thumb wrestling was erratic and almost tickled. It woke me from my sleep enough for me to notice that I was not thumb wrestling anyone, but I was instead holding the biggest fucking spider I have ever seen. \n\nI live in the Pacific NW and we can get some meaty one's out here.\n\nI threw the creature on the floor and shined the laptop light on it. Then I slowly backed away towards the door so I could turn on the over head lights. \n\nOnce the main room lights were on I was surprised and appalled over how fucking terrible and enormous this thing was. I stayed still using my peripherals for something to use as a weapon. There was no way I was going to take my eyes off this fucker because I'd never sleep again if I lost it. I'd have to move for sure. \n\nI was even willing to use my bare hand if left with no other choice. I was slowly moving closer to it. Getting ready to punch the harry evil thing in the face. Yes, it was big enough for me to contemplate boxing it.\n\nThen I saw my saving grace. There was a text book I had been reading the night before hidden just out of sight under the sheets of my bed. \n\nI held my breath, grabbed the book, and let it fall right on top of that satanic piece of shit. I grinned as the book fell through the air and the spider seemed to look at me saying \"noooooo....\" as the book fell. \n\nWhen all 325 pages came to a thud on the floor I swear that I saw the book move a little bit before the spider finally gave up and died. \n\nAfter that night I have been fairly afraid of spiders. It was years ago, and I still do a house sweep every night before bed regardless of the time of year. I even clean more regularly in hopes that my home is a less spider friendly place. \n\nSo why am I afraid of spiders? Well, that 8 legged hamburger with the face of a wolf was flirting with my hand in the dark for no good reason. Fucking with me? Getting ready to bite? Confused and lost its way? Thought my hand was a female spider as they were about the same size? Who knows. But I figure the spider started it. And it's been war ever since.",
"That damn Harry Potter movie.",
"It's not as if you have the luxury of making an exact ID in the heat of combat.",
"Why is lethality the only reason to avoid something? ",
"is this a metaphor for the war on terrorism?",
"I asked my psych professor why and she said that there are selective pressures that eventually have become hardwired fears, to kind of build off of what /u/gingembrebiscuit said there are naturally things to be afraid of, fear of spiders has never hindered human evolution but fear of them has, arguably, aided.",
"You say 'only about 5%' like that's a small thing. \"Well, these animals over here have a 0% chance of killing me, and these animals over here have a 1 in 20 chance of killing me, which ones should I be afraid of?\"",
"My mom has found a spider in her straw, twice!\nShe put the straw in her drink and she was sucking and sucking trying to drink but nothing was coming out. She looked in the straw and there was a spider! Again this happened to her TWICE.",
"I met a spider bro on shrooms, I lost my fear of spiders because I realized he was just another creature trying to get through life. ",
"Because fuck spiders, that's why.",
"As a kid who grew up in the Philippines, I used to collect spiders and battle them out. I was basically a Pokemon trainer.",
"I'm alittle late to this and can't say to much more on why people are afriad of spiders because its been covered pretty well. But I can tell you a way to get over the fear. \n\nJust wage war on the whole speicies.\nLike all out, no holds, war.\n\nThis means, \n\n1.) Chemicals are your friend. Lysol, Windex, Axe. This type of stuff is a powerful weapon on the battlefield. Spray them down. They go blind and it can immobilize them. Research has proven time and time again that this is an effective method.\n\n2.) K.O.S. Kill on sight, This is not the time or place to ignore suspicions activity. If you think you saw a spider, immediately investigate and if you did see/find a spider. Dispatch it immediately. This is the top priority in your life at this moment, and with such you must be fully committed to the cause. For Justice.\n\n3.) Spiders can smell fear, So man up.\n\n4). 20 Seconds is the maximum observation and sitrep time. If no plan has been put into effect. Operation. B.r.u.t.e F.o.r.c.e. goes into effect [ grab nearest object and defend your honor by destroying said object ontop of previously stated sworn enemy. ]\n\n75.) Don't negotiate with the enemy. Don't try to push it outside, don't wait for it to crawl out a window, [ same goes for those effin bee'zz]\nIt brought the war to you, so you must stand your ground and protect your home front with honor. So get your valor up/\\\n\n84353.) Never spaz or freakout in such a way you fling/knock/push/move/toss/slide/fling/throw said enemy towards another person. THIS IS AN ACT OF TREASON.\n\nThus sofar are decelerations/finding that haveth been drafted in the attempeths to vanquish thy arch nemeses from thy homeths. Wherenfourth Hometh owners and thine patrioits can comence again in thine baking and merryment making. Gfah\n\n",
"Because there's nothing natural about having eight legs and eight eyes. Spiders are evil. ",
"I've heard some people say that there are more phobics and kinds of phobias in the more developed countries by the occurrence that these things are things you're scared of simply because you don't have anything better to worry about.",
"I kind of feel that arachnophobia might be a more of a cultural thing. Where I live (Eastern Europe) nobody really cares about spiders and this fear of spiders for me feels almost childish/hyperbolic. I think that this might be an American thing. Would be interesting to hear about arachnophobia from people who live in different cultures.",
"An earwig literally climbed into my ear when I was sleeping and got stuck in there, proceeding to bite my ear canal and buzz around incredibly loud. My uncle used tweezers to get it out and my ear canal was swollen for days. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, considering I woke up to pain and intense buzzing inside my ear/brain having no clue what it was. \n\nChew on that.",
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because they have 8 eyes, 8 legs, fangs, and occasionally eat fucking birds.\n",
"A lot of it is learned behaviour. Most little kids are fascinated by worms, spiders and other creepy crawlies and will find them and play with them with delight - then the adults find them with a bug on their nose and they freak out and warn the kid off and as kids learn behaviour from adults, the kids internalise that and pass it on to their kids in turn. Obviously you don't want your 3 year old eating worms, but people's fear of tiny little insects is ridiculous for the most part. In England it's considered very unlucky to kill a spider by the way, and they'll be carefully caught in a cup and released in the garden rather than squished.",
"So what if it isn't lethal, spiders bite. It hurts. That's all it takes.",
"Its because of the arachnid wars that happened some time ago, its stored on our collective memory, passed down from the extraterrestrials that advanced our intelligence. I think.\n",
"A fly once flew into my ear and got stuck. In a wild panic I tried to dig it out but clumsily just jabbed my finger in there and squished it.\n\nFor the next hour I writhed in disgust as I slowly extracted the rotting remains of a dead housefly out of my ear.\n",
"it's the legs man, always the legs. That's why people don't like house centipedes even though they're harmless.\n",
"5%? Tell that to the hundreds if black widows in my back yard.",
"who the fuck cares if they're deadly or not, they are creepy as fuck! that's all that matters. They also seem to be the only bugs that have the ability to teleport. The amount of times I've gone to find a weapon to kill a spider with then come back to find it has disappeared is too damn high. ",
"because i live in Australia",
"When humans were evolving there weren't spider who could kill them, it is not just all about survival. Lots of humans have 'yuck' reactions to animals that aren't deadly because they just don't look right. This is a reaction to it not fitting into the animal categories we have. Like the harmless pandgolin _URL_1_, because it has scales and eats ants but is a mammal; or the harmless Aye-aye _URL_0_ because it is hairless and has long fingers and comes out at night. Human cultures near these animals often attack them are 'un-natural' or 'bad' because they fit right. \n\nI think the poor old spider has suffered the same fate because people often say 'It just has too many legs' when talking about why they are afraid of it. The explanation of it being poisonous is not the real reason people are scared and often comes later. In the majority of cases it is not even true and the spider they are 'frightened' of is not poisonous.\n\n(I live in Australia and just don't get why people in other countries are scared of spider, they can't even kill you over there)",
"Yeah, but *which* 5%? I'm not stopping to distinguish before I smoosh it. ",
"What the fuck. 5% of spider specias are lethal? ",
"Why don't people want to be stabbed if only 4% of stab wounds are fatal?",
"Because it seems to me that all 5% live here in Australia! and They're big, hairy and move like greased lightning (well the bloody Huntsman do!), and waking up in the morning with a 3 inch huntsman on the ceiling above your head scares the crap outa me! Thats why.",
"If 5% of dogs killed humans I would probably be more scared and even kill a few dogs. ",
"I don't like spiders just for the fact that many CAN bite. I hate mosquitoes, ticks, and wasps for this same reason. I just don't want any chance of a bite, having my blood sucked, getting some kind of infectious disease... Anything.\nIt doesn't matter if their bite is lethal or not, I don't want ANYTHING to bite me.",
"I can't answer your question, but I can give two quick challenges to the premise of your post.\n\nFirstly, rare events can be evolutionarily important. If you encounter something deadly only once per year, it is still more evolutionarily significant than encountering something mildly imperilling on a daily basis. Though only 5% of spiders are lethal, it only takes one to kill you.\n\nSecondly, the proportion of spiders with lethal venom could very well be higher in Africa than in many other countries. I assume the statistic you cite is global spider lethality - however, humans evolved in Africa and only left in the last 50,000 or so years.\n\nI don't know whether arachnophobia is an evolved response or not. However, these two reasons address some of the potential criticisms of the theory.\n",
"It's because phobias are irrational fears, meaning they aren't logical. The person has probably had a bad experience with spiders, or been around another with the fear of spiders. If tey have had a bad experience with spiders your brain could re-run the memory thousands of times, each time making it more dramatic and stretching it out of proportion. This would then associate spiders with bad things happening.\nIf around an individual that is scared of spiders one could develop the phobia by noticing that since the first person is scared of spiders, so should they. They would be influenced by the first person to be scared, especially if the individual is of higher status than the second.",
"I'm just going to quote [an old comment of mine](_URL_0_):\n\n > A locust, probably not, but there are bugs that give me a similar reaction to spiders. Like the giant water bug that lived in the creeks around the house I grew up in. Seeing a few six inch long specimens of these fuckers (that can fly) made me want to stay the hell out of the water when fishing. The big ones will grab small fish fry in their forearms (which are similar to the forearms of a mantis), stab the still moving fish with their proboscis, melt their insides, then suck out the goo.\n\n > That sort of shit is exactly where arachnophobia comes from. Large predatory mammals are potentially scary, but they aren't terror-inducingly alien to the human psyche. A tiger wants to kill you with claws and eat you with teeth; we can understand and accept that threat. Fucking spiders want to trap you in sticky ass thread, jump on your fucking face, inject you with toxins that will rot you one cell at a time while causing indescribable agony that will take decades to recover from if you even survive it, and then lay eggs in your still spasming body. And they don't want to just eat you; no, they want to fucking dissolve your still living tissues into goo that they can fucking drink with a goddamned straw! The toxicity levels are insane. Why the fuck does a bug that weighs an ounce or two need to have a venom that can kill a several hundred pound mammal with a tiny little drop? 'Cause they're fucking evil, and the sound of humans screaming in pain gives them hardons or something.\n\n > Arachnids and insects are what happens when evolution decides to get fucking cruel. Killing shit is boring, let's fucking hijack the brain of this larger insect by injecting it with toxins and laying eggs in its fucking head. The amount of bugs that insist on eating live prey, injecting eggs into live bodies, enslave other bugs, kill and eats birds and mammals orders of magnitude large than themselves, use toxins and venoms strong enough to make elephants cry and beg for someone to kill them just to stop the pain, and other generally evil assholery makes me feel fully justified in my wanting to move to mars just to get away from this entire bug covered world.\n",
"Eh, my dad has arachnophobia because he hates the idea of something so small being able to kill him ",
"My friend had a baby spider run around in his ear for a few hours. He felt some itchiness and heard scratching noises. Then it fell out while he was in the shower.\n\nNow that I've got you cringing, I believe I've answered your question.",
"Spiders don't scare me, but if one jumped at me I would slap it. That's about as bad as it gets. Otherwise, I'm find with touching spiders and all. ",
"Because spiders are creepy-ass motherfuckers. \n\nShow me a man who's taken a good, long, close look at a spider (especially when they catch a fly then eat it) then says he's not afraid of that beast from the depths of hell, and I'll show you a bold-faced liar.",
"Because spiders are fucking ugly that's why",
"I have a treaty with all spiders. If you touch me or a family member you must be killed. If you become large enough where I can see each of your eyes clearly you will be killed. I assume since it is a treaty with all spider kind any spider that doesn't obey my laws is some trouble maker and the spider council would applaude my vigilante efforts.",
"The same reason a lot of people have a fear of falling/heights, water/drowning, fire, snakes etc. The old area's of our brain, back when we were still in the trees. Maybe even before that. The old parts of our brain still remember these very real threats from time long past.",
"What is the cost of being overly afraid? \n\nA few calories lost in fleeing the scene. \n\nWhat is the cost of being overly brave? \n\nSometimes you die. \n\nWhich individual is going to survive more often to adulthood and pass off their genes? ",
"If one in five kittens were lethal I think Reddit might respond differently to them too",
"Because spiders peg a number of primal logical fears. They are fast and unpredictable. Usually we do not see them until they are inside our bubble of safety. They are aggressive in design with long angular legs and multiple eyes. They have fangs which means they can hurt you even if it's logically only the tiniest of injuries. I've also read most house spiders sit within the golden zone of human fear. Very small things we see as a nuisance and kill or shoo easily. Large things we can relate to and see as a combat target we can outmatch with our strength or cunning. Spiders are just the right size on average to evoke none of these confident reactions. ",
"I have a question about spiders that is relevant to this thread. Does looking at spiders or even pictures of spiders make you feel a bit itchy? I swear everytime I do, I get these very subtle phantom itches. Usually on my arms and legs. ",
"5% of all of the spiders on earth = a shitload of lethal spiders"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redback_spider",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider"
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala"
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"http://i.imgur.com/SqGS0w7.jpg",
"http://imgur.com/a/YZbUQ",
"http://imgur.com/a/Ug55D",
"http://imgur.com/a/IEoyU",
"http://theraphosidae18.imgur.com/",
"http://i.imgur.com/EgAcnWg.jpg"
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"http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/warsofindependence/bruceandspider/index.asp"
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"http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phobia"
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"http://www.pmslweb.com/the-blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/11-in-case-of-a-fire-spider-meme.jpg"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/doyei/why_does_something_like_this_exist/c11v1hi?context=2"
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|
1oo84f | how did ships work? | Like pirate ships, how did they move in the direction they wanted it? I know they move with the current and wind but what if they wanted to travel against it? Also I'm not sure if it's just movies but the wheel they spin so easy how would they spin the wheel so easily to turn rutter in the water without power steering? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oo84f/eli5how_did_ships_work/ | {
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"text": [
"A sailing ship cannot go *directly* into the wind, but it can engage in what's known as *tacking*.\n\nTacking is when a ship sails at a 45^o angle into the wind. It can repeat that process at a 45^o angle in the other direction into the wind, and end up moving slowly, but ultimately directly into the wind, like this:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAs for the wheel, I imagine what you're seeing in the movies is the rudder coming to a straight (not turning left or right) position, which it'd be pulled to while the ship is moving forward. It'd probably take a lot of force to turn the wheel left or right, but letting go of it would straighten the rudder back to it's straight position.",
"The simple answer is that the wheel doesn't spin so easy, movies lie. \n\nIf you need to go the direction the wind is blowing from you basically traverse in front of it going back and forth and a 45 degree angle. So if the wind is blowing south and you need to go north you go northwest for a while then you turn northeast for a while.. rinse and repeat.\n",
"The wind pushes the ship, but the rudder provides another push (as it moves so more of the \"side\" faces the water) to move the back end one way or another. It's like one person pushing you straight forward, and someone else pulling on your left arm. You'll move forward (that's the wind part), but you'll also move to the left (that's the rudder part).\n\nAs far as how they spun the wheel, there's a neat property of pulleys. You can trade distance for strength. With one pulley (attached to the ceiling) you could pull a rope through it 5 feet and raise a 50 pound weight 5 feet. If you string together multiple pulleys you gain an advantage that would let you lift 500 pounds 5 feet up, but you'd have to pull 50 feet of rope. \n\nThe wheel spins fast because they use pulley systems to make the wheel spin further but the rudder moves less, letting them use the extra work to overcome the weight of the rudder and the force of the water."
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4iz21s | how do developers protect their software's source code? | When someone downloads an application, all the data to have that application to run is in its directory (usually). Couldn't someone theoretically obtain the source code by reverse engineering the files? Or are they encrypted or compiled in a way so they can't be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4iz21s/eli5_how_do_developers_protect_their_softwares/ | {
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"Absolutely, they can be reverse engineered and implemented into other applications. This, however, would be illegal if said developer's works are protected by copyright. And there are ways to tell if certain source code has been stolen and added to other applications. Microsoft, for instance, sued Samsung for using android on their devices, when android had a few lines of code directly stolen from Windows.",
"Reverse engineering from compiled code faces some challenges. All the things that make source code human readable, like meaningful variable names, and programmer's comments get stripped out by the compiler, because computers don't need such things to run.",
"There are a few reasons\n\n* a lot of software is hosted as web applications nowadays. You're not going to see my source unless you do some hacking. \n\n* you can decompile code but a lot of information gets lost in the process. When a developer is working in his own source code, even private variables have descriptive names. firstName is the user's first name. lastName is the users last name. When you decompile it, string1 is the first name and string2 is the last name. It gets hard to keep track of which one is which. \n\n* there are code obfuscation tools designed to make that problem worse by renaming classes etc. for example, you might have a class called Rectangle, with public properties called width and height. For various reasons, a lot of the names are preserved (I.e. The bullet point above only applies to locally scoped variables. Generally a public class or method exports it's real name to make it easier for other developers to work with your product). A code obfuscator is like a pre-processor that scans your source code and replaces class/variable names before it goes to the compiler. So, in the un-obfuscated version of my app, you could decompile it and still see a bunch of objects with clearly defined properties like Rectangle.width, User.emailAddress and User.password. Those don't really need to be public, so the code obfuscator takes a pass through my application and renames every instance of User to cneixiabeh134bddj123 and every instance of Rectangle to cneixiabeh155bddj999, then it renames the emailAddress and password properties to things like cneixiabeh634bddj123 and cnxixiabeh134bddj123 respectively. If you're reading decompiled code, something that looks like cneixiabeh134bddj123.cnxixiabeh134bddj123 is harder to parse than something named User.password.\n\nIt's still technically possible to find the code you're looking for, but it's a lot harder. ",
"Reverse engineering is always possible because nothing is 100% safe. It takes time and dedication to filter through everything, sort and rearrange codes, and try hit and miss tactics. That's why a lot of games are very similar in the App store."
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r2lcc | what is a "republic" ? | Like if I named something "The Republic of video games" "The Republic of Tokyo" or "The Republic of Halle Berry" or anything along those lines.. why would I be implying? What would it mean exactly in terms of content I would be providing?
Does the meaning change if I'm naming it a "republic" of different things like a physical thing like an island, a group like an government or a common interest like a club? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r2lcc/what_is_a_republic/ | {
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"A republic is any government that is not a monarchy. It means \"government by the people,\" though if you use the literal definition then dictatorships are also technically republics. It really just means that the ruler(s) is/are chosen by some process other than being born into it. ",
"The real question is: What's the difference between a republic and a democracy.\n\nIn a democracy, we make the laws. In a republic, we elect leaders who make the laws. (It's why we call it representative government.)\n\n[The Federalist Papers were essays written by the Founding Fathers to shape the interpretation of the Constitution and the government in public discussion. See [Federalist 10](_URL_0_), written by James Madison. I have excerpted this into ELI5. *I recommend reading the whole thing.*\n\n > **The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are:** first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.\n\n > The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people. \n\nYou can look the rest of it up; this is as far as I go in doing your homework for you."
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1srpdt | why can't we fall asleep and wake up instantly? it seems to be a process that takes time? is it a chemical process? | I just wondered, I think it would be nice to wake up and be 100% focused the moment I wake up without being scared or my heart racing. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1srpdt/eli5why_cant_we_fall_asleep_and_wake_up_instantly/ | {
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"There are *lots* of chemical processes going on throughout your body as you go to sleep/wake up, and they do take time.",
"Yes. One of the big ones is melatonin (I used to have hour+ insomnia, and bio-melatonine cured it). Melatonin is regulated by light, and we tend to screw it up by staring at big light boxes throughout the night (ie TV screens and monitors).\n\nMore naturally, we'd be working with little light, (camp fire or moon) and then we'd start getting sleepy (that's the melatonin doing it's stuff), hit the hay and fall asleep pretty instantly, sleep for as long as the body needs, and snap awake with sunrise."
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4vup6a | why is crossfit so controversial? | As a person who knows next to nothing about fitness or exercise, I seem to always hear people talking about why they either love or hate Crossfit. There never seems to be an in-between. The way it is viewed by the public kind of reminds me of Scientology, in that the people who hate it talk about it like it's some sort of cult, and the people who love it say it's the best thing that has ever happened to them.
I know nothing about Crossfit, but I'm looking to get into some sort of an exercise routine after years of a sedentary lifestyle. Can someone explain it to me? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vup6a/eli5_why_is_crossfit_so_controversial/ | {
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"It's most likely because no one really gives a flying fuck if you do crossfit. Crossfitters are notorious for constantly telling people they do crossfit. \n\nAlso, this statement doesn't apply to ALL crossfitters but they tend to rush through exercises with weight that's too heavy causing form to be fucking terrible. Was at the gym last night and some douche canoe was doing kipping pull-ups, it was the most retarded thing I've ever seen. ",
"Crossfit is notorious in the fitness scene because it downplays the importance of good form when performing lifts of any kind. The fact that you can do 10 pullups incorrectly is more important than doing just one correctly, in a Crossfitter's mind. The fact that you did it is all that matters, which is detrimental to one's overall health. I liked Crossfit for the group involvement aspect, but that they don't prioritize one's health is really the kiss of death for it. ",
"[The biggest problem with Crossfit is that some people that teach it have no concept of proper workout processes. They'll continue to push and push the people in the class regardless of whether it's safe to do so. Rhabdomyolysis, a disease almost unheard of in other circles, even has cartoons about it in Crossfit literature.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt doesn't take much to get qualified to be a crossfit instructor or owner. It's mostly about whether you can get the money together. There's not a lot of emphasis on student safety or proper form.\n\nThat being said, I've gone to crossfit classes in a couple of different places. Both of them were top notch. One had a gymnast and olympic weight lifter as husband and wife owners, and they were dogmatic about proper form and safety of participants. Another was headed by a police officer, who also taught martial arts in the same gym, and he was also very concerned about participant safety. So YMMV.",
"As a huge fan of both Crossfit as a workout and Crossfit as a sport, I have to agree with what everyone has said, and here's why:\n\nCrossfit, is controversial as an exercise regime because it isn't one; it is first and foremost a brand. Unlike other forms of exercise and sport, to call what you do, \"Crossfit,\" you must pay Crossfit HQ, and THAT'S IT. You don't have to follow their programming, you don't have to use their equipment or coaches, and you don't have to teach good form or care about your clients. All you need is to pay for, and pass, your L1 Certification and you can begin to teach/coach/sell Crossfit. \n\nThis is controversial because there is a huge marketing campaign that promotes Crossfit as being something that can be done by everyone; beginners, pro athletes, your grandma, and even you! But what \"Crossfit\" means at one gym can be markedly different from what it means at another. And when things go sour, people get injured, and coaches destroy clients' aspirations for a healthier life, Crossfit HQ should be held responsible, and yet it's not; the brand is damaged, but the check as already been cashed. \n\nOn a personal note, I love Crossfit because I was lucky to find passionate and talented coaches who care about health, safety, and longevity first. \n\nEdit: As for your wanting to start Crossfit, I would say go for it, but try your damnedest to find a trustworthy gym/box. Friends of mine have found that their beloved personal trainers also coach Crossfit and have transitioned into Crossfit with that coach's trust in hand. ",
"I've been to two Crossfit gyms with friends, and the instructors there will stop people or tell people to use less weight is their form is dangerously off. \n\nMy problem is at my work, we have a very nice gym. The building used to belong to Nautilus, and when they left, they basically gave us a state of the art, huge gym, for free. \n\nThen came these men/women that do Crossfit. They would write their WOD on the mirror and leave them there. I asked one of them why they don't wipe it away, because paper towels and cleaners are in abundance, and she said they leave it to \"challenge others\". I don't see the big guy in the gym write \"Bench 315 lbs or it's not bench\" so I don't understand this mentality.\n\nKeep in mind this gym is not a Crossfit gym. We have medicine balls, but the walls are just drywall, not reinforced where you can throw a 8lb ball at it. Well, they do. When a section of the wall is scuffed up really bad or dented they move on to the next section.\n\nThey also do their jogs inside the gym, where there is no track. They throw dumbbells on the floor after each set - the floor is just carpet and some light rubber mats - so the dumbbells are all loose because the threads are busted.\n\nNow majority of the Crossfit people aren't like this. But the ones that get so excited about it and forget that they share the gym space with others really are off putting. \n\nJust to conclude they no longer workout at the work gym, or at least I haven't seen them. I think the lady responsible for the facility has asked them to not workout there anymore."
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4ynn34 | how does it feel to see with both eyes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ynn34/eli5_how_does_it_feel_to_see_with_both_eyes/ | {
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"My father and elder sister have a similar problem, however; it involves just not being able to watch 3-D movies. They still have eyesight in both eyes. I forget exactly what causes this, but I'm surprised I haven't had this problem. \n\nOne week at a Cub Scout camp I worked at, I decided I wanted to see what it was like to test the theory of using an eye patch to have night vision if suddenly going into a dark area. It severely threw off my perception of where things were and how far away they were, especially. It was quite the challenge, but it was interesting. \n\nI couldn't catch things very easily for the first hour or two, even after that it was sloppy. Some ditches and steps were hard to judge for most of the experience. I definitely lost a good portion of my vision on whichever side I was keeping the eye-patch on. My peripheral was completely shot, so it made it almost a \"tunnel vision\" sort of adventure.\n\nAlso, by no means is having two eyes necessary for having a good life. I've worked with a fellow who had his right eye knocked out in a hockey match when he was 10, and he was a pizza delivery driver. You can do just as much as anyone else. Your attitude is what makes a good life, so don't let anyone knock you for something that you can't control. \n\nLearn how to fight with your eye closed. That'll show those who oppose you. ",
"It's not really that different. Your field of vision is wider, but your eyes automatically combine the images so other than that it's similar. If I close one eye, the image is about 25% narrower but other than that not a huge difference.\n\nDepth perception only works with two eyes, but depth perception is subtle and only makes a big difference in rare cases. You can usually tell how far away things are by the context alone. If depth perception drastically altered an image, movies and photographs would look odd from a two-edged perspective.",
"You may want to read the book *The Mind's Eye* by neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks. In it, he delves into vision problems and this includes people with only one eye and people with no depth perception, plus people with no depth perception who gain it later in life, and what they have to say about the difference. \n\nThe key difference between one eye and 2 is slightly larger field of view which isn't that exciting and you can easily imagine it. And the other is depth perception. That's exciting to some people though boring to others. You can simulate that by moving your head slightly when you look at things to see how far away it is. ",
"I'm nearly blind in both eyes, and wear contacts. However, one day a contact fell out and I got to experience a world through one eye while keeping the other covered to avoid a severe headache. Ultimately, not much was different. Everything looked much the same, though my nose was more prominently visible on my face. \n\nThe main difference was in depth perception. For the entire day, I had to pretty much hold a hand out whenever I was near something so I could touch it to figure out where it was. The other noticeable difference was my field of view. Looking through one eye, you have a wide range of view to one side, but you lose all peripheral vision on the other. This is almost unnoticeable unless sudden movement draws your attention, however. ",
"Having two eyes gives you depth perception because your seeing an object from two slightly different angles, and that difference let's you perceive depth. It's similar to how you have two ears which let's you figure out where sound is coming from based on hearing it from two different locations (either side of your head)",
"I lost vision in my left eye due to an accident in the military. I can tell you that things are not a whole lot different than having both eyes. The human body has an incredible ability to adapt to things. The only thing I have trouble with is depth perception. If you threw a baseball to me I would have a hard time catching it because I can't tell where it is in relation to me. Medical science is making great strides towards fixing vision problems so hopefully you will know yourself what it's like to see with both eyes. Cheers.",
"Check out /r/SplitDepthGIFS/\n\nI remember somebody who could only see in one eye commenting that this was the first time they could really experience depth perception.\n\n[Here's](_URL_0_) a good one."
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3a7qd8 | how do animals that never have any intention of reproducing evolve? | For example, workers in ant or bee colonies | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a7qd8/eli5_how_do_animals_that_never_have_any_intention/ | {
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"When looking at bees and ants you have to look at the queen bee and the male drones.\n\nThe workers are produced by the queen to serve the queen. She evolved a way to produce thousands of minions to further her own evolutionary success. The workers are not part of the genetic lineage, they're disposable resources gatherers."
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3c0o7u | why do we have to wash our hands after we piss? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c0o7u/eli5_why_do_we_have_to_wash_our_hands_after_we/ | {
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"So....you shit on your hands?",
"You need to wash your hands to cut the spread of disease. When you happen to be in a room with a sink, you should use it to wash your hands. It's not the urine that's the problem, it's a relatively sterile liquid.",
"You're touching your cock, which is littered with microbes and dick cheese. And also you will get urine on your hands most of the time, even if you don't see or feel it. It's unhygienic and can even be dangerous depending on were you work.\n\nWash your filthy hands.",
"We really should wash our hands more often, but we tend not to. Washing after we use the bathroom is a bare minimum, even if you don't get your hands as dirty taking a piss as you would picking your nose or licking your fingers."
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2jy0df | why do the same commercials air with alternate endings? | Is there a reason that explains why the same commercials air with different endings, beginnings, or cut parts?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jy0df/eli5_why_do_the_same_commercials_air_with/ | {
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"I think when a commercial is aired with cut parts is that it isn't new anymore and a lot of people have seen it so they cut it so that more commercials can be aired."
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38r8sd | how are fingerprints left behind when, according to the chemistry of molecular bonds, no two surfaces truly touch as the bonds repel one another? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38r8sd/eli5_how_are_fingerprints_left_behind_when/ | {
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"saying that the surfaces don't truly touch is an interesting philosophical observation about the meaning of \"touch\" but doesn't really impact your question. \n\nWhat we call \"touching\" at the macro level is an interaction between atoms that prevents them from occupying the same space at the same time. That this can have effects---like leaving residue---isn't changed by the discovery that \"touching\" doesn't actually involve one physical surface coming directly into \"contact\" with another surface. "
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4wgc5v | sailing into the wind? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wgc5v/eli5_sailing_into_the_wind/ | {
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"You cant sail directly into the wind you have to go at slight angles called tacking and jibing, not sure if that's spelled right. So you basically make zigzags toward where you are going without ever heading right at it.",
"You can't sail directly into the wind, but you can get very close and zig zag in the direction you want to go.\n\nLet's say you are trying to move against the wind.\n\nThe sail uses the Bernoulli Effect to push the boat at directly sideways (a 90 degree angle). Think of it like an airplane wing (same phenomenon).\n\nIf the boat moved freely on the water it would move sideways, but you can point your boat towards the wind at an angle. The sail pushes you sideways into the water, then the water pushes you forward (and a little sideways).\n\n\nWind |\n |\n |\n V\n\nForce from sail ------ > \n\nDirection the boat is pointed.\n /|\n /\n /\n /\n/\n",
"It's called \"Tacking\". You're basically cutting an angle across the wind. You can't go straight into the wind, but you can go across at up to a 45 degree angle, then cut back the other way to make a zig-zag line into the wind. \n\nIt's done by using the force of the wind and the resistance of the water to make the boat \"slip\" between the forces on an angle.",
"You can sail into the wind, 0° against the wind but you will lose all your speed. this is how they put the sails up though. you try to sail around 15-30° against the wind. the wind will be fighting to straighten you up so you will been to be at the helm to keep in course",
"You can't sail directly into the wind. Theres around a 45 degree angle around the direction the wind is coming fromt hat you simply can't get forward movement out of. So if you need to get somewhere upwind, you beat into it.\n\nWhat that mean is you sail dioganally one direction heading upwind but at a skewed angle. Then after a while, you tack, which is to say turning the boat into the wind (where you can't go directly) and then going past so you're sailing skewed in the ither direction. [Here's a diagram on it.](_URL_0_)\n\n[Wikipedia covered this pretty well if you need more information. Check out the sections after Points Of Sail for more details.](_URL_1_)",
"This [diagram](_URL_0_) might help explain things. It shows where your sails should be for different points of sail.",
"I found [this video](_URL_0_) which explains it in a kid-friendly manner without too much technical jargon.",
"You can't actually sail DIRECTLY into the wind - but you can get close.\n\nFirst thing to know is sail boats have a \"keel\" - a flat thing that sticks down into the water vertically so that the boat will only go in two basic directions - forward and backward (not slide side to side). When you sail across the wind (when the wind comes from either the right or left), the idea is to adjust the sails so when the wind hits the sail, it's \"best option\" is to \"squirt out towards the back of the boat\". This pushes the boat forward. The bigger the \"change\" the sail makes the wind do (like, if it hits the sail and has to make a dramatic turn to squirt out the back), the faster the boat goes. When you are going towards the wind, the wind hits the sail, and only changes it's direction \"a little bit\" to squirt out the back, and as such, the boat goes slower.\n\nIn order to \"get to a destination\" that is directly \"up wind\" of where you are, you have to go back and forth across the wind, turning repeatedly, to reach the destination. You make a little progress \"towards the wind\" each time, but travel quite a bit of distance back and forth. Very similar to zig-zagging up a mountain instead of going straight up it.\n\nBut if you point the boat too close to \"directly into the wind\", the wind doesn't \"hit\" the sail at all, it just goes around it on both sides. That's called \"irons\" and you don't move at all (except backwards). \n\nSailing \"close to into the wind\" is pretty inefficient as far as wind speed = boat speed is concerned, but it's by-far the most \"exciting\" sailing because the boat is tipping quite a bit, and the wind \"feels\" stronger.\n\nDownwind sailing (when the wind is coming from behind you, even if a little on the left or right), is a whole different story (and, in fact, you use a whole different set of sails to do it if you want to do it well). So, yep, when you're sailing, it's not uncommon to actually put up and take down different sails depending on the direction you're going.\n\nAlso the physics are far more complex I am sure, and there are lots of different kinds of sail shapes, etc - so I am speaking in the most general of terms for the most generic sail boats. None of this applies to Oracle's new America's Cup racing fleet. :)\n\n_URL_0_",
"The way a sailboat works is it 'bounces' wind off it's sail to the back of the boat push it in the opposite direction (forward). There's a lot you can get out of the wind to push it forward but there's around a 45 degree angle where you can no longer bounce the wind behind you since it's already going into the back of your boat. If you try to bounce the wind into your sail from this angle your boat will just go backwards, so the only way to adjust is to turn 45 degrees and zigzag your way up so that the wind is always slightly to the side of the boat.\n\n[Here's a helpful graph of how you sail](_URL_0_)",
"The explanations of people here are correct on the topic of how to gain ground to windward by tacking through the wind but most are wrong in how the sails generate power. \n\nThey don't catch the wind and change its direction as their sole purpose, this is a bonus effect and in fact most sails force the air upwards to exhaust out of the leech of the sail near the head. \n\n\n\nSails actually work on a pressure imbalance. As the wind reaches the mast, it can go two ways: Past it and through to empty space or get caught by it and move past the sailcloth. This results in low pressure on the leeward side (gone past the mast) and high pressure on the windward side (caught in the sail).\n\nAs pressure likes to balance out the high pressure pushes against the sail trying to reach the low and has the effect of 'sucking' the boat along. Obviously there is some sideways force being applied by the wind but this is cancelled out by the centre of lateral resistance, be it a daggerboard/ centreboard or keel or whatever and turned into forward movement as much as possible.\n\n\n\nTLDR: Sucking not blowing. Same as lift on a wing but on it's side. \n\n\n\n\n\nSource: Raced for over a decade nationally for my county and hold advanced and race coach dinghy sailing qualifications. Been instructing sailing for a long while. "
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ajoups | why is it illegal to record in some stores in the us? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajoups/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_record_in_some_stores/ | {
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"text": [
"As far as I know it's not illegal at all. However it is illegal not to leave private property when asked to. So if it's \"against policy\" and you are asked to leave, it's not the recording that can get you into trouble but the trespassing. "
]
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[]
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2whfrv | first, second, and third-party game developers | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2whfrv/eli5_first_second_and_thirdparty_game_developers/ | {
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"The terms are defined in relation to gaming consoles.\n\nFirst party game developer is the maker of the console (such as Nintendo or Sony), who makes exclusive games for that console.\n\nSecond party developer is a company that signs a contract with the maker of the console, to make exclusive games for that console. For example Game Freak who develop Pokemon for Nintendo.\n\nThird party developers are the rest - companies who buy a license to develop to these consoles.",
"These terms refer to developers of a game for a specific console or platform.\n\nWhen Nintendo makes a game for the Wii or the 3DS, they are a first-party developer. Likewise, when Sony makes a game for the PS4.\n\nSecond-party developers are teams that aren't actually a part of the first-party's company, but are contracted to do business with them exclusively. Second-party developers usually have access to the first-party's development tools. Rare and Bungie used to both be these, for Nintendo and Microsoft respectively.\n\nThird-Party developers are teams that make games without any ties to the company that produces the hardware. Sometimes these developers stick to one platform (Square used to stick to Nintendo exclusively without being a second-party developer, for example), but are generally free to work on whatever platform they wish. Capcom, Konami, any indie developers, would be examples of third-parties.\n"
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bn2az9 | compiler vs translator? | What is the difference? I just know that they both convert a code to machine code | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bn2az9/eli5_compiler_vs_translator/ | {
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"Translator is a group in wich compiler are part, \n\ncompiler compile all the source code to machine code then it's executed\n\nThe interpreter are also part of the translator, the interpreter translate the code from time to time, this mean that they are always active while the program is executed",
"Well, the translator converts the code of the source language to the code of the target language. The compiler converts the code of the source *programming* language to the code of the target *programming* language.\n\nFor example, g++ is a compiler *and* a translator as it converts C++ code to the Assembly code. And _URL_0_ is a translator *but* not a compiler, since the source and target languages are not *programming languages*."
]
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2xeaqn | hume's razor: "if the cause, assigned for any effect, be not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the effect" | I get caught up on the language, could someone explain it in layman's terms? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xeaqn/eli5_humes_razor_if_the_cause_assigned_for_any/ | {
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"There was a large bolt of lightning, and then the power went out in your house. Before saying that the lightning caused the power outage, you have to ask 'Is lightning by itself sufficient to make the power go out, or does something else have to contribute to this? (Like, that the lightning hit the power transformer outside)'",
"It points out that if you can do something without causing a following effect, then the initial action either does not cause the effect in question, or requires additional conditions (necessary but insufficient).",
" > If the cause, assigned for any effect \n\nIf you assign a cause to an effect (let's say smoking causes cancer)\n\n > be not sufficient to produce it\n\nand that cause isn't enough to produce it (if smoking isn't enough to produce cancer)\n\n > we must either reject that cause\n\nWe must either reject that cause (smoking is not a cause for cancer)\n\n > or add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the effect. \n\nor change/amend it so that it matches the effect (smoking twenty packs a day every day will cause cancer eventually). "
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5x2z4l | if bacteria is a living organism, do they sleep? if so what is their sleep cycle. if not, how do they stay awake? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x2z4l/eli5_if_bacteria_is_a_living_organism_do_they/ | {
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"No, bacteria don't sleep. As a rule of thumb, only animals that have brains need to (and are able to) sleep - and bacteria lack any kind of neurological center that could be considered a brain.\n\nThe line gets kind of blurry with insects and other animals that do have a nerve center that could be considered a lower form of a brain. Some kinds of insects are known to rest for part of their day cycle, others do not or have shorter or irregular rest periods. "
]
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||
7y09qi | what's the difference for our legs between sitting on a chair and sitting on a toilet | Why can we sit all day on a chair and don’t have problems getting up but after only 30 min on a toilet our legs feels like we need a rehabilitation | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7y09qi/eli5whats_the_difference_for_our_legs_between/ | {
"a_id": [
"ducjlfw"
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"text": [
"On a toilet you're sitting on a ring. If you're leaning forward, which you probably are on the toilet unless you're just lounging on it, most of your weight is on the front part of that, cutting off circulation to your legs nicely."
]
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3fm61e | why do we eat and breathe through the same tube... it seems a bit 'risky' to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fm61e/eli5_why_do_we_eat_and_breathe_through_the_same/ | {
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"Well we pass waste through our reproductive organs. That is like putting the sewage treatment plant and the Trash Dump, right in the middle of the entertainment district. ",
"The throat is seperated into a few parts so its technically one tube leading into two tubes. The oropharynx is the common area for food and air in the back of your mouth. Theres an organ though called the epiglottis at the back of the oropharynx that closes off the holes to your lungs as you swallow (which is why you can't breathe and swallow at the same time).\n\n Also if you had separate holes, and say you had a cold with a stuffy air hole, you'd die without another hole to get air in with. But with the connected system of a mouth and nose, the mouth becomes a backup. Lastly your nasal secretions and stuff need somewhere to go after they leave your nose and it would suck if they went to your lungs so its important that you can swallow them and kill all the bacteria and grossness with the acid in your stomach. ",
"Evolution doesn't generate flawless creatures, it simply generates ones that are \"good enough\" to survive and reproduce.",
"Evolution is all about the best versions of the first functional design, not the best possible design.",
"When babies are born their larynx is not descended into their throat, allowing them to swallow and breath at the same time. At around 3 months, the larynx descends into the throat (what you see as the Adam's apple) and allows for the complex mouth sounds utilized by human language. If we couldn't choke on our food we also couldn't produce the same range of phonemes we are capable of. ",
"Fish don't need to breath like we do. They have a mouth and gils, so water just circulating wasn't a big deal. When we evolved from fish we never started from scratch so our mouths are in many ways remnants of that system. And since it (for the most part) works, no reason to change it.\n\nSimilar things can be seen. For example the nerve controlling our vocal chords goes from the brain, to the heart, wraps around, and up the neck to the chord. Same thing happens for giraffes!!! The reason is because for fish that path makes sense, but as we evolved the iterative approach was to stretch the nerve.\n\nOther stupid evolutionary things:\n\n- When we're fetuses, we grow body parts that are later cut off and re-absorbed... Because it worked at some point, and through iterative changes we couldn't get a better system. I bet that if we were to start from scratch and program an ideal birthing cycle, we could probably cut down fetal maturity by a month or two (who knows, maybe even more).\n- We have an Appendix which is currently completely useless, and mostly gets infected, but we haven't evolved it away yet.",
"Well, like most animals, we are classified as a *dueterostome.* One of the first features to form in a new embryo is two holes that form in the ball of cells that collapse inward and form a tube throughout the organism. This tube is called the *alimentary canal* and it is exactly what you would call your \"digestive tract.\" \n\nOur aquatic ancestors had the ability to move oxygen inward and carbon dioxide outward via *diffusion* which is really just the process of things moving from higher concentration to lower concentration. Some terrestrial animals--like frogs or salamanders or spiders--have the ability to pass oxygen through their skin, similar to how fish use their gills. \n\nBut a really big problem comes up when you try to scale up the size of the animal and/or have an animal that needs to move around much more than a lazy frog: that is, they simply cannot get enough oxygen to facilitate the energy they need to do all these actions.\n\nThat is where lungs come into play, as they can rapidly move oxygen into our system and remove carbon dioxide just as quickly. This enables us to perform faster and more complex movements that require those higher levels of energy. \n\nNature doesn't generally just start things over from the beginning, so with a natural \"tube\" already running through our bodies, the easiest way to facilitate the high levels of gas movement is to move air through the same tract that has already been established, rather than start a new orifice. Remember, that any orifice in the skin is a weakness for bacteria and viruses to enter, so it's actually a beautiful way to incorporate this requirement.\n\nOne last thing, as you mentioned, most people don't find themselves choking on a regular basis. There are two main reasons for this. The *epiglottis* is like a valve that snaps up and blocks your windpipe (trachea) when you swallow. When you breathe it's relaxed and covers much of the esophagus. Additionally, the esophagus goes straight down into your stomach; like the food is \"falling\" off a cliff. Air also goes down the back of your throat, but curls back toward the front of your body--due to pressure and the epiglottis--and then onward to your lungs. This second curve makes it even harder for food or beverage to end up in your respiratory tract.\n\nI apologize if this is too long. I just wanted to be thorough. I hope this helps explain things!",
"It's *because* it isn't all that bad that we've evolved this way. If having the oesophagus and trachea so close together was killing us off, it probably wouldn't be selected.\n\nEvolution isn't creative, or intelligent. Nothing is saying \"this is a bad idea, let's move away from it\", it's more like trial and error. Small changes survive, or don't. To not have the two tubes so close together, that's a major restructuring, it's not just going to happen. What *might* happen, though, is that the trait of trying to expel blockages through coughing will be selected. "
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1p4j09 | why, when taking a shower, if you hold your breath and let the water hit you in the face, you cannot hold your breath as long as you would be able to if water wasn't hitting your face? | Seriously. I've always wondered this.
Every morning when I take a shower I always let the water hit me in the face for a little bit. But I've noticed that I can't hold my breath as long when it's hitting me in the face. Anyone know why? Or has anyone else noticed this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p4j09/eli5_why_when_taking_a_shower_if_you_hold_your/ | {
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Basically, the body panics because it thinks it's drowning, and it tries to get oxygen to ensure it's own survival.\n\nPut simply, you're waterboarding yourself."
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2wrkpl | why is the northeast of usa covered in snow while parts of europe that seem to be in the same latitude are not? | I might be wrong about this but I thought this (latitude), was a big part in defining weather/temperatures? I live in Prague and while 2 years ago there was a lot of snow, the last 2 winters have been disappointing for me as there was none. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wrkpl/eli5_why_is_the_northeast_of_usa_covered_in_snow/ | {
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"Latitude plays a role in temperature to be sure, but there are a number of other factors that contribute to local climate. Water and wind currents play a huge role. ",
"The Gulf Stream and North Atlantic drift are major ocean currents that drive warm water from the Carribbean to Western Europe. This results in much warmer temperatures than one normally encounters at these latitudes. Also worth noting is that the winter in the NE US ongoing is exceptionally cold and snowy, analogous to the the winter of 2009 in Europe, and that the past few winters in Europe have been exceptionally warm, mostly due to climate change. It is hypothesised that the influx of fresh water from melting Arctic ice could cause the North Atlantic drift to stop, causing a decrease in European temperatures."
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205def | how do artists do song remixes? how do they get samples? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/205def/eli5_how_do_artists_do_song_remixes_how_do_they/ | {
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"Several ways. \n\nSometimes the artist has an \"official\" remix, where they get the song stems from the record label to create a remix. This is usually how known artists go about it. \n\nOther times an unknown producer can just ask the artist to do an unofficial remix, and get the stems that way.\n\nThen there are remix contests where the stems are released. \n\nSometimes artists just release the stems. \n\nAnd then there are bootleg remixes, where you use the mp3 and add your own elements. ",
"Some artists, specially Electronic one's release what they call \"stems\" parts of the original audio track specially for remixing purposes. \nSome other artists rip/extract/isolate vocals, sounds or riffs from the songs. \nOnce the element that can make the song recognizable is obtained, the artists does their own rendition of the song and add these things.\nThis works with mashups as well, but the stems are usually smaller, and instead of rewriting a song, these \"samples\" are mixed to harmonize together. ",
"Depends on the specific sample and the techniques used vary by artist, genre, etc, but here's a brief explanation starting with the most basic aspects with no detail and getting more into the weeds.\n\nFirst, you start with a beat or vocal sample you want to use. You find the original song and if you are lucky the artist has an instrumental version **that is identical or as near identical** to the song with lyrics. The idea is to use the instrumental track, invert the wave (negative-positive) and cancel out the actual song part and leave the vocals. Think of it like how noise cancelling head phones work. This is usually the cleanest method, but is not always an option.\n\nIf there is no instrumental part to use, the artist usually must sample directly from the song and use filters (think EQ) which limit sounds from specific frequencies (high, mid, low). Doing this allows the artist to clean it up to be hopefully usable. \n\nOnce you have the vocal track isolated, its a matter of making a beat, or in some cases using another songs instrumental to make a mashup. In some instances the two will fit well without much adjustment, but keep in mind that simply taking the vocal track from one song and overlaying it on another instrumental is both not very difficult or impressive. The most difficult part of the whole process is finding things that don't normally go together and mixing them to create a new fresh sound. I'm still working to develop this part, as are thousands or really talented artists (if you haven't heard yet I suggest you listen to Pretty Lights for some impressive sample collaging). \n\nTL/DR - Isolate vocal track (various methods exist) combine with background beat (original or borrowed) and tweak until it sounds good. Various sites exists solely to collect samples for use by artists and same for instrumental backgrounds.\n\n[Here is an example of a sample pulled using filters](_URL_1_)\n\n[Here is an example of a sample pulled using wave cancellation](_URL_0_)\n\n\n"
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70dbxn | accusative/nominative case | Currently trying to learn German, but I'm having trouble understanding all the different ways of saying "the" (das, die, der, den). Now, people on discussion forums often talk about "Accusative Case" and "Nominative Case," but I have no idea what their saying and am having trouble understanding it. Could anyone please put it in the *simplest* terms possible? And, if anyone here knows German, could you please explain how it's used in the German language? Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70dbxn/eli5_accusativenominative_case/ | {
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"So, many languages change their nouns depending on what they are used for in a sentence. I speak Ukrainian, we have 7 noun cases, and IIRC, German has 4 so you have it a bit easier (I do not speak german though). Anyways, these are two cases.\n\nThe nominative case is used when talking about the subject of the sentence. The one doing the action. The accusative case is used by the object of the sentence, this is the noun upon which the action is being applied on. Anyways, in these next clauses of this sentence, **I** will bold the *subjects* and **I** will italicize the *objects.* So, some languages like German will change the noun a bit to reflect its use in a sentence.\n\nYou may think this is new to you. It isn't. You have known about this all your english speaking life, just have never noticed it.\n\nEnglish indeed differentiates these noun cases, but unlike other languages, it only does so to pronouns. So, some examples.\n\n**English Nominative Pronouns**\n\nI\n\nYou\n\nHe\n\nShe\n\nIt\n\nWe\n\nThey\n\n**English Accusative Pronouns**\n\nMe\n\nYou\n\nHim\n\nHer\n\nIt\n\nUs\n\nThem\n\nAs far as I am aware, all languages that use them do so in the same way. So if you are having trouble with which to use in german, translate it to english (though you should be a bit careful here because depending on the wording, the verb may require the switching of the object and subject), switch it to pronouns, and you will see how it should be. ",
"Consider the sentence:\n\n > I ate a pizza.\n\nThis sentence has two nouns: \"I\" and \"pizza.\"\n\n\"I\", in this case, is the *subject* of the sentence/verb (the verb being \"ate\"). The *subject* is usually the one that is performing the action.\n\n\"Pizza\", in this case, is the *object* of the verb. It is what is being acted upon by the verb.\n\n\"Nomative case\" refers to the subjects of verbs while \"Accusative case\" refers to their objects.",
"I speak a little German, so I'll try give examples in the language, since the other comments in the thread have the explanation covered pretty well.\n\nIf we take the phrase \"Der Hund\" (the dog) as our base.\nDer in this phrase is in the Nominative case, since we're just talking about a thing, and it's not related to any other thing in the current sentence.\nSimilarly if we say \"Die Frau spielt\" (the woman plays), then Die is also in the Nominative case, since the woman is the subject of the sentence, everything else relates back to her.\n\nThe Accusative case comes into play then when we want to relate another object to our subject. For example \"Ich habe den Hund\" (I have the dog).\nHere the subject is \"Ich\", which is the Nominative case form of I in German, but \"Den\" is not in our list of \"der die das die\" for Nominative case, so we have to look at the context.\nIn this case, we look to see if the subject (Ich) performs an action on the object (Hund), and they do, the person owns the dog, so we know now that the dog needs an Accusative form of \"Der\", which is \"Den\".\n\nFinally, if we take the sentence \"Die Frau hat den Hund\", we can see that \"Die Frau\" is the subject, so she stays in the Nominative case, and again, the dog is belonging to the woman, so we know that the word \"Hund\" should be in the Accusative case.\n\nEdit: fixed the explanation of \"Ich\", as corrected below."
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yqgmn | special relativity and space travel, time dilation and length contraction? | I just watched a video, that said tarvel would one day be possible between Earth and KOI-494.01, an inhabitable planet, 1246 light years from earth, in the video it claims that it is possible for it to be accomplished within a human's life span, but at the same time says it would take 1250 years on Earth and KOI-494.01, citing time dilation and length contraction, needless to say, I'm baffled.
Video can be found here, because I'm sure what I've written is dribble: _URL_0_
Edit: Changed to Youtube link | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yqgmn/eli5_special_relativity_and_space_travel_time/ | {
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"Sorry for the wall of text, but it's a big complicated subject. There's a lot to it, and it's hard to ELI5.\n\nSo, there's this really fundamental rule of the Universe that someone figured out (Einstein IIRC): The speed of light (in a vacuum) is the Universal speed limit. Nothing can go faster than light up there near 300,000,000 meters/second.\n\nNow, have you ever noticed how if you're running, and then you throw something forward, it goes further and faster than if you were just standing? That's because you threw it with the same amount of force, but you also had the momentum from you running with it on top of that. \n\nHere's where it starts to get tricky: So did you ever try running and throwing something, and then staying running? If you threw it as hard as when standing, then it will still land as far from you as if you had thrown it standing. However, to someone who stayed at the point you threw it at, it will have gone further. This is relativity. The ball moved further and faster to the person who wasn't moving than it was to you, because the difference in speed was higher between that person and the ball. The ball's speed relative to the still person was higher than it was relative to you, because you were still running after it.\n\nNow, even trickier: This works for things moving at everyday speeds, but it DOES NOT WORK with light. Let's say you're driving on a train, and it's going fast. You shine a laser out the front of the train. If this was the ball, it would be moving faster relative to the ground than it is moving relative to the train, but this is light. It is moving at exactly the same speed relative to both!\n\nNow, the math for this is pretty complicated, so I'll just explain the results. Remember, you're moving really fast and shooting a laser, but the light is still moving at the same speed relative to the ground and the train, unlike the ball did. Now, speed is a function of time and distance. If the speed isn't changing relative to the ground/train, then the distance and time are. This is the time dilation and length contraction. Here are the simply put rules:\n\n1. As your speed gets closer to the speed of light, time slows down.\n2. As your speed gets closer to the speed of light, distances shrink in the direction that you're moving.\n\nNow, relativity is very important here. If you move super fast, you don't feel time slow down. If someone else not moving at all though were to look at you though, they would see time moving slowly for you on the train. They would also see your train shrink in length as the distance gets shorter. In reverse, if you look out the window, time will be moving fast, and distances will be stretched.\n\nInterestingly, the limit of this is the speed of light, and at this speed these changes reach their extremes. This means that for light, distance and time do not exist. 1 meter and 1 Billion light years are literally the same point. If you could travel at the speed of light, as far as you were aware, you could be anywhere in the universe instantaneously. You wouldn't even see the Universe though, it would be two-dimensional. Looking up, down, left and right you would see everything at once, but there would be no forward or backward.\n\nSo, if you can send a ship towards KOI-494.01 at a really high speed, two things will happen. The people on that ship will age more slowly than us, because time slows down. The distance between the Earth and KOI-494.01 would also shrink down a bit, because distances shrink. Thus, the travelers could live a normal life span, while the rest of us would pass much more time.\n\nNow, this is theoretically sound, but realistically there are some engineering problems. First of all, to really get the drastic difference, you have to be going really fast. At least half the speed of light, closer to 0.8. The amount of energy/fuel required to accelerate things to this speed is ridiculous. More noticeable though, would be the effect of this acceleration. A human can only speed up at certain rates before they pass out, and if you go much past those rates they would die. If you accelerate at a rate that humans could survive, then getting up to 0.8 times the speed of light would take thousands of years. It's like if your car had really slow pickup, and you wanted to go 100 trillion mph. It's possible, but it will take forever to get there. Possible? Sorta. Realistic? No."
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48hzu9 | if the point of learning history is to prevent it from repeating itself, why do schools leave out so much of the bad parts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48hzu9/eli5_if_the_point_of_learning_history_is_to/ | {
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"Well, if the point of history is to prevent it from repeating itself - I don't think anyone is going to 'rediscover the americas'.\n\nFrom that perspective, I disagree with that being the reason history is taught. History, IMO, is taught because it represents why many decisions are made, culturally, politically, etc.\n\nAs for why some things are left out of school - some things are just not meant to be taught to 8 and 9 year olds. In high school, that is a different story, but not little kids. Obviously, it depends on the subject itself...",
"It's not *only* taught to keep from repeating it - there's also a \"where did we come from\" aspect to it, it teaches students about cultural and political trends that extend into the present day, and there's an element of patriotism as well.\n\nThe patriotism part is important for Columbus. The founding and settlement of the Americas was brutal and bloody, which isn't a very patriotic beginning. So instead we censor it for younger kids - it's an intrepid, heroic discovery against all odds.\n\nAnd on top of that, kids don't really need to know about the rape and slavery... they're kids. We don't teach them about the Spanish Inquisition or Hiroshima either, and wars are just \"Oh they fought a scary war, and then they were free!\" "
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3lwr4a | how can a company purchase the rights to a drug that has been around for over 60 years? | [See this story.](_URL_0_) I thought the patent on a drug would expire after something like 5 years, which would allow for generics. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lwr4a/eli5_how_can_a_company_purchase_the_rights_to_a/ | {
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"A patent expires after 20 years. Daraprim isn't protected by a patent; it's protected by a monopoly. It's a drug used for a pretty rare problem, that was previously sold for a pretty low price. There was no incentive for another company to create a competing drug.\n\nIt's like trying to compete with $2 broccoli flavored ice-cream - barely anyone's buying, and the price is already low, so what's the point of investing the time and money? But if the creators of the broccoli ice-cream want to sell their company to someone else, they still can.",
"They just bought the name and it's such a niche drug that no one else makes it. Other folks could make it though, if they wanted to. It's just not a very large market. The company apparently has a history of buying marketing rights to drugs for rare diseases. Ostensibly because they want to do more research into rare diseases and get away with charging more."
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"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/21/ceo-of-company-that-raised-the-price-of-old-pill-hundreds-of-dollars-overnight-calls-journalist-a-moron-for-asking-why/"
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nnxyi | ethernet, tcp/ip, etc. | OK, so here we are, using the internet all the time. I understand the higher level concepts of http requests/responses, but what's happening at the lowest level, the physical level.
Let's I make a network request, a GET request from my browser. I get the whole software side of things but what is my network card doing? What are the ethernet cables doing? How is a packet/frame built up out of thousands/millions of electronic signals? I'm kind of impressed that it works so well (I do understand that it's not perfect and that's what TCP does - ensure that messages are assembled/reassembled completely).
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nnxyi/ethernet_tcpip_etc/ | {
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"At the very basic level, you need two wires to communicate. One wire to transmit information on, and one wire to receive information on. Transmitting information on a wire involves changing the voltage on the wire. The network card on one end changes the voltage, and the network card on the other end notices that the voltage changed. The more quickly you can change the voltage, the faster you can transmit information.\n\nSo, when you issue a GET request from the browser, the request (which is just a set of binary bits) is packaged up in layers of protocol packet information (which is itself just binary data). This \"wrapping\" is necessary for the TCP protocol to work because it includes information like \"this is packet 3 of 8, and it is the 257th packet I've sent you today\". The network card takes this bundle of binary data, and starts flipping the voltage on the transmit wire according to the 1's and 0's of the binary data.\n\nThe network card on the other side of the wire notices these voltage changes, and thus can reassemble the exact pattern of 1's and 0's on the other side. It then unwraps the packet to find out what the message is. In this case, it sees that it is a GET request.\n\nDoes that help?",
"At the very basic level, you need two wires to communicate. One wire to transmit information on, and one wire to receive information on. Transmitting information on a wire involves changing the voltage on the wire. The network card on one end changes the voltage, and the network card on the other end notices that the voltage changed. The more quickly you can change the voltage, the faster you can transmit information.\n\nSo, when you issue a GET request from the browser, the request (which is just a set of binary bits) is packaged up in layers of protocol packet information (which is itself just binary data). This \"wrapping\" is necessary for the TCP protocol to work because it includes information like \"this is packet 3 of 8, and it is the 257th packet I've sent you today\". The network card takes this bundle of binary data, and starts flipping the voltage on the transmit wire according to the 1's and 0's of the binary data.\n\nThe network card on the other side of the wire notices these voltage changes, and thus can reassemble the exact pattern of 1's and 0's on the other side. It then unwraps the packet to find out what the message is. In this case, it sees that it is a GET request.\n\nDoes that help?"
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ajyaw7 | so how do all the clocks synced to phones/computers know what time it is? like which one is in charge? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajyaw7/eli5_so_how_do_all_the_clocks_synced_to/ | {
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"Most big tech companies (Microsoft, Apple, etc.) have their own internet-connected master clocks. Every so often, our phones/laptops/devices will go on the internet, ask the master clock what time it is, and then compare the master time with the time the device had. The device will use this method to try to keep its time as close as possible to the master clock’s.",
"They're synced with either a server or cell phone tower which uses network time coordination protocols that gets synced with coordinated universal time. Coordinated universal time is determined by international atomic time which is the average output of 400 atomic clocks. ",
"in the US, the National Institute of Standards and Technology ([_URL_0_](https://_URL_0_)) , part of the Department of Commerce, is responsible for operating the atomic clocks that track the \"official\" US time.",
"All of our devices are essentially set out in a giant pyramid, so each device references the one above it, all trailing back to a couple of specific master clocks.\n\nSo to take your phone as an example, it will check and adjust its time to match the cell tower it is connected to. At the same time that cell tower will be checking its own time against the hardware that connects together all of the cell towers, and that hardware will be checking its own time against the hardware controlling it... This signal originally comes from a set of atomic master clocks that are incredibly accurate (to around a couple of seconds per million years). \n\nSimilarly your computer will check the time against the server it is connected to, which will check its own time against the servers at the ISP and so on back to the same master clock.\n\nThere are also a couple of systems specifically set up to sync clocks and other devices...\nOne is the radio time broadcasts, these are a set of radio towers around the planet linked directly to the atomic clocks that broadcast a time signal over radio - devices like watches or alarm clocks can be designed to listen to this signal and sync themselves to the accurate time.\nAnother modern alternative is the GPS system - part of how the GPS system works is by using incredibly accurate time signals, so the GPS satellites are kept synced up to the atomic clocks, and GPS devices are then able to sync themselves to this time signal to stay accurate too."
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2x5ag2 | why do us companies dominate the english-language internet? | Is there some reason other English-speaking countries can't/don't/won't produce extremely popular websites? Can anyone even show me an example of a popular English-language website that was created outside the US (barring news companies)?
Edit: for everyone saying that "the US is 2/3 of the English-speaking population" that is *exactly* my question. Why does **[53.3](_URL_0_)%** of the English-speaking population produce **100%** of the most popular English-language websites? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x5ag2/eli5_why_do_us_companies_dominate_the/ | {
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"The United States has about two and a half times the population of the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand combined.",
"The US is one of the most populated English speaking countries, see StupidLemonEater's post. \n\nWe also invented the internet (UK invented the WWW protocols that are on top of the internet). This means we have had it longer and therefore have more influence on its structure and culture. ",
"Addressing the edit: considering the US had the internet for longer, their initial conceptions of, say, a search engine, were sufficient for everyone. The WWW is all about sharing - there is no need for competitors as the internet is accessible to rich people everywhere. I suppose there is also little economic value in starting a webpage with only advertisement sponsorship income. ",
" > Can anyone even show me an example of a popular English-language website that was created outside the US (barring news companies)?\n\nDepending on your definition of 'popular' and whether you also count non-corporate websites: _URL_0_ is hosted in the UK by an English foundation.",
"US has a tech industry (Silicon Valley) and venture capital culture that drives new online innovation. Reddit, for example, was just a few kids in 2006 with Y Combinator (US VC seed fund ) backing, and the hub for most VC funding is Silicon Valley (although there are pockets throughout the states and internationally). This early lead compounds itself where a large majority of top engineering talent is centralized in the Bay Area, and so many new start-ups are in that area to compete for talent, be close to funding, and be a part of the broader community. It's not too dissimilar to other industries being focused in particular cities. \n\nThe other piece of this is that San Francisco tends to use its own backyard (and then successive cities) as a proving ground for new sites, as it's become a culture that's responsive to new technology and early adoption. It's a lot easier for say, Uber or Pandora, to start in SF and grow via word of mouth vs other cities where the footprint isn't as large and vocal. ",
"You're reading [StupidLemonEater's](_URL_1_) numbers wrong, and your [wikipedia link](_URL_0_) is leading you down the wrong path. Read the numbers again:\n\n US (53.3%)\n UK (14%)\n Canada (6.7%)\n Australia (4.2%)\n Nigeria (0.9%)\n\nNow bring to mind that advertising is what pays for the WWW, by in large. Now put yourself in the position of someone who's going to start a new website: are you going to target Australia's 4.2% or the US's 53.3% of people to show relevant ads to make your income? Unless your startup is directly related to giant spider pest services, it's a pretty clear choice.\n\nAdd to that, that everyone in the world knows .com, but that 53.3% isn't sure if .au is Austria or Australia. This especially is a feedback loop.\n\nAnd further, don't forget that American companies aren't necessarily \"American\". As an example: News Corp is \"owned\" by an [Australian](_URL_2_), but it's still an American company.",
" > Can anyone even show me an example of a popular English-language website that was created outside the US (barring news companies)?\n\nOff the top of my head, The Pirate Bay. I'm not sure about the current situtation of watchuseek since its original owner has passed the helm."
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2ltdif | why is the sun orange/red? (like on a bunsen burner, a blue flame is hotter) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ltdif/eli5_why_is_the_sun_orangered_like_on_a_bunsen/ | {
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"The sun is white, as it emits all colors of light at the same time. \n\n_URL_0_",
"The sun emits all wavelengths. In fact, the sun's peak emission is around the green wavelength. However because it is pretty intense in almost all wavelengths, it combines so that the sun appears white.\n\nThe reason the sun appears to have a yellowish/orangish tinge is due to atmospheric scattering of light (same reason why sky is blue). When the sun is lower on the horizon or there are more particulates in the air, the sun will appear redder due to scattering of light. In the first case due to scattering of blue light by air molecules (so that it doesn't reach you), and due to scattering of red/orange light towards you in the 2nd case (scatters different wavelength because air particulates are big compared to molecules of O2 and N2). But if it's high in the sky and the air is relatively clean, it should be white."
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208iol | how do computers keep up with the fast speeds provided by google fiber? | Surely the disk can't record data at 1 gig/ sec right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/208iol/eli5_how_do_computers_keep_up_with_the_fast/ | {
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"Solid state disk drive may be able to keep up with that rate on high-end setups, but RAM (your computer's \"working memory\" as opposed its storage memory) can handle that without a problem. Modern RAM like DDR3 sits in the 80-140 Gbit/sec range and DDR4 can hit over 200 Gbit/sec. ",
"Actually, Google Fiber isn't sending as much information as you think.\n\nData connections are measured in *bits* per second. Memory on things like your hard drive are measured in *bytes*, which are 8 *bits*. \n\nThat means you would need 8 seconds of 1 Giga*bit* per second connection to download one Giga*byte* of information (roughly). \n\nMost SATA III hard drives are capable of handling up to 6 Giga*bits* per second, so they're still more than capable of handling those speeds. ",
"First you have to understand the numbers you are dealing with. The \"1 gig/ sec\" statistic is not a referring to Gigabytes, it is referring to Gigabits.\n\n1 Gbit = 1000 Mbit = 125 Megabytes.\n\nSo at peak, Google fiber advertizes 125 MB/s for both upload and download. That is peak. It will probably not provide that (it is a theoretical max). Also, content providers will likely not be able to provide data that fast. For example, just because you have Google Fiber, does not mean you will be able to download a game on steam at 125 MB/s.\n\nNext, modern hard drives are typically connected in one of two ways. SATA II or SATA III. SATA II has a theoretical max transfer speed of 2.4 Gbit/s or 300 MB/s which is more than double the theoretical max of Google fiber. SATA III is 4.8 Gbit/s or 600 MB/s, almost 5 times the theoretical max of Google fiber.\n\nOn to disk drives. Depending on manufacturer of the HDD, the average read/write speed could be upwards of 120 MB/s. Which is still at the top end of Google Fibers theoretical max. If you are using an SSD, the write speed is typically above 200 MB/s with high end drives reaching 500 MB/s.\n\nRAM should not be an issue.\n\nTL;DR:\nThe theoretical maximum transfer rate of all components in your computer is greater than Google Fiber.",
" > Surely the disk can't record data at 1 gig/ sec right?\n\nThat's 125 Megabytes per second. Not really that fast. Traditional platter hard drives, ya, they're only about 70 MB, good ones can be up around 100. Your GPU can push 150-300 Gigabytes (yes, bytes) per second, your DVI cable, for a regular single link can handle 4 Gigabits per second.\n\nA solid state drive can run in the 500-600 Megabyte per second range, so 4 or 5x faster than Google Fibre. \n\nSo.. theoretically if you're trying to write directly to disk and you're using a regular old 7200 RPM platter drive, ya, google fibre just barely saturates it. But most computers you talk to RAM first (which is easily a couple of hundred x faster than google fibre). \n\nDon't get me wrong, google fibre is fast, and traditional platter drives are slow, even though the interfaces they use can support much higher speeds you only get those out of SSDs'. But there's a lot of stuff inside your computer running way way way way way way faster than google fibre. "
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52zi32 | are there any adverse effect of being in proximity with huge electrical current? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52zi32/eli5_are_there_any_adverse_effect_of_being_in/ | {
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"Well Yes it is very dangerous to be exposed to large amounts of electrical current, but that is not the situation you described. What you described is large amounts of voltage, which isn't dangerous at all. It may be releasing large amounts of electromagnetic waves, but none at frequencies that would be required to cause any health concerns"
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8koyrf | if you put a perfectly spherical object onto a perfectly flat surface would only one atom from the sphere be touching the surface? | I guess this is just theoretical but I was wondering if there's a definitive answer. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8koyrf/eli5_if_you_put_a_perfectly_spherical_object_onto/ | {
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"If an object is made of atoms, then it cannot be perfectly spherical or perfectly flat, only a very close approximation.",
"I mean on one hand yes, but on the other hand if it has an atom as an \"edge\" is it really perfectly spherical?",
"Theoretically they would never touch, as atons never touch. They'd get so close that they'd repel each other.",
"Technically the atoms don't \"touch\" so it would depend on what distance would define touching. Also, at that level the sphere wouldn't be curved, the atoms would be organized into distinct geometric shapes that depend on the material.\n\nInteresting question, though. ",
"This is a question which illustrates how incompatible reality can be with mathematical rigour.\n\nIn mathematics, a perfect sphere sitting on top of a perfectly flat plane would indeed have a single point of intersection. Such a flat plane would be a 'tangent plane' to the sphere.\n\nHowever, in reality, nothing can be 'perfectly spherical' or 'perfectly flat', as both of these properties are defined rigorously by mathematics alone.\n\nA sphere for instance is a mathematical object with very specific rules, e.g.\n\n* Every point on the surface of the sphere is equidistant from it's centre.\n* Every point on the surface of the sphere has the same curvature.\n\nAnd conclusions you can draw from the properties such as:\n\n* The maximum distance between two points on a sphere is achieved when they can be connected by a straight line through the centre of the sphere.\n* The sphere looks exactly the same from any direction.\n\nThese very specific mathematical conditions are too specific to be consistent with the real world.\n\nBut back to the question, if you lived in some imaginary world where objects in that world complied exactly with specific mathematical definitions for flat planes and spheres, then a sphere and plane could intersect at a single point (this would not be an atom as we know it though). In the real world where atoms are a thing and mathematical definitions don't exactly translate, then no.",
"Nah. So \"touching\" is pretty much just an equilibrium of forces, ie: gravity pushing down on your sphere, strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force repelling and attracting etc. These forces have different fall-off rates with distance, and so the forces of many different atoms at your \"contact point\" would be interacting. \n\nThis is also completely ignoring quantum effects that are going to play a part when it comes to defining precise locations and states of the interacting parts of your system.\n\n"
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2qfaya | what the hell is going on with _url_0_?? | If you go to _URL_0_, it is back up, waving the pirate flag, with the old symbol in the background and a huge clock that is counting up. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qfaya/eli5_what_the_hell_is_going_on_with_thepiratebayso/ | {
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"Their servers were raided. The site shows smells signs of life but nothing concrete yet. The timer is a record of how long the site had been down."
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1p4s72 | why conditions in sweatshops haven't made drastic changes even though poor labor practices are pretty well known in the world. | I don't think it's as bad as some people might say, but these "sweatshops" like foxconn are still pretty bad. How are they allowed to make workers work huge amounts of overtime, have the ability to take away all there days off, and sometimes even withhold pay? Why aren't more workers going on strike? You can't fire everyone. The excuse I always hear is that with tougher labor laws you'd get more people who would be put on the streets and wouldn't be able to support their family.
Why isn't the international world doing more about this kind of practice? I don't see how the companies are still allowed to do this even though the practices aren't really a secret.
I just don't get why it hasn't improved given the fact that people think it's such an atrocity. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p4s72/eli5_why_conditions_in_sweatshops_havent_made/ | {
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"Basically because the conditions in sweatshops are better than the alternative for the workers (not working or subsistance farming) and buyers (the companies that buy from the sweatshops) only care if it affects their sales. \n\nYou can fire everyone if there are a hundred times as many employees who are doing something worse (and would like to come work for you). ",
"There's a big difference between knowing and caring. Most people would rather have cheap iPads than see worker's rights improved. And even if you did care, it's practically impossible to boycott these companies and maintain the standard of living that most first worlders are used it (since almost everything is made in overseas sweatshops).",
"With the proliferation of highly subsidized agricultural imports, namely US imports, the market isn't fair for farmers to try and eek out a living growing crops for sale like they had previously been able to do. With life out on the country side being untenable, many people are forced to go into city-centers searching for whatever work they can find. The scale that this is happening creates a flux of cheap, plentiful labor in city centers. When there is plenty of other, ready and willing replacements their job security is essentially negated. \n\nPeople could go on strike, but they would instantly be fired and replaced. In addition, there are tremendous amounts danger placed on union organizers and union employees not just by localized government, but by multinational corporations as well (See charges brought on Coca-Cola and Dole/Chiquita on union murders by hired paramilitaries in Colombia). \n\nThe role that highly developed nations have played in creating and sustaining these conditions is also critical to understand. For more information on this do research on the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in Guatemala, and the Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddegh. ",
" > ow are they allowed to make workers work huge amounts of overtime, have the ability to take away all there days off, and sometimes even withhold pay\n\nYou know how in the US there are people who lobby for an elimination of the minimum wage, and for less environmental and workplace safety laws.\n\nNow imagine your politicians weren't elected but appointed, and could be bought off. Or they were so cheap to buy off that even if there's a new one every 4 years the next guy is bought off just as easily as the first one.\n\nThat's Chinese/Indian/Bangladeshi/Etc politics in a nutshell. \n\n > Why aren't more workers going on strike? You can't fire everyone. \n\nSure you can. There are always more workers in some of these places (at least for now), and particularly in countries with internal border controls, you can pay politicians to take away your former workers ability to even be in the city. \n\n > Why isn't the international world doing more about this kind of practice? \n\nBecause other countries are sovereign and as much as you can exert some pressure - we benefit from this arrangement. Unlike say, someone just randomly murdering millions of their own people for no particular benefit, the western world benefits very much from cheap products. Notably walmart. \n\n > I just don't get why it hasn't improved given the fact that people think it's such an atrocity.\n\nIs has improved. \n\nFor all of the complaining we do about it, things are way better in china and India and Bangladesh than they once were. There's a long way to go, but since 1978 per capita income in both of those countries (and several others) has skyrocketted. It's not perfect by any means, but compared to labour forces that were almost entirely subsistence agriculture they are making tremendous strides. ",
"You shouldn't believe everything you hear! This is mostly lefties propaganda, nothing more. If you are interested to learn more, here is short article...\n\n_URL_0_\n\nand video about the topic..\n\n_URL_2_\n\nYou might also want to watch Johan Norberg's documentary called \"Globalisation is Good\". It makes a case for international trade and also deals with the issue of sweatshops in some detail.\n\n_URL_1_",
"Sweatshops are better than being a drug addicted prostitute."
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx5fzBNO4l4"
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53wxmp | when a game company says that they are working on fixing server issues due to too much traffic, what can they do to resolve the issues other than wait for traffic to die down? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53wxmp/eli5_when_a_game_company_says_that_they_are/ | {
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"There are essentially 3 ways to handle this:\n\nBe more efficient: identify ways that current traffic is bottlenecking (is it authentication? Is it network latency? Is it missing indices on the database or long DB queries?) and fix that problem.\n\nScale up: use more powerful servers or a bigger bandwidth to handle more traffic.\n\nScale out: through a technique known as _sharding_, you can horizontally partition or split users early on in the server traffic so that only a small percentage of users are handled by any one server. Think, for instance, how dictionaries are \"sharded\" into \"a-m\" and \"n-z\", for instance, to handle the issue of book size. You can scale out essentially infinitely (to 1 server per user): dictionaries tend to be 2 books, encyclopedia like 20. The process of resharding actually tends to _increase_ server load for a short time as you migrate data between machines, but after that, each machine handles fewer requests."
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alx6cu | ny’s new abortion law | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/alx6cu/eli5_nys_new_abortion_law/ | {
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"Abortions are legal if one of the follow occur:\n1. The fetus is less than 24 weeks gestation.\n2. The fetus is not viable.\n3. The mother's life or health is at risk.",
"For the most part the law was pretty boiler plate and just restated the Roe v. wade decision in anticipation for its possible overruling. \n\nThe big thing that it did was decriminalize late term abortions, which opened them up to be allowed under certain situations also laid out in the law. The big two are the ability to abort late term if carrying the baby to term would put the mothers life at risk. Or in the more common situation, if the baby is no longer viable. Sometimes babies die in the womb, its tragic and it happens. Previously if this was the case you would have to carry the corpse to term and then have a still birth. Which is super messed up and could be possible dangerous. ",
"What you have probably read is propaganda with a picture of a cute innocent normal baby. This is a lie. \n\nHuman pregnancies are brutal and in some cases, bad things happen. Two of the worst things that can happen is that the fetus develops abnormally and when a pregnancy threatens to kill the woman or premanently disable her. \n\nNot all pregnancies result in normally developed fetuses. Modern medicine can check what's happening and, based on hard science, tell you what is likely to happen. In some cases, the baby that develops will be unable to survive. It may be born without a skull or skin or. It may be born without functioning lungs. It may be born with a number of different conditions that mean it *will* die. In pain. The NY law allows these pregnancies to be terminated. It is more humane in every measure. \n\nIn the other case, some pregnancies pose a threat to the woman. Either the fetus is developing abnormally, the woman is unwell, or something else horribly wrong has happened. An extreme example would be a child rape victim who gets pregnant. Her body literally cannot birth a child without destroying her future or killing her. In another case, a fetus may die but due to when it happens a woman may be forced to carry the dead corpse until term under strict laws, potentially harming her. The NY law protects both the woman and girl. \n\nThe stories you read probably have sensationalist headlines about the law \"killing babies up until their birthday\". This is emotional manipulation and a gross misrepresentation. The law ensures that medically necessary terminations are legally protected for the purpose of reducing suffering to everyone involved. A baby with no hope of survival born lives a short, painful, and cruel existence. A woman or girl crippled or killed over a fetus is unjust and cruel."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
201c9r | why is democracy good when our society is based on specialists? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/201c9r/eli5_why_is_democracy_good_when_our_society_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfyvbcn"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I think one of the most appropriate quotes is \"democracy is the worst system yet devised...except for all the others.\" Democracy may not be perfect, but it's much better than anything else we've tried. Yes, in a democracy, many people will vote selfishly, but that's better than a dictatorship, where ONE guy votes selfishly and gets his way all the time. We may not know who the best person to vote for is, but (hopefully) we know enough to get rid of a bad person, which beats the hell out of a monarchy. Everyone has different things that drive them to vote for a candidate: some people vote straight party line, and others carefully research the background and positions of each person, and a lot of people are in between. So, really, it isn't perfect; we just don't have anything better."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4prww7 | how does cutting a steak 'against' the grain make it more tender? | Just watched a tutorial on steak and he said, cutting against the grain of the steak will produce a more tender bite.
I don't see how that would happen, like at all.
Please explain why that would make the chunk of meat in my mouth more tender... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4prww7/eli5_how_does_cutting_a_steak_against_the_grain/ | {
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"text": [
"By cutting against the grain, we want to cut through the fibers and shorten them, rather than cut in the same direction that they run. This makes it easier to chew through, since a lot of the hard work of breaking up the muscle fibers has already been done for you.\n\n_URL_0_",
"The grain is caused by the steak being made up of fibers - muscle fibers, to be precise. Cutting those fibers (cutting against the grain) is a lot more work than just separating them (cutting with the grain), so when you cut the steak prior to cooking, you cut against the grain to do the hard part first.\n\nThat way, the cooked steak will have shorter fibers, and thus be more tender.",
"Get a load of lengths of string and bundle them up together (or even plait them). If you cut a 'slice' of this bundle perpendicular to the direction of the strings (against the grain) you will end up with many, short strands which can be easily separated (by your teeth when chewing).\n\nIf you cut your bundle parallel to the direction of the strings (with the grain) you will end up with fewer, longer strands. These strands would be harder to separate, or you might neet to cut through them again.\n\nYou could actually do this as an experiment, using a spoon to represent your mouth, how easy is it to get a spoonful of short stands as opposed to longer, interwoven strands?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.thekitchn.com/heres-exactly-how-to-slice-meat-against-the-grain-and-why-you-should-be-doing-it-meat-basics-215798"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
25iar0 | gay marriage. states rights v federal overturn? | While I support equality in marriage, what is the point of the people voting if it's just going to be overruled (which is the trend)? Is this not a violation of states v fed rights somehow? [Idaho overturning today](_URL_0_) prompted my question. Please and thank you. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25iar0/eli5_gay_marriage_states_rights_v_federal_overturn/ | {
"a_id": [
"chhg52x"
],
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"text": [
" > what is the point of the people voting if it's just going to be overruled (which is the trend)?\n\nWell the consitution (the supreme law of the land) doesn't grant the people the right to make ballot initiatives to overrule it.\n\nMany states allow the citizens to pass amendments or ballot initiatives which make this illegal. When these are tested in court it turns out that they are in violation of the constitution, this case according to a district court judge.\n\nI'm not sure what this means \"Is this not a violation of states v fed rights somehow?\" States can have constitutions, but they can't remove rights that the US constitution grants. In the past the right to same sex marriage wasn't interpreted as one of those rights granted by the us constitution. This district court judge (and a few others in different states) have ruled that it does. State constitutions or laws which directly contradict the constitution are always invalid."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/13/idaho-same-sex-marriage-ban/9062101/"
] | [
[]
] |
|
5ibc26 | how does an antihistamine help anxiety? | I have a history of depression and anxiety which I have treated and taken medication for. I was prescribed an antidepressant for a few years but came off earlier this year. I have felt great ever since...
Until recently. I had a panic attack about a month ago (totally out of the blue as I had still been feeling great) which landed me in the emergency room as I thought something was going on with my heart as I was having physical pain.
Anyway, they gave me a prescription for Hydroxyzine to take, as needed, whenever I begin to feel overly anxious. After looking it up, I have found that Hydroxyzine is an antihistamine used primarily for allergies, hives, etc.
TL;DR
So, how does an antihistamine help specifically calm anxiety? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ibc26/eli5_how_does_an_antihistamine_help_anxiety/ | {
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"text": [
"You are right, Hydroxyzine is an antihistamine and does help with treating severe allergies. In addition to being an antihistamine, Hydroxyzine has been shown to be a strong blocker of specific receptors (5-HT, alpha-1) in the brain and this is why it can also be used for anxiety.\n\nOther common antihistamines (Allegra, Claritin) don't have this additional effect and will not be effective in the treatment of anxiety. ",
"In addition to the fact that hydroxyzine has other actions besides just being an antihistamine, you should also consider the fact that \"antihistamine\" doesn't mean it does just one thing.\n\nPretty much *all* receptor types are used for more than one thing.. In much the same way that, for example, Phillips-head screws are used for more than one thing. \n\nHistamine is used for sending messages about potentially foreign substances, which is why antihistamines can treat allergies. But histamine is also used in various sites in the brain for both sleep and appetite regulation, which is why antihistamines (or at least the ones that can cross the blood-brain barrier) also make you sleepy and hungry.\n\nSo it's also possible that part of hydroxyzine's action could come from the fact that it is used in the brain to regulate arousal (here I use 'arousal' in the psychological sense, which has nothing to do with sex, instead it basically means \"amped-up-ness\" in general)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
27m18u | why did humans evolve with such vast differences between individuals' singing abilities? was this ever a part of natural selection in the se way as looks, intelligence or physical capability? | Edit: in the same way... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27m18u/eli5_why_did_humans_evolve_with_such_vast/ | {
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"text": [
"I think it's anatomical. No two people have the same vocal chords. Same goes for our face, finger prints, retina, even our DNA. ",
"Voice can certainly be used to attract a mate, singing is just a natural extension of that.",
"I don't think this has much to do with evolution, singing is for the most part a skill, not a natural ability, and although some anatomic differences might be more beneficial to singing than others, skill still plays a much larger part.",
"The voice is a muscle. If you use it you can make it better. But you also need a good ear, or you will struggle.\n\nI can hit notes now that I couldn't even have prayed on hitting years ago.\n\nSinging voices also mature and change over time and become refined. I can adapt my voice to many styles of singing with practice.",
"Singing is also a relative term. What one culture counts as good singing abilities may not relate to anothers. Consider the throat singing done in Arctic cultures. It's just a skill, rather than an evolutionary function. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3scep4 | i understand how you could get the word mom, but how did we get the word dad? | Mother turns to mom, but how does father turn to dad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3scep4/eli5_i_understand_how_you_could_get_the_word_mom/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwvy48t",
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"text": [
"Most likely evolved from baby babble. Children have an easier time going from \"da\" to \"dad\".",
"Da is a common baby babble phrase in English- it evolved into us saying \"dada\" then \"dad\".\n\nFunnily enough other languages also report \"da\" as being a common blurb uttered by babies."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
9ltrqg | what is the purpose of the 5 dimples on the bottom of a soda bottle? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ltrqg/eli5_what_is_the_purpose_of_the_5_dimples_on_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"e79geez"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"It is a material efficient way to make it possible for a flat bottom so it can stand in a shape that can withstand the pressure.\n\nThe bottle is under pressure from the carbon dioxide in the dink. So if you would try to make it flat like a plastic contain that have no pressure in it the flat bottom would deform and you would have a bulge and it could no longer stand up. \n\nSo you need to shape it in a way so it will not deform. The shape of the bottom is a bit like corrugated iron that is harder to deform then the a flat sheet. So they designed a shape that will not deform to much if it under pressure and use a minimal amount of material.\n\n\nIt is possible to create a flat shape that can withstand the pressure or have a concave shape like a soda can. But you need thicker material or another material like metal that is harder to deform. The top if a soda can be flat is the diameter it small and you use a lot of material in the stiff ring that keep the shape at pressure, but even that metal surface will bulge. The cap on the can is also flat but it is thick and have a small diameter. Even it will bulge viable especially if you shake a bottle.\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1j43gp | the us higher education system (community college, junior college, university, bachelor's degree, undergraduate, etc.) | It's all so confusing to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j43gp/eli5_the_us_higher_education_system_community/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbaw36q",
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"text": [
"*Junior College* and *Community College* are basically the same thing - They are colleges that provide two year degrees called associate degrees\n\n*Bachelor's Degrees* are what you get when you complete your *Undergraduate* program which is a four year program given by a college\n\n*Universities* are a group of colleges that are combined into one university. For example, the University of Washington is a school that includes a College of Arts & Sciences, Michael Foster School of Business, Dan Evans School of Public Affairs, School of Law, School of Pharmacy, etc. Each of these schools gives a different degree for their school but under the umbrella of the university. Typically you are accepted into a university and then for your Junior year you must then be accepted into the specific college you want to enter in the university. ",
"There are regional variations (which help make it confusing!) but generally:\n\n*Institutions*\n\n**Community College/Junior College** - They look like either a massive high school or a small college. The confer Associate's Degrees and offer lots of trade/occupational certificates. The names are used interchangeably in conversation - though there seem to be more institutions that call themselves community college than junior college.\n\n**College/University** - These institutions confer Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate Degrees. Many universities are a collection of multiple dependent colleges, which can sometimes be physically separated in different parts of campus, or they can be intermingled and they function like large departments. In conversation college/university can be used interchangeably, but each institution has specific reasons for choosing to be called a college or a university. \n\n*Degrees*\n\n**Associate's Degree** - This is a degree that is completed in about 2 years. It is technically an under-graduate degree, but most people will refer to it as a junior college degree.\n\n**Bachelor's Degree** - This is a degree that is completed in about 4 years. Some people spend 4 years in pursuit of this degree, others spend 2 years pursuing an associate's degree then another 2 pursuing a bachelor's. This is most-typically called undergraduate study.\n\n**Master's Degree** - This is a degree that is completed in about 2 years following the completion of a bachelor's degree. This is called post-graduate study, because you have to have been graduated from a bachelor's program first.\n\n**Doctorate Degree** - This is a degree that is completed in 4 or more years. A master's degree can sometimes be obtained as an intermediate step toward a Ph.D, but it can also be done following a bachelor's degree. This too is called post-graduate study."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
83k481 | - is alcohol tolerance real? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83k481/eli5_is_alcohol_tolerance_real/ | {
"a_id": [
"dviepls"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"I remember hearing somewhere that it had to do with your brain adapting. Which was why when you got to a certain point your brain would say fuck it and you would be hammered. \nThis article says your liver and genetics also play a role. _URL_0_\nEdit spelling "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://hams.cc/tolerance/"
]
] |
||
b2j7go | how do they make crude oil into plastic? how do they make so many kinds of plastic from one substance? | I'm sure I learned a rudimentary explanation in high school, but every once in a while I start going Insane Clown Posse and just not grasping the concept. Can anyone offer me an ELI5 description that just might stick this time? Thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b2j7go/eli5_how_do_they_make_crude_oil_into_plastic_how/ | {
"a_id": [
"eisxufp",
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"text": [
"1) Crude oil is not one substance. It is a mixture of a ton of different products that need to be extracted through various processes: [_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\n & #x200B;\n\n2) Plastics are extremely versatile and a ton of different processes can be used to get different products from what is technically the same plastic. For example, nylon can be used to make strong hard plastic products using one process, it is also used to make clothing and tons of other things with different properties: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nBasically plastics are made by taking a base chain of hydrocarbons (things with hydrogen and carbon in their make up) and making them form links together. Where those links form change the properties of the end result. We have gotten pretty good at making those links form where we want them to to get what we want.",
"Crude oil is not one substance. It is lots of different substances all mixed together. When it gets to the refinery it gets separated into the different substances. For example petrol, kerosene, diesel, asphalt, etc. And these again can go through different chemical processes that break down the molecules or builds them back up again. Depending on what process you take them through you end up with different substances all together.",
"\"plastic\" is an extremely generic term for what chemists and material scientists call 'polymers'. These are very long-chained hydrocarbons which are built by repeating the same small hydrocarbon over and over and over. \n\n* Polyethylene is built from a long chain of ethylenes\n* Polypropylene is built from a long chain of propylenes\n* Polystyrene is built from a long chain of styrenes\n* (there are many more examples)\n\nCrude oil is an unprocessed mixture of hydrocarbons found in the earth. You can refine the mixture into gasoline (octane and similar compounds) but you can also process it differently to create a lot of smaller hydrocarbons such as ethylene, propylene, styrene, et al. These smaller hydrocarbons are then the inputs of these 'polymerization' reactions which create polymers -- also known as 'plastics'."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/220706/view/nylon-fabric-items-used-in-everyday-life",
"http://www.technologystudent.com/joints/plastic3.html"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
jbq0k | dialectics | I remember being taught it in history a while ago in relationship to marxism/russia. I think i vaguely got the concept but i couldn't figure out what it had to do with Marxism and Russian history. Can anybody help? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jbq0k/eli5_dialectics/ | {
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"text": [
"Dialectics is the practice of holding a discussion where you do not have a vested interest/emotional stake in your \"side\". The point is to get to the root of the matter and giving both sides more insight into the discussion.",
"Dialectics is the practice of holding a discussion where you do not have a vested interest/emotional stake in your \"side\". The point is to get to the root of the matter and giving both sides more insight into the discussion."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
cslhhj | is it the soap or the water's fault when it feels like it's not washing off. why? | When I travel I sometimes get the feeling that the soap is not washing off. Is it the type of soap used in hotels or is it because of the difference in water or is it something else? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cslhhj/eli5_is_it_the_soap_or_the_waters_fault_when_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"exfi3c2",
"exfxbwq"
],
"score": [
20,
2
],
"text": [
"Soft water is most likely the culprit here. If you're not used to or don't have a water softening system (removes minerals) you’ll notice that your skin can continue to feel slippery after the soap has been rinsed off.",
"It’s soft water. Some cities or whole states have softer water than others. Louisiana comes to mind, the ground the water sifts through removes minerals. Others use water softening systems that removes the minerals from the water. Minerals that are left behind are what give you that squeaky clean feeling but can also cause dry skin and hair. Soft water that doesn’t leave those behind is said to be better for your skin. I notice my hair is less frizzy after taking a shower in soft water.\n\n::edited for clarification"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
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