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9kwkp2 | the relationship between a wifi router's signal strength, and the speed/throughput of your connected devices. | For example, if you're subscribed to a 100Gbps internet connection, but your wifi routers' signal strength is just 60%, does it mean your connection can only go as fast as 60Gbps? Overly simplified example, but you get the idea. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9kwkp2/eli5_the_relationship_between_a_wifi_routers/ | {
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"Maybe.\n\nOne of the big factors in throughput is retransmission. To make sure that all the data gets through correctly, the internet protocols resend packets that are lost or damaged in transmission.\n\nWith low signal strength, packets are more likely to be lost or damaged. That means they have to be sent again, after a timeout and error detection. That significantly slows overall throughput.",
"Okay, so, imagine you and a friend are sitting alone in a room. They say \"hello Crow, fine evening isn't it?\" You probably heard them just fine didn't you? Good signal strength.\n\nNow you and your friend go to opposite ends of a gym. He says that again but without saying it any louder (Wi-Fi transmission only has so much output power). Maybe you caught it all but may be you say \"what?\" a couple times first. Took time to get the message didn't it?\n\nNow you two go to a crowded bar and he's 20 feet away and says it. You probably keep saying what a few times before you hear it clearly. This is like having a ton of devices on similar channels on Wi-Fi.",
"First keep in mind that most providers I've dealt with are selling that \"100Gbs\" on the wired side of your connection, not the wireless side. (The routers speed to the internet)\n\nThe wifi side between that router and your devices has gotten a lot better over the years but it will rarely live up to the limit that is sold to you by the provider even when under perfect conditions (latest wifi standards, close proximity to the router, no interference from other signals, no competition from other devices, etc.). \n\nUnder imperfect conditions, packets get dropped and have to be sent again, which means it is slower. \n\nAs an example... I pay for 250Mbps service(TimeWarner/Spectrum); my router (Google WiFi auto-tests daily) generally shows between 220 and 230Mbps actual (wired side); and the device I'm on right now (2 year old Android phone on wifi) currently shows 85Mbps in the Google WiFi app. \n\nIn contrast, my PC connected via an Ethernet cable will get almost 200Mbps.\n\nSo, a lot of words to say... You will likely only get that promised speed under perfect, wired conditions.\n\n[Edit.. I originally wrote Gbps by mistake... Corrected to Mbps... Brain fart]"
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3o2qyg | why has been japan's economy been considered to be troubled for the past 25 years while it has continued to be a prosperous and wealthy country? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o2qyg/eli5_why_has_been_japans_economy_been_considered/ | {
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"Japanese GDP per capita growth has been lower than much of the wealthy world for decades now. In the mid 1980s Japan was as rich as the United States after decades of fast growth but since then, the gap has widened to about 20%\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt's not that Japan is becoming poor. It's still one of the richest nations on Earth. But their recent stagnation definitely means they're poorer than they could've been.",
"The issue with deflation is that people save their money instead of spending it. But the whole function of money is to circulate and generate economic activity, not sit in a bank vault. Unfortunately, attempts to just throw more money at the problem haven't been successful. People just keep saving their money. It's called a [liquidity trap](_URL_0_).\n\nAlso, Japan's population is aging. If there's nothing to compensate, there simply won't be enough young people around to care for the elder people.\n\n[Japan's public debt](_URL_1_) is 226% of their GDP, meaning if everyone spent all their income on paying it back, it would take 2.26 years. The issue with this is that half of the income of the state goes into servicing this debt.",
"This is because economists (and politicians, and media, and most people actually) are obsessed with economic *growth*, above all other socio-economic indicators. They literally have tunnel-vision, and for some reason almost exclusively focus on this one indicator alone. \n\nThe Japanese economy is doing great:\n\n- Japan has an unemployment rate of 3%\n- Japan's GDP per capita is just under $40,000 USD - one of the highest standards of living in the world\n- Japan's income inequality is one of the lowest in the world\n- Japan's national borrowing rate 1.2% (Japan can borrow money on international markets at a 1.2% interest rate - one of the lowest in the world)\n- Japan has an extremely free and open media, a vibrant, transparent democratic system, and good governance institutions\n- Japan leads the world in scientific patents\n- Japanese people are some of the most educated in the world, with Japanese students ranking in the top spots in science, math, engineering, computer science, and more, compared to their peers around the world \n- Japanese are some of the healthiest people in the world, with only 3.5% of its population obese - one of the lowest in the world - and also leads the world in its population's lifespans (highest average in the world).\n\nSo, in fact the Japanese economy is doing fine. This isn't to say Japan is perfect - they have an ageing population which is going to cause them problems very soon; they are very pretty xenophobic as a culture, and generally anti-immigration, the only viable solution to their demographic problem. They have a pretty troubling past and refuse to acknowledge many of the war atrocities they committed. Finally, suicide rates are extremely high, due to the pressure put on young people to conform and succeed.\n\nSo yes, Japan does have problems, but none of these are economic in nature; rather, they are demographic and historical problems for the most part.",
"Nope! Lots of it has been funded by increasing government debt. (debt:GDP was at < 100% in 1995, it was at 230% in 2014)\n\nA certain amount of debt is fine- if your country is growing, you tend to have positive inflation, so the \"real\" amount of your debt decreases over time. Japan isn't growing, and has deflation (which also lowers the amount people spend, because prices will get lower in future)- so the \"real\" amount of its debt is increasing, meaning it has to pay more and more to service that debt. Low growth means lower tax income, meaning borrowing may need to be increased, which increases the amount of tax money the government spends on debt servicing, which leads to more debt etc etc etc.\n\nTL;DR: Japan has been doing \"fine\" by increasing government debt, which is ok to an extent if you're growing. But they're not growing and it's not ok.",
"Have a read of Anne Allison's book, Precarious Japan! Maybe slightly above ELI5 level, but it's fascinating if you're interested in those types of questions!",
"People in Japan save more money instead of spending it. When I got my job my shift was 4 on 4 off (USA) I was warned that with the extra time off I would spend more. This is true, I find more projects to do, hobbies, etc. I have time to spend. In Japan, there is more emphasis on work. They work more hours, take less vacation, have less time to spend. As a result the money doesn't circulate.",
"It's all about growth. Japan's economy has not been growing. Also, there are growing concerns about debt and an aging population. ",
"I believe that Planet Money did a podcast discussing the problem with Japan. They seemed to tie a lot of it to women leaving the workforce when they have a child. Then it went on to point to the lack of daycare in the country along with a state mandated point system on determining whether your child gets into daycare or not. \n\nThe episode if you are interested: \n\n_URL_0_\n",
"But isn't in pretty big debt?",
"You answered your own question. Japan's economy is merely \"chugging along,\" while many of it's contemporaries are overtaking Japan economically.\n\nJapan has been and is a prosperous and wealthy country based on what it has accomplished before the turn of the century, but it's growth has stagnated and that is a bad sign for the previously second largest economic power. If a country's economy has consistently been stagnating for decades, one can certainly determine that the country's economy is troubled.",
"I'll add my 2 cents from discussions with my economics professor in grad school.\n\nThe media often focuses on Japan's government debt. However, the vast majority of this debt is owned domestically by individuals, pension funds, businesses, and government agencies. People forget that there are two sides to debt: a liability side and an asset side. If your country owes money to another country, the liability is in your country and the asset is in the foreign country. This means that money is sucked out of your economy. However when the debt is domestic, the liability AND the asset are both in house and the money stays in your country. Debt is not the only thing being passed on to future generations in Japan - assets are as well. I should also note that public debt is a very cheap way to finance growth and expansion. Debt is not an inherently bad thing. Economies and markets as we know them today would not exist without people who give loans and people who take loans.\n\nNext, economists focus on growth. They are obsessed with it, despite the fact that growth is just one economic indicator. The reason for this is mostly convenience and ease-of-use, but there is also a big (and largely untalked about) philosophical component. It's easy to calculate growth. After you have calculated it, it's easy to compare the growth of one country's economy to another country's economy. Growth is not expressed in USD or Yen, it's expressed as a unitless percentage over time. In other words, economists are just as lazy as the rest of us. The philosophical component is beyond my pay grade. Go ask a Ph.D. in economics. Just because the growth of the Japanese economy slowed down does not mean that Japan is a poor country. It has a GDP per capita that dwarfs China. Like, A LOT. Seriously. Go look it up. It's one of the highest in the world.",
"I spend a lot of time in Japan. The people are happy, its just the economists who are upset lol. Go Japan!\n",
"Japan is just doing great. Its problems are mainly demographic. Socio-economically speaking, they're at the top.",
"Why has been Japan ? Is it just me or does that sound a little funny?",
"I'm not an economist so what little I know is from researching their culture. But what I've read is that part of the 80's bubble that burst was due to over valuing real estate. Japan is a series of islands and very mountainous and very populated so there is a premium on land for agriculture and domestic use and the value of that land was artificially inflated with many of Japan's banks heavily investing not just in real estate but in other trading that was also overvalued. When the market adjusted it was found many of the investments were bad and lost huge chunks of money over night. The Japanese banking industry was corrupt as well and there were few limits on investment and spending and public transparency to the share holders. This left a system open for abuse and without adequate legal protection for the common people or investors. These bad investments in turn led to layoffs, joblessness, and a change in the Japanese work ethic where previously people were pretty much guaranteed work for life by loyally working for a company, these career salarymen (sararimen) were being laid off without warning which the average citizen never saw coming. The investment dollars dried up and people and corporations became very tight with their money, further hurting the economy. \n\nYou have to realize that Japan is only about the size of California, must import much of it's resources from exporting nations, and these imports are heavily taxed and tariff'd to prevent competition with cheap foreign goods. Some of it is cultural like Japanese prefer Japanese rice to any other, and products made in Japan by Japanese companies and even when money is tight many people are willing to pay a premium for this. \n\nThe Japan of the 80's was similar to the US of the 80's in that their economy was transforming from an industrial economy to a services one. Japan does still have a lot of heavy industry but they have to import the raw materials for much of it, build it in Japan, then re-export the finished goods which has less profits than if they could source the components locally and it dumps money into foreign markets that would otherwise have gone to Japanese ones. \n\nAnother cultural problem is that a lot of younger Japanese are disillusioned by the job prospects in Japan. They have watched their parents work themselves to the bone while their pay and job security have continued to erode and they are in no hurry to do the same. So you have this situation where you have these men and women in their late 20's, sometimes into their 30's and 40's who are partially or wholly dependant upon their parents for income. Many of them still live at home, or their parents pay for their apartments. Many of them don't work and stay at home. Japanese society used to poke fun at people who stayed at home as 'do nothings' and it was looked down upon. This is no longer the case though with many people actively deciding to stay at home, not participate, and lead solitary lives playing games, doing hobbies, not working or working very little, and they are not interested in getting jobs and starting families, which leads to the last part of the puzzle. \n\nJapan has a lot of old people and the average age of their people keeps growing because young people are not getting married as much, are not having children, and so you end up with many middle age and old people, and much fewer young people compared to other industrialized nations. Government benefits only work if there are young people to fill the labor pool and pay into the benefit pool to pay for the old people who have already paid and are now retiring. This is un-sustainable so you have cuts to benefits and you end up with many people in their 60's and 70's who have to keep working and can't afford to retire. \n\n",
"This is actually something I can answer. I studied Japanese language, politics, and economic history.\n\nIn the 90's, Japan experienced a super bubble economy. Houses were cheap, wages were high, people were happy. Enter 95/96, the bubble popped and so did everyone's happiness. From that point onwards, Japan's economy has been trying to play catch up ever since. They've been in a recession the whole time and each Prime minister hasnt been able to tackle the problem despite countless promises. Abe Shinzo (current Prime minister) is the first one to implement a new financial plan for Japan. He's called it Abe-nomics. The population has been torn on what to think. Currently the economy has improved very little, but has improved.",
" > considered to be troubled\n\n...\n\n > news about Japan's sputtering economy\n\nNews stories that proclaim \"Troubled!\" sell better than those that mutter \"everything is still going pretty well.\"",
"Why has been your title so hard to read has been?",
"*The answers here are not anywhere near ELI5, here's my try:*\n\n**tl;dr**: Life in Japan was really good once. It is still really good, but not getting better. If things stay like this, everywhere else will get better and Japan will be really bad in comparison.\n\nYou probably heard Japan's \"GDP growth\" is bad. What is GDP growth? Why do people say it's good? A lot of the \"counter\" comments in this thread seem to be saying Japan is fine and GDP growth is a a bad way to think of economies. Are they right?\n\nOne at a time kiddo:\n\n > You probably heard Japan's \"GDP growth\" is bad. What is GDP growth?\n\nPeople make stuff and do stuff, this is called \"production\". \"Gross domestic product\" or GDP is how economists say \"everything that everyone inside a country makes\" -- like, ever? -- \"no, in a given time, which is usually a year\". Sometimes people really mean \"GDP per capita\" which is just the same thing but divided by the number of people in the country. So it's everything made and all work done by the average person, average includes old people and babies so it can seem low. All of these things are measured in money, the value of money changes over time, so it's measured in money from a point in time, such as \"2005 dollars\". [If you plot \"GDP per capita\" of \"some country, let's say the United States\" in 2005 dollars you get a graph](_URL_0_) that goes up \"exponentially\" - every year it doesn't go up by some number, it gets multiplied by some number. \nToday's average US citizen produces ~$46,000 of stuff, and [40 years ago it was about half of that. 1.75% yearly growth is a doubling every 40 years.](_URL_1_) If you had 100% growth that would be a doubling every year. 0% is never doubling.\n\n > Why do people say it's good?\n\nYou produce stuff worth something, you get rid of the stuff you produce but don't want and in exchange get stuff you do want of equal value. These things are called, \"production\" and \"consumption\". If you produce 5% more next year you'll get to consume 5% more if the years are about the same (bad things happen every year, but you also spend money to mitigate bad things, so this also counts as consumption). Most people like consuming more stuff. Remember that nicer stuff is the equivalent of more stuff -- $10 buys me two normal sandwiches, or one *really nice* sandwich. \nWhat if you don't want more stuff? Charitable type? Imagine being able to do twice as much charity. Still pretty good. The only people who don't want growth are people who are happy with, not only how they're doing, but how everyone else is doing. \n*Sidenote:* Some people are against growth because they see bad stuff happening because people are trying to get production to go up faster. These people are not against growth, they're against a bad side effect of a way to produce stuff. This could be pollution, or anything they don't like. If you see these people saying \"stop growth, growth is bad\" they're not smart. If you see them say \"tax the bad thing I don't like and use the taxes to pay to mitigate it\" they're smart, they make people using the bad thing pay more money until it's not a problem anymore, either because nobody does it, or because there is money to pay to fix the bad stuff.\n\n > A lot of the \"counter\" comments in this thread seem to be saying Japan is fine and GDP growth is a a bad way to think of economies. Are they right?\n\nNo, they think that if everything is good and you stop growth that is fine. Imagine if the United Stated did this 40 years ago. We would be living like it's 1975, with the average person producing and consuming $23,000 2005 dollars instead of $46,000. What would life be like? Like life is in Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, Portugal, Greece - all places where you expect life to be worse. \nIf instead 40 years ago the United States did something smart and we had twice as much growth since 1975, we would have doubled production and consumption twice by now and the average person would live as well as they do in Luxembourg - a fancy country with banks in Europe, and Qatar - a fancy country with banks, ships and oil, so it would be cool if we were living like them right now. Some people say \"they're consuming too much, they waste more than we do, we would not want to live like them\" -- these people wouldn't say that we're consuming too much, or that we waste more than people in Slovenia, even though we do.\n\n...\n\nNow that you know all this, [look at the graph again](_URL_0_), it shows \"GDP per capita\" was growing faster in Japan than the US, they were on track to be producing and comsuming more than each of us. Then the line changed direction because of a few things that are hard to ELI5, but they are now producing and consuming less and less every year when compared to the United States, or most developed places. Right now they seem to be doing fine, and it's hard to think of Japan as a \"worse\" place than the United states, but in a few decades they will be overtaken by Slovenia, Portugal, and the rest of the places you think of as \"worse\". It's very slow change that is hard to see. \n\nSome people explain that this is all expected, Japan was catching up really fast before. They did some stuff that made their production grow really fast, but would not let production grow as fast in the future, like having few children. Also having the same consumption in Japan or the United states will seem different, because of \"efficiency\". Imagine if you had to consume a whole house every day because there was a strong earthquake once a day. Your country would need very high GDP per capita for everyone to get a house every day, but your life would not seem as good. Living in cities makes life seem more good on average with the same money. Japan has a lot more city life so that helps. This does not change the fact that they are slipping behind when compared to other developed countries.\n\n^^P.S. ^^I ^^made ^^this ^^as ^^simple ^^as ^^possible ^^using ^^[simplewriter](_URL_2_).",
"This is obviously going to be read by nobody in a thread with 1100+ comments, but it was essentially because Japan's economy hasn't been growing by very much because after they couldn't have rising exports as the main engine of growth (and they didn't want to raise wages and cut working hours etc) they decided to inflate a massive debt bubble and after that burst they've been trying to get things going again growth wise while adapting to the stagnation. It is still a rich country though. \n\nIf you want to check out what this has done to people you should watch ['Japan a story of love and hate'](_URL_0_) a documentary about what it's like for the 'working poor' in Japan (behind those low unemployment numbers), it's not as bad as the working poor in the US but still bad, the guy in it is a cool guy with loads of interesting things to say. \n\nThere is a great book about all the stuff Japan has been going through and how that mirrors what the author thinks is going to be a problem for most of the advanced economies in the future, called ['Japan as number one, lessons for america'](_URL_1_). "
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570fqr | why is the stereotypical parrot voice so different from what real parrots sound like? where did it come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/570fqr/eli5_why_is_the_stereotypical_parrot_voice_so/ | {
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"Movies, probably.\n\nRemember that until fairly recently (fifty years?) the probability that any given person ever saw a real parrot in real life (not counting a budgie or parakeet) were astonishingly small.\n\nSo you get one movie where the director needs to have a parrot say a particular thing on cue. No time to train the parrot and teach it stage discipline. So you get some guy to do his parrot impression.\n\nSo \"Polly want a cracker\" and \"rrawk\" and all that get into public consciousness because of some Disney movie (Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, whatever) and that becomes the go-to standard.\n\nPlus, there was the bird on \"Beretta\" in the seventies. \n\nAnd frankly, having worked in a pet store, the Blue-and-Gold Macaw and the Sulfur Crested Cockatoo do sound very like the stereotype. It's the smarter, smaller birds like the Nape that sound way different, but they weren't good \"statement birds\" for films the way the big and \"exotic seeming\" ones were."
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896ujl | how did people figure out precisely which direction to build a railway in before gps and modern technology? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/896ujl/eli5_how_did_people_figure_out_precisely_which/ | {
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"You'd be surprised how accurate tools like sextants are. They were around for a while before we started building railroads.",
"Usually the railway as build along an existing feature, like a wagon trail or a river. If you know how to get somewhere by foot or horse, you know how to build rails to it.\n\nAlso, you can accurately measure your position on earth to well within a mile with a sextant, an accurate clock, a compass, and an almanac. All of those things would be available to a 19th Century rail builder.\n\nFinally, straight lines were not always a priority. You build rail where you can, and keeping it as level as possible is often more important than keeping it straight. You might come out 50 miles north because that where the gap in the mountains was."
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4hissj | what do people mean by x bit encryption? | On password managers it usually says it uses X amount of bit encryption. What does it mean? and how can bits encrypt your data? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hissj/eli5what_do_people_mean_by_x_bit_encryption/ | {
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"Bit is basically an unit of choice. A bit, simply put, is an answer to a yes/no question. A popular demonstration of this concept, a couple of years back, were websites that would ask you to think of any object at all, ask 20 yes/no questions, that's 20 bits worth of questions, and then guess what was the object you were thinking of.\n\nSo if you have two options, A and B, one of which is correct, you could \"Is A correct\", and if the answer is yes, you know it's A, and if you hear \"no\", then B is correct. So simple choice would be one bit of information.\n\nBut with A, B, C and D as options, one of which is correct, you could ask \"Is it A?\" No, \"Is it B?\" no. \"Is it C? No\" and with 3 questions know that it's D.\n\nBut that's not optimal. You could just ask \"Is it A or B\", and then, ask about only the remaining ones. Which means, 4 options is only 2 bits of information. 8 options is just 3 bits. 1024 options is just 10 bits. And one million options is just 20 bits. That's right, simple 20 questions are enough to identify one million different things.\n\nFor encryption this is pretty simple. Your password is simply presented as bits, questions of yes/no. Your password manager, if it is giving you feedback on passwords you've chosen yourself, is telling you how many bits, or yes/no questions, it thinks it would take to guess that password. Questions like \"Is it a word in English dictionary\" would appear pretty fast, and if your password is on that short list, well, your password is gonna be guessed really soon.\n\nRegarding encryption, it's also a key strength. It gets very technical, but basically, your key acts as, well, a key, and if you follow instructions in the spirit of \"if this bit is \"yes\", then do this, otherwise do that\" operating on your key and the encrypted data, and if your key was correct, then after following all those instructions given by your key, your data is now decrypted and understandable. \n\nLike, a simplified example could be, if you had pictures \"encrypted\", you could do 3-bit key like, \"If bit number 1 is \"yes\", then reverse colors, black turns to white, red turns to blue, green turns to yellow. If bit number 2 is yes, mirror the picture. If bit number 3 is yes, divide the picture from the middle and swap the two halves\"\n\nAs a result, your key would now have \"encrypted\" your picture, and if you knew that 3-bit key, you could then reverse it by doing all that in the opposite direction. Real life cryptography operates on the same principle, but it's more complicated",
"Just like a combination lock, it represents the number of possible choices for the combination, password, or key. Because computers, we express this in base two (\"256 bit encryption\") instead of base ten (\"1.1579209e+77 possible combinations\")."
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dhwd9h | if diseases such as cancer are not contagious, how can the same disease appear in several different organism? | I thought of this today. If cancer is not a contagious disease and if it is based off of cells splitting “wrong” - how can the same disease appear in several different organisms? I mean... how does cancer “know” how to be cancer? why is it that 2 people on completely opposite sites of the world can suddenly get the same disease? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dhwd9h/eli5_if_diseases_such_as_cancer_are_not/ | {
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"Because we all have the same DNA. I mean, there is variance, but 2 different models of a car can drive down different roads and still have engine trouble. Our genes aren't immune to genetic damage.",
"\"Cancer\" isn't just one thing, it is a description of a class of problem. Cells replicating out of control can happen in many different ways and in many different kinds of cells. Even if two people have cancer in the same kind of cell they won't have it in quite the same way, with the specific mutations leading up to it being different.\n\n > why is it that 2 people on completely opposite sites of the world can suddenly get the same disease?\n\n\"Disease\" in a medical context just means an abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, but that isn't due to an external injury. We like to think of diseases being due to something like a virus invading someone's body, and that is one example of a disease, but something like osteoarthritis is also a disease though you don't catch it from other people and it isn't due to an invasive pathogen.\n\nThose two people are getting the \"same disease\" just because we decided to lump together all the kinds of out-of-control cell replication problems under the label of \"cancer\"."
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2r3t2a | why does the top post on the front page seem to appear out of nowhere when all the other posts on the front page stay in roughly the same position? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r3t2a/eli5_why_does_the_top_post_on_the_front_page_seem/ | {
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"its nost as simple as upvotes and downvotes new posts have added weight to them while older ones lose it over time also first few upvotes are worth much more then when its in thousands, this makes it possible for new posts to rise and old ones to leave the front page insted of making new post dont have chance most of the time.",
"Due to the time aspect of the algorithm, a post reaches 1, then slowly will move down (if it follows a similar ratio of up/down votes (likely), as opposed to dropping out of sight if there was a backlash of downvotes on it)\n\nBut a new post would be upvoted at its own ratio which will often be higher than other posts on the front page, and therefore quickly reach the top position since it is newer and has higher upvote ratio than everything else currently on the front page (due to previous high upvote ratio posts are likely ranked lower due to age by this time)"
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4f0p0d | why do popular dishes/foods taste the best when eaten at where they originated from? shouldn't simply following the recipe make a dish as good as the original? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f0p0d/eli5_why_do_popular_dishesfoods_taste_the_best/ | {
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"I think that when a dish is made in its country of origin, the people who make it know it by heart and it's been passed down, possibly from generation to generation. There's also something about authenticity. For instance, when I lived in Arizona, they make something called \"fry bread.\" It's a popular food because of the Native American population there. It is literally as its name implies. It's almost like a flat dough that's lighter than pizza dough but chewy like pita bread, and it's fried, usually in lard.\n\n A roommate's then girlfriend came over once and made fry bread for us, but she didn't have the recipe, she didn't measure, she just \"eyeballed\" everything. Let me tell you that I ate quite a bit of fry bread while I lived there and it was always delicious. But if someone who wasn't Native American tried to make fry bread for me, I'm not sure I'd trust it. Because of the lack of authenticity. I've made a few dishes of Indian origin (like chapati bread, which is sort of like a tortilla) and I'm absolutely confident that even though I am a great cook, someone who grew up cooking that recipe would make it way better.",
"Your taste buds aren't the only thing that gives a food \"taste.\" Other factors such as smell, texture, color, and even what it is served on can affect the experience. In this case, the atmosphere of being in a place is what is improving the taste of your food.",
"A lot of recipes come from stuff that grew locally. So chances are a lot of dishes will taste better because all of the food is local, fresh, and is something that grows natively in the area. ",
"there can be several reasons. For one thing spices can vary a lot depending on where they are from. If a dish is from Italy, and it relies on oregano or basil it might be because those spices from that place in Italy is very good in that dish. I was watching Iron Chef one time and the chef was complaining that he had to adjust the salt in his dish cause the spices they gave him were not as good as the usual one so he had to add more salt or something. So for one thing: spices can vary a lot by region and by the time of year. \n\nAnother example is bagels. Bagels from New York are famous but theycan be made anywhere. some people think those from New YOrk are the best because of the water. The water in New York city is very good, right out of the pipe it comes from fresh from the Catskills. Also to me it tastes \"hard' it has a lot of minerals in it, so perhaps this helps the bagels. So again local conditions having to do with minerals/water. \n\nThere might be other reasons but local conditions can certainly affect how spices and such taste. ",
"Food, being made from living organisms, is very variable. Tiny variations can make pretty big variations in flavor. For example, the tomatoes they use in Italian pizzas are usually San Marzanos, a variety that hasn't really achieved commercial growing success in the US. A roma tomato is fairly similar, but still distinctly different. Then there's some things you just can't get fresh - galangal, a relative of ginger root, is used a ton in Thai cooking, but you can at best find the dried version in the states typically.\n\nAdd up 5 or 6 little replacements, add up the difficulty getting good, ripe variants of things (go to Hawaii and try a fresh mango or pineapple that's in-season), and suddenly you have ingredients with a completely different flavor profile. Then there are variants in cooking materials/implements, and of course health codes (both legal and social). An unpasteurized egg, raw milk, maggot cheese, raw foods of all sorts, all these things tend to be frowned on more in Western cultures than in others, as an example.\n\nAnd these are just the unavoidable changes, there's also plenty done deliberately to be more palatable to the culture you're in. If you own a restaurant, sure, you may want to attract the 10 people in your midwestern town who want an authentic Thai experience, like they had when they visited Thailand. But you'd much rather attract the 10,000 people who have never eaten spicy food in their life, and so you bring the spice level down to \"tolerable to white people\" levels. Or even just replacing lard with vegetable oil to appeal to the health-nut crowd.\n\nAdd up all these things that are just gonna be different, and it suddenly becomes very hard to get some good Mexican food in Alabama, even if you have an excellent Mexican cook with his grandma's recipes, special ordering whatever he can straight from Mexico."
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7lphla | who was henrietta lacks and why are her hela cells so important? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7lphla/eli5_who_was_henrietta_lacks_and_why_are_her_hela/ | {
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"She was a Black woman who got cancer and had a tumor biopsied in the 1950s. Her doctor decided to use the biopsied cells for research without her consent. This is, of course, fucking terrible, but it was normal at the time. I'd like to imagine that we've all grown a lot since then.\n\nAnyway, it's easier to order an existing cell culture than to find someone with a tumor that's being biopsied around the time you need to do your research. It also makes results more reproducible: you can tell someone else that this treatment kills HeLa cancer cells but has no effect on some other, non-cancerous cell culture, for instance.\n\nThey're also used when you just need human cells rather than cancer cells in particular. They're cancerous, which means their behavior doesn't precisely match healthy human cells, but on the plus side, they don't stop reproducing. That means the same line of cells can be used for centuries.",
"The problem with cancer cells is that, among other things, they don't undergo programmed cell death. All of the cells in your body have genes in them coding for when they should die, so they can make room for new cells. Cancerous cells have a mutation or damage to those genes, so they don't die when they're supposed to. Even so, cancer cells still eventually wear out and die.\n\nHenrietta Lacks' cancerous tissue didn't. The cells just kept dividing and growing when isolated in the lab. That tissue is, essentially, immortal. Samples from that original tissue are *still* alive and in use today.\n\nThe immortal tissues allow scientists to study all kinds of things that normally require a human patient (or close enough animal substitute) because they need to study the long-term effects of something on cell growth - something you can't do with a normal tissue sample because the cells will most likely die after dividing around 40 times regardless. It also gives you a perfect control sample, since you know your control will be genetically identical to the sample being tested.\n\nThe tissue was taken without Henrietta Lacks' consent, which at the time was not unusual. And not only because she was a black woman, but because informed consent wasn't really a concept anyone used then.\n\n[Relevant SciShow](_URL_0_)"
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14j0dy | why can a console run exclusive games better than an emulator with better specs? | For example; Wind Waker on a Dolphin Emulator with specs that definitely exceed a GameCube, yet runs perfectly on the GameCube. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14j0dy/why_can_a_console_run_exclusive_games_better_than/ | {
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"Running the game from the console its made for gives the advantage for that console, with an emulator, you have to try and make your computer seem like the exact console, which is very hard",
"Because the emulator isn't just running the game directly, the emulator is running a simulation of the Gamecube's hardware which is *then* running the game.",
"Lets say someone tried to teach you how to understand Japanese by giving you a book with all the rules of the Japanese language and all the words. Every time you needed to understand something in Japanese you would have to look up in that book and determine what it means in your own language. It would take you a lot longer to understand a simple Japanese sentence than it would be if it were said to you in your own language. \n \nAn emulator for a computer is like that book. The Gamecube has a different processor than your PC and so it needs a translator (the emulator) to translate the Gamecube games into a language your computer understands. There is a lot of overhead processing your computer has to do to understand the Gamecube programing so it takes a lot more effort for it to emulate a Gamecube game; the same way it would take you a lot longer to understand Japanese by having to look it up in that book. This is why it takes a significantly more powerful computer to emulate something technologically weaker in specs.",
"Because the games were designed for that console, but the emulator is a console designed for the games."
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e2tr2l | how the hell did everyone in the world come into agreeable about what time it is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e2tr2l/eli5_how_the_hell_did_everyone_in_the_world_come/ | {
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"We didn't. Before rail, everyone ran on local time. It was only after the railroad that people needed to synchonize and get proper schedules.",
"At first we didn’t. The time was given by clocks either at a church or at a town hall, but it cold duffer between towns. \nWhen trains arrived, they carried chronometers on board, so the hour among each country became the same, each train station having the “universal” time. \nThen with the telegraph, then the telephone, and finally with the internet, synchronization became easier and more and more places had the exact time. \nSomeone might want to use more details I don’t have time to write more rn",
"In addition, GMT (or Greenwich Mean Time) which is more commonly called UTC (Universal Time Co-ordinated) is an artefact from when the British Navy was top dog. The French refused to use it for a long time until they were bullied into accepting it. It's a similar story that the common World map view you grew up with puts Europe in prime position, and London at the centre.\n\nEdited for clarity.",
"Colonialism spread the system of 24 hourse, 60 minutes, 60 seconds widely, and the ones who were outside felt left out, and accepted it as well.\n\nOnce colonialism (mostly) died, the system remained.\n\nOnce rail and telecomunnications arrived, syncing it up exactly was necessary.",
"Here’s a 15 minute YouTube video about the history of. time zones you might find interesting:\n\n_URL_0_",
"When your empire span to half of the world; when the sun never sets, you can call your capital the center of the world.... GMT+0; 12 timezones forward and 12 back...",
"Actually the minutes are not the same either. There are time zones that are half hour and 45 minute offsets. Like parts of Canada is UTC-3:30. Nepal is UTC+5:45.",
" > How did we communicate this around the world? Before technology?\n\nDo sundials count as technology?",
"There really hasn't been an agreement about it at all.\nIt just kind of happened. Our 24 hour day schedule comes from the Egyptians and Babylonians and was taken over by the Romans and later all of Europe. Why? Because it was there, changing it would take time and effort and wouldn't really change anything, so why would you?. The only reason such a thing would change is because some ruler would want it, like what happened to the calendar.\n\nNext consider that a large part of the world used to be owned by European countries, which made them basically in charge of the world, resulted the remaining countries to comply out of convenience.\n\nThe timezones are an invention by the British to keep time in the kingdom and to make sure that every train station would run at the same time. That's where GMT comes from. \n\nAs this partitioning is as good as any, it remains. For a country it doesn't really matter at all, you can choose your own standard time and you can count back to this partitioning. Looking at the map it is obvious that these time regions are followed poorly. However, straying to far from your time region will result in unusual times for the sun to rise and set, so that is something to consider.",
"Local time is a thing but a lot of the time math will kinda check out. There's four seasons you can simplify down to roughly equal portions for a lot of the world, and the rotation between them will obviously rough out to a year give or take a year. The ancient egyptians had a 365 day calendar with 30 day months and five extra days designated for other purposes and most solar calendars will rough out to the same because the sun rising and falling is kind of consistent. Lunar calendars tend to be a bit shorter since they use shorter months but that's still under two weeks even for a purely lunar calendar, since Lunar calendars can also be common. However most civilizations that use lunar also developed solar so figuring out what day it was was pretty easy wherever you went, provided the people there thought about it and did the math themselves. They might have their own local preferences but they'd at least know what you were on about.\n\n*Most* clocks are divisible by three, and most of those divisible by six. You can have a morning, noon, and evening and equivalent for night time. As a result in most cases figuring out local time is just an issue of dividing or multiplying. The Ancient Chinese attempted to use a 100 interval system but moved to a 12 and 24 hour system without much in the way of external interferance. 100 intervals is kind of a lot to keep track of you have to remember that the ancient Chinese were anal retentive about measurements and precision. They had water and candle clocks that could go without sunlight to a reasonable degree of certainty and besides that used gears and cogs to build clocks and compasses long before they changed to a system closer to what we'd understand.\n\nObviously this isn't a universal thing but for most people in most places a 365ish day with a number divisible by 24 was just what worked naturally. Minutes obviously came a lot later since you need to be really precise and need a fairly strict schedule to measure minutes with any regularity. You don't see minutes referenced until nearly the renaissance period in europe. But by that point scholars in places like persia could calculate exactly how many days a year was down to the 11th decimal place so the idea of precision timekeeping and the Chinese were making those precision geared clocks so a lot of people got interested in these concepts around the world over a span of probably a not too long, from between 1079 in Persia to 1235 for the first verified reference to minutes and seconds in Paris.\n\nThis actually makes sense because all of these places didn't just have advancing ideas, but a *need* for them. If you're going to run a vast trade empire you need to know where you're going, how long it takes, and how you're going to get there. Increasingly sophisticated methods of keeping track of these things become a matter of course.",
"Coincidentally I watched a video on this a few days ago by Johnny Harris:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Train tables. As train companies had to write what time trains would arrive, they slowly standardized and reset clocks across towns, to make it more accurate and more easily manageable.",
" > U.S. and Canadian railroads implemented a version proposed by William F. Allen, the editor of the Traveler's Official Railway Guide.[6] The borders of its time zones ran through railroad stations, often in major cities. For example, the border between its Eastern and Central time zones ran through Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Charleston. It was inaugurated on Sunday, November 18, 1883, also called \"The Day of Two Noons\", when each railroad station clock was reset as standard-time noon was reached within each time zone. (Wikipedia)\n\nOne guy made it his mission to clarify the time tables for the railways. There were a few people working on making it happen, and this guy was the one that got everyone to agree.\n\nThere's an amazing show called [How We Got To Now](_URL_0_). Episode 2 is about time, its history, and the impact of its regulation.\n\nHonestly, it's freaking amazing, and it's on Amazon prime video right now. I highly suggest the whole series.",
"Trains.\n\nCoordinating train stations requires those stations to be on the same time, and everyone used those for reference.",
"The theory of why this should be done was around long before it was widely adopted.\n\nTrain travel and faster ship travel made it necessary. People wanted to know what time it was going to be when they arrived at their destination. Businesses had to know when their cargo was arriving so they could pick it up.\n\nBasically, it happened when the demand picked up.",
"Follow up question, how did we all agree on a date and year?",
"Not far from where I live, in Winchester UK, on the side of the Town Hall, there is a plaque explaining that most towns had their own time, based on local Noon. The most important time was Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) . Winchester's noon would be around 12:03 GMT, Bristol Mean Time was 12:09 GMT etc. \n\nIt was only with the advent of the railways that standardisation of time became an issue. The various train companies adopted GMT as standard - known as \"Railway time\" - this became adopted throughout the country by the 1850s \n\nBefore GMT became the standard throughout the UK it was still vital because all calculations of Longitude were based on the prime meridian of 0 degrees at Greenwich. From around the 1760s it was vital for ships in harbour to be able to accurately set their clocks. To allow the time at the observatory to be conveyed to the Naval base at Portsmouth (around 70 miles away) a series of semaphore towers was built. Each tower would have one signal arm raised, ready to drop. At each tower the observer would be watching, through a telescope for the signal from the preceding tower before dropping their own signal arm. In this way the signal could travel the distance in less than 5 seconds.",
"Especially the Americans, how did they get on board? They won't use the metric system or Celsius...",
"Long story short:\n\n\"Hip hip cheerio, by god man, why are you napping at noon by the Queen's time?\"\n\n\"Qe?\"\n\n\"Did I jolly right fucking stutter?\"",
"Railroads. Its infuriating to get places and nothing works. They really forced the creation of standardized times. You'll notice that some places with little trade and business, like North Korea or Arizona, don't follow everyone else's conventions.",
"As has already been explained earlier, the minutes part was synchronized only after railroad timetables required standardized time instead of local time.\n\nWhat I will add, though, is that before the 19th century, there was little need to be more precise in time signals than \"shortly after dawn,\" \"mid-morning,\" \"noon,\" etc. Precise coordination of time wasn't important before factories required a whole bunch of people to show up at the same time, and even then, they had bells and whistles to alert workers that the shift would begin soon.\n\nThe major exception in Europe was medieval monks, who had to keep the canonical hours—prayer once in the middle of the night and seven times during the day. The earliest mechanical timepieces were designed to keep those hours. *The History of the Hour*, by Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum, gives a fascinating account of how the modern mechanical clock developed out of such needs, and came to replace the multiple time signals of medieval European cities (mostly church bells).",
"We didn't agree for a long time. Historically, church bells or the town clock was the official time and was set to Local Noon--meaning the clock reads 12:00 when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky. This means clocks didn't sync up. A town 250 miles to the west would have a clock about three minutes slower. In the US and Canada, it was the railroads that introduced Standard Time to avoid accidents and simplify schedules. Most people didn't have a watch, so changing the town clock was enough to change what the time was."
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24n6ag | why do competitive eaters take a lot of water with each bite? | Every time you see MvF or other competitive eating, they're always chugging down the water too. Doesn't this fill them up even faster? (or make them at least feel bloated?) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24n6ag/eli5_why_do_competitive_eaters_take_a_lot_of/ | {
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"Water softens the food and breaks it up, meaning less chewing is needed to break the food into small enough pieces to swallow. The goal of competitive eating isn't endurance, it's speed, so filling up fast is not as much of a concern because it takes a while for your stomach to tell your brain that you're full."
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1ojx7y | the raspberry pi | Hey everyone!
I'm just now learning about the revelation to the tech world that is the Raspberry Pi. Can someone give me a breakdown of how this little powerhouse works? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ojx7y/the_raspberry_pi/ | {
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"It's simply a computer stripped back to its bare minimum components.\n\nAll a (modern) computer requires is:\n\n* a CPU\n* some RAM\n* some ways to interact with the wider world\n\nThe Pi has a Broadcom system-on-chip integrated circuit at its heart, which provdes the first two items (it's an ARM CPU combined with 256MB or 512MB of memory). Pretty much all the rest of the board is taken up with the third part -- it has circuitry and controllers for USB, ethernet, video output, the generic GPIO which allows the Pi to talk to all kinds of home-built hardware devices, and an SD card reader/writer so that an operating system can be run.",
"It is a very, very cheap computer. It is not very fast compared to most desktop computers today. But it is faster than the computers that most programmers today grew up using! So it is plenty fast for learning to program, or just messing around.\n\nFor a cheap computer, it has pretty good video. So you can play movies on it. You can also write and play video games on it.\n\nIt runs GNU/Linux — the same OS that runs Wikipedia, Google, Yahoo, and other major Internet sites. So you can run small web sites, file servers, or other services on it. Most of the programming languages that you can use on any Linux system (like C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Go, Java, Lisp, ...) you can use on the Pi.\n\nIt has GPIO (general-purpose input-output) pins. This means that you can run electronic devices from it, and control them with programs you write. People have made robots using it, for instance."
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26tctz | why is my amount applied to the principal so low if my interest is only 4.75% and why is the amount applied to the interest varying so much? | [Here](_URL_0_) is my payments with Salle Mae for student loans. My current balance is $15,593.70. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26tctz/eli5_why_is_my_amount_applied_to_the_principal_so/ | {
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"Usually with a loan like this the bank (or Salle Mae in this case) has a vested interest in ensuring that they collect the money they are owed for providing you with the loan (the interest - basically the fee you are paying them to provide you with the money up front). This means that at the beginning, you will be paying a larger percentage of your payment as interest, and as the interest portion owed grows smaller, the amount applied to your principle will get bigger. The loan has been calculated with a specific amortization period (**meaning the amount of time it will take you to pay back the loan**), and thus your current interest payments are based on you taking the full amount of time to pay off the loan (which means the total interest you pay is going to be a very big number, in the thousands of dollars).\n\nAs for why the interest payments fluctuate, your payments are irregularly spaced, some are two weeks apart and some are almost two months apart. The amount of interest you pay on a monthly basis is fairly fixed, yours appears to be just over $100 per month (it slowly decreases, but this is over the course of years, a little bit at a time). That means if you make two payments in one month, one of them is going to pay the interest that is due for the month, and the other one will have a larger portion devoted to the principle. If you miss a month, then you will have to make up for the previous months missed interest payment, and the amount devoted to your principle will be smaller.\n\nYour most recent payment is a big one. This will make a big difference on the the total amount of interest owed in the end, and you can expect a slight shift in the amount of money paid to principle vs. interest in payments that follow.\n\nThis is why it really pays off to make extra payments when you have a loan like this. The amount of interest you pay monthly is based on the full amount of interest you pay over the course of the loan, so if you pay that interest for the month, any extra payment for that period goes straight to your principle . As a result the total amount of interest you will pay over the course of the loan is reduced as well (because the loan is effectively smaller, in a shorter period of time than was initially calculated), meaning your interest payments will shrink, and your principle payments will grow."
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uchcr | what is the difference between the duties of the european council, the council of ministers, the european commission, and the european parliament? | political infrastructure is confuse. just wanted a layman's gist/interpretation as well as reputations of these institutions. thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uchcr/what_is_the_difference_between_the_duties_of_the/ | {
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"The European council is all of the leaders from each member country meeting up to discuss very important things. The council of Ministers is kind of a different version of the same thing - if a decision about for example environmental policy has to be made then all the environment ministers from each member country meet to discuss it. There isn't really one council of ministers but whoever is relevant goes. The commission is made up of appointed people, it used to be one from each member state but I think it changed and I can't remember now. These are the people who actually make the policies that the councils (and parliament) agree on. They are like heads of departments with European versions of civil servants helping them. The European parliament is the only directly elected part of the EU, an it doesn't really have much power. They have some say on whether policies are approved and have to agree to who is suggested to become commissioners. \nI hope this is right and had enough detail. I'm from the UK so my explanation might not be clear if you aren't, I can't tell! I tried to make it general though."
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230j86 | whats the difference between stemcells and normal cells | and why do we have such "problems" with them ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/230j86/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_stemcells_and/ | {
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"A normal cell has a predetermined cell type assigned to it from the start. A stem cell has no such assignment yet, and therefore it can be pushed to become heart tissue, lung tissue, kidney tissue, etc. Stem cells are vital to our research into growing new organs, limbs, etc. for people who need them. However, the best known way to obtain stem cells is from human embryos, which is hotly contested by pro-life individuals. Fortunately, we're working on finding new ways to harvest them, such as from the discarded umbilical cord of a new born baby. "
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32c5ev | how does reddit, inc. work? does the founders still own certain amount of shares? can they fire the ceo? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32c5ev/eli5_how_does_reddit_inc_work_does_the_founders/ | {
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"Reddit Inc. has a small board of directors, Alexis Ohanian and Samuel Altman are listed by _URL_0_.\n\nThese directors would have the ability to hire or fire the CEO, Ellen Pao.\n\nReddit Inc. has a few dozen shareholders, one of whom is Snoop Dogg.\n\nWhat do you mean by the CEO's position?"
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2g1x97 | why do i wake up right before loud noises in the middle of the night, such as thunder. | I woke up last night literally 5 seconds before a very loud crack of thunder, and really thought about it today. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g1x97/eli5_why_do_i_wake_up_right_before_loud_noises_in/ | {
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"Perhaps the flash of lightning woke you up, before the thunder hit?\n\nThere's nothing that would allow you to preemptively sense sound or light while unconscious.",
"Possibly a rumble of thunder woke you, then you heard another whilst conscious.\n\nOr like Moskau said, the flash of lightning woke you.",
"Probably because a lot of loud noises are followed by other loud noises. Thunder isn't a split second of a sound. You were probably woken up by the initial sound and then heard the follow up."
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1mbyv8 | why don't nocturnal animals feast on sleeping animals instead of hunting for other nocturnals? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mbyv8/why_dont_nocturnal_animals_feast_on_sleeping/ | {
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"They certainly will if they happen to find a sleeping animal, but when finding a place to sleep, animals tend to find cozy hiding places, so they're far from the ideal bait, because they have to be actively searched for.\n\nOther nocturnal animals, on the other hand, are actively moving around and giving themselves away, making them much easier to find.",
"Imagine a sleeping rabbit tucked safely underground, with a well-hidden entrance and no sign of it. Now imagine a raccoon running in front of you. Would you try to find the rabbit before it wakes, or would you go after the raccoon?"
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1fjzdr | circlejerking and/or the /r/circlejerk subreddit | Is it meant to be humorous? Because it just seems to random to be funny. What's the point of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fjzdr/eli5_circlejerking_andor_the_rcirclejerk_subreddit/ | {
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"People with too much time on the internet. \n\nSee: Trolling, why is this funny?",
"A circlejerk is a self-congratulatory culture, where people keep recycling the same popular ideas and praising each other over them. For example, Reddit's love of Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, etc. /r/circlejerk mocks these trends on Reddit by playing up versions that are exaggerated or boiled down into direct statements.",
"A real circlejerk is a group of people masturbating together. They pleasure themselves over the same thing, together, sharing the moment.\n\nNow what a circlejerk is on Reddit is when a group of people obsess over something and keep talking about how great it is. Reddit does this a lot with things the hivemind likes. Atheism, breaking bad, Emma Watson, Neil degrasse Tyson, cats, weed, Obama, to name a few.\n\nIn /r/atheism, Redditors talk about how stupid religion is and how smart they are continually. This is why people call it a circlejerk.\n\nNow /r/circlejerk is a parody of Reddit. You pretend to be a stereotypical Redditor, a cat loving, athiest, weed smoking, democrat liberal (and other traits). You make exaggerated parodies of Reddit posts. You talk about how awesome the things you like are. You use overused phrases such as \"this.\", \"MIND=BLOWN\", and \"watch out we got a badass here\". You pretend that Redditors are the greatest people on the planet. Jerk away. Together.",
"/r/circlejerk is a subreddit that makes fun of the rest of Reddit. "
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3rdix1 | heliosheath/heliopause and how a sun so small creates a massive shockwave in empty space so far out of the solar system | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rdix1/eli5_heliosheathheliopause_and_how_a_sun_so_small/ | {
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"The sun is constantly pumping out quite a lot of matter in the form of solar winds. It isn't very dense, that whole stat of 1 atom of hydrogen per square meter thing. But it's all moving away from the sun, all the time and as it does so, it spreads out more and more becoming 'less dense'.\n\nFar enough away from the sun you get to an area where dust/matter is floating around having been long ago ejected from their respective stars. This environment is effectively static in the same way that a pool of water is static. From a large enough perspective, it looks like nothing is moving, but down inside the water the atoms are going crazy every random direction. One atom wants to go this way, another wants to go that way, and they both hit you. They don't cancel out, but without any other atoms trying to push you in the same direction they really aren't going to do much when it comes to actually changing your speed in one direction or another.\n\nHowever, running into them is the same as belly flopping into the pool of water, yeah they are still moving and all in their random directions, but YOU slowed down. If all stars were static (not rotating around the galactic center) then the Heliosheath/pause would just be a sphere. The edge of that sphere is defined as the point where the \"density\" of the solar winds is now equal to that of the interstellar dust. Meaning that again, a single atom of solar wind isn't any more noticeable than one from the interstellar space. Given that the sun IS moving in a direction this sort of changes things a bit. We are basically \"running into\" the interstellar dust in front of us, so any given atom packs a bit more punch at slowing you down, whereas the atoms from behind have a lower relative difference in velocity, so when they run into your back they don't give you as hard of a kick. This means that where the boundary is, is less a question of density and more a question about the relative velocities. But, in keeping with the water analogy, it's like standing in the rain vs driving at high speed through it. In a given unit of time, you are running into more rain drops due to your speed. This effectively means that you are running into a \"higher density\" of matter, so the distance from the Sun where you can no longer tell the difference between the density of what you are running into and what is pushing you from behind is shorter.\n\nBut conversely on the lagging side, the sun has plowed the way on its way through the interstellar gasses. This means that there is a \"shadow\" behind the sun where the interstellar gas density is much lower, both because of an absence of atoms but also because of the same speed analogy as above. You are running 'away' from the gas particles rather than into them, so they hit with less force. Meaning that the density of the solar winds needs to drop very very very low to get to the point where you cannot tell the difference between what you are running into and what is running into you. This distance is going to be much further than the previous one, thus getting the stretch.\n\nI hope this answered your question."
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3j86p2 | what is the difference in all the different automobile engine types and terminology? v6, v8, inline 6, cylinders, liters, valves, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j86p2/eli5_what_is_the_difference_in_all_the_different/ | {
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"Ok, so that's a pretty broad topic and you might have to do a bit of googling or become an engineer depending on how in depth and far reaching you want your answers. But to give you a start...\n\nThe terminology V6, V8, inline 4, etc all refer to the number of cylinders in the engine and also indicate the layout. Each cylinder, containing pistons, rods, valves is where the fuel is ignited and the energy from the resulting explosion is harnessed. You could have one huge cylinder and it could have a massive explosion going on but it'd be a really difficult shape to get into a car, and would run in a really lumpy way that'd shake your car to bits as the piston goes back and forth. So instead of one big cylinder, they split it up into a bunch of smaller ones, you can harness the same energy but in a set of smaller more manageable sizes. The number V**6** is the number of cylinders.\n\nThe arrangement of the cylinders affects much about the engines performance and importantly it's size. A V6 engine will have 6 cylinders, split into two banks of 3, a left and a right. The two banks lean away from each other creating a V shape when you look straight on at them, this is where it gets the name. Inline engines don't lean the cylinders away, they have them all upright in a row, it's not as compact but is far cheaper to produce and maintain.\n\nLitres are a measurement of volume in the metric system. The stated litre capacity of an engine refers to the amount of air the engine can pull in through a complete cycle, this can give a good idea of the power of the engine.\n\nValves are what go up and down letting air into the cylinders and the exhaust gas out which is the result of the explosion in the cylinder.\n\nI'd strongly suggest heading over to something like howstuffworks and watching all the cool Gifs of engines working. Enjoy",
"So, an engine has at least one cylinder in it. A cylinder is what generates the actual force.\n\nA cylinder, generally, consists of a sparkplug and pistons. The cylinder fills with gas, the sparkplug ignites the gas, and the combustion of the gas produces energy which drives the pistons. \n\n[This](_URL_1_) is a pretty easy to follow diagram of the combustion cycle. Consisting of:\n\n1. Intake - air and fuel come in\n\n2. Compression - the valves are closed and the air and fuel mixture is compressed\n\n3. Power - the spark plug ignites the air and fuel mixture, which drives the piston down\n\n4. Exhaust - the piston pushes out the burned gases (CO2 and water vapour)\n\nCar engines all have multiple cylinders, because the more cylinders you have, the more power your engine can produce. V6 and V8 engines are (respectively) 6 cylinder and 8 cylinder engines where the cylinders are arranged in a V shape: [like so](_URL_0_) - this is a V8 looking from the top down, you can see 4 cylinders on the left and 4 on the right.\n\nThe alternative to a V engine is an inline engine, where all cylinders are on the same plane. You generally can't fit more than an inline 4 in a car's hood - an inline 6 or inline 8 would take up too much room. \n\nLitres are a measure of the engine size (you can also use cubic centimetres, or cc, remember that 1000 cc = 1 litre). Specifically, it's the total volume of all the cylinders. A 5.2 litre V8 therefore has 8 cylinders that are each 650 cc. The bigger the engine is, the more power, because a bigger cylinder can take in more fuel and air during the combustion cycle. "
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3fx1z4 | why are the majority of academics ideologically liberal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fx1z4/eli5_why_are_the_majority_of_academics/ | {
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"When one joins an academic institution, it tends to involve leaving one's normal place of residence and jumping into an area with a lot more diversity. You're more likely to meet people from all walks of life, which tends to lend itself to more progressive thinking.\n\nAdditionally there's the political element. Specifically in America, the right wing does a very poor job of courting academics and scientists due to things like climate denial. Advocating against public funding for non-defense related things, when many academics work at public institutions or receive some sort of public funding for their work, also serves to alienate them from the American Right.",
"It depends on the department, too. \n\nRather than spout some ideological nonsense at you (full disclosure, I'm liberal), I looked up some research articles. Here's one (dunno if you can access it or not, so I'll summarize) _URL_0_\n\nThis study involves data from 1989-1997 and was published in 2006.\n\n1) The trend actually appears to be movement toward center positions, although there is a slight current bias for left-of-center.\n\n2) Rather than every higher ed institution being a bastion of liberal ideology, it's more diverse than that. Certain departments have plurality conservative ideology (business, engineering...). Two-year institutions tend to be more conservative, at least in plurality.\n\n3) Female faculty tend to be more liberal. Older cohorts of professors tend to be more conservative. \n\n4) Ideology affects educational attitudes. Conservatives tend to focus more on preparation for a particular career, very modestly more attention to shaping values, and favor abolishing tenure. Liberals focus a bit more on arts/literature, promoting any ideas in class.\n\nThere's some info for you.",
"Well, to put it simply, think about what the word conservative means. You're trying to hold to more traditional values and ideologies. The thing about academics is that we're constantly working to either disprove older thought or find new things that might disprove older thought. So, if you're conservative, working towards new things that work against more conservative values would be harder. "
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3tq89z | why is greenpeace so adamant about stopping nuclear power when coal power is non-renewable, inefficient and is a huge factor in climate change, not to mention accounts for 41% of the world's power? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tq89z/eli5_why_is_greenpeace_so_adamant_about_stopping/ | {
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"Because the word \"nuclear\" is scary to them.\n\nNo I'm not shitting you; 9/10 people who think nuclear energy is a ticking time bomb only think so because of the name.",
"Because the look at events like 3 mile island, chernobyl and fukishima and think that if we were to have 10x the plants we'd have 10x the disasters. There is little evidence to suggest otherwise. I think it's important to note that Greenpeace does not love coal, they want more sustainable alternatives to be invested in. There position is that if we're not between a rock and hard place we'll never innovate towards a greener future.\n\n(I happen to not agree with this position, but I'm trying to fairly represent what is not an absurd perspective).",
"Greenpeace was founded as the \"don't make a wave committee,\" who opposed the testing of mining with atomic bombs. They thought it would trigger a landslide of doom and protested. The test went ahead, didn't cause the landslide, and everyone was happy...\n\n...Except people are not that smart. The protesters promptly rebranded to something more generic as nuclear mining was abandoned. What did they protest? Anything the public didn't directly do. You don't kill whales, let's protest that. You don't drill for oil, let's protest that. You don't run a nuclear power station, let's protest that.\n\nOf course people supported them, and they grew. One of the original founders left because he didn't like the fact that the aproch was essentially just making money off the back of fear, not protesting things that might actually warrant fear, as he had thought the nuclear mining did. \n\nSometimes of course Greenpeace will be correct. Protest enough stuff and you will be right sometimes, but they don't actually try and be right. They don't have an agenda of a plan. They don't base their arguments of science (remember the \"print alarmist armageddonist factoid here\") and they don't want to save the world. ",
"I actually had a long discussion with the heads of a few environmental groups in Virginia that are opposed to opening a mine for fissile material here that would happen in tandem with a few reactors. Their primary concern is the mining itself. Mining has a long track record of ecological disaster like what happened in Colorado recently and what is always happening in West Virginia coal mine areas. Mining disasters with radioactive material would be extra bad.\n\nThe secondary concern is what they will do with the waste. The country has the perfect place to put it, the geologically stable and nearly lifeless desert of Yucca Mountain, but desert people don't like admit that parts of their states are inhospitable wastelands compared to the rest of the country, so waste storage is a problem.\n\nThere are reactor designs that could use the waste of older reactors as fuel, for a triple bonus of not needing to mine new material, removing waste material currently in storage, and resulting in waste material that isn't as energetic and has a shorter half-life to safe levels.\n\nPeople that oppose reactors themselves that are not basing their decision on the mining aspect are simply not facing the reality of renewable adoption and dangers of coal. Coal actually releases more radiation per kW/h than nuclear on average, including nuclear disasters. I've actually worked with solar panel manufacturers and it would be a struggle to get the raw material and produce PV solar at a rate that could keep up with energy demand increases. Wind generation is certainly feasible, but tidal probably isn't because of the corrosive nature of the oceans. The problem with wind is it just takes so many turbines and so many miles of transmission cables to produce.",
"There's a documentary called \"Cowspiracy\" (about the meat industry, it's in Netflix) that briefly mentions how Greenpeace picks its enemies. ",
"The question is just wrong. They support renewable energy, neither coal nor fission. Here in Germany they have their own electric utility which sells neither of this. Of course nuclear fission is the more immediate concern, and it is a more common topic for the public audience.\n\nAdditionaly i don't get why you mention that coal is inefficient, if you compare it to fission. I guess one can argue about what efficiency means in this case, but I assume you mean cost-efficient. In that case fission is worse by a long shot if you take garbage disposal into account, which at least here in Europe is paid by tax money. There isn't even a solution as to how we can dispose of nuclear waste, we are just throwing billions at temporary solutions that last a couple or some dozen years. No one knows how much money fission will cost.\n\nBut as the utility companies don't have to pay the bill, most of them of course lobby for fission, as it has the biggest margin.\n\nEdit: *temporary",
"i spoke to two green peace reps for an hour last week mainly about coal and how they are focusing on educating people about our coal usage. According to them combating the coal lobby was a big priority to them"
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5ye7xj | how do loop stations with pedals produce music? | I've been toying with the idea of putting some electronic/experimental/ambient tracks together. I want to purchase some sort of set up, but I want to fundamentally understand how they are used and why they work. Can any instrument be input? Do they record? I only ever plugged my guitar into an amp, please ELI5. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ye7xj/eli5_how_do_loop_stations_with_pedals_produce/ | {
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"When a loop station is in \"record\" mode, it takes the input (guitar, bass, microphone, synthesiser, anything that has the right jack and volume level) and records it to its internal memory. Then when you stomp on it again, it'll go into playback mode, where it'll just play back its memory (sometimes synced to a tempo if your looper does that). Stomp on it again and you'll be back in record mode.",
"from what ive seen, they record your input and then repeat it over and over, works like a recorder. but i never used one so im not 100% sure"
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d8bqnk | why do people put resistors for led lights, when they can function when connected directly to a power source? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d8bqnk/eli5_why_do_people_put_resistors_for_led_lights/ | {
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"A resistor reduces the total energy flowing through the device, limiting the brightness and preventing burnout.",
"Because if you put too much power on the led itll burn, the resistor decreases the power so that wont happen",
"You can connect an LED directly if the voltage of your circuit matches the forward voltage of the LED. For you average red LED, connect less than 1.6v and it won't light up and no current will pass. < 1.8v it'll light up and pass a small amount of current ( < 5mA). Put if you connect more than 2.2 volts, the current will be a lot and burn out the LED.\n\nSo if your circuit is around 1.7v, you can connect directly. If more than that you need to use a resistor to bring the voltage down, but then you are wasting energy with the resistor. \n\nIf you have a micro controller in your circuit, you can connect led directly but then flash it really fast and to a human it'll look like it's on, but it won't pass much current and burn out.",
"A LED has a forward voltage, if your power source is below that voltage, you get very little current, and the light doesn't turn on. If you're above that voltage the LED doesn't limit the current, and burns out instantly. If you're very close to that voltage, you might get away with relying on the resistance of your wires and traces, but that's a rather extreme cost cutting measure, and if you're running on something like a battery with variable voltage, doesn't give good results.\n\nA \"white\" LED might have a voltage drop of 3 volts. If your power source is 5 volts, then there is a 2 volt drop across your resistor, if you don't have a resistor, that 2 volt drop is effectively short circuited. Maybe your power source can limit the current to a safe number, maybe it can't. Adding a resistor to the LED lets you control that current, a 20 ohm resistor would drop the current to say 100mA.\n\nThere are more efficient ways to drive LEDs, but you always need to control current somehow, so you'll still have a very low value resistor in series with the LEDs, so your driver knows how much current is flowing through them.",
"First -can you provide a reference - or how you have come to believe your statement \" **they can function when connected directly to a power source** \" -- this is not accurate - if (a big if) the source is only capable of specific voltage ad current ( below the spec of the LED) will this work..\n\nLEDs are not linear - for example, doubling the applied voltage results in much more than doubling the current through the LED. So small changes in the applied voltage can lead to failure of the LED. ( if the LED is rated for 1.1V and 200mA - it will probably die if 1.2 or 1.3V is applied to it)\n\nThe addition of the Current limiting resistor - ensures that only the amount of current that the LED can handle WILL flow through the LED - and are usually used when the source voltage is significantly higher then the LEDs rated voltage.\n\nThere are LED driver circuits - specifically made to drive LEDs in their normal operating region, these typically do not need resistors, they are more complex, cost more, but yield much higher efficiency.",
"In the old days, LEDs were just LEDs. If you didn't have a current-limiting resistor, it would burn out. Now, many LEDs include a current-limiting resistor in with the package.",
"If the flow of current is like the flow of water, then an LED is like a super efficient watermill that has very little friction. This mill will spin so fast that it will destroy itself very quickly, so you have to add some brakes to slow it down (the resistor). It will run fine for a while even if you don't add brakes but it will wear itself down quickly.\n\nAnother thing is that LEDs suffer from \"thermal runaway\": when they start to heat up, they start to draw more current, and this causes them to heat up even more, drawing even more current... and soon they will be drawing way too much current, overheating, and burning out. A resistor doesn't have this issue, so it will keep the current in check even when the LED or the resistor start to heat up.\n\nIn other words, yes, an LED can work fine connected straight to a power source of the correct voltage, but even then they eventually become unstable and draw too much current, and a resistor can take care of this problem."
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5caxgj | explain how a typical harvest season works for farmers. | If all of one crop dies (not likely but for hypothetical talk), how long must the farmer wait to replant and then begin the harvest cycle again? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5caxgj/eli5_explain_how_a_typical_harvest_season_works/ | {
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"It depends on the crop. \n\nHay long dried grass or legumes grown for winter animal feed can be cut 3-4 times a season, depending on they type of plant grown and the location. A hay farmer may harvest as early as April or May, then again in June, August and September/October. They cut similar to mowing the lawn so just let the crop regrow. They generally don't replant each year but every few years. \n\nAnnual crops are usually harvested once per year, and are usually planted in the spring (or fall for wheat). Corn is planted in the spring, and harvested in the summer or fall. \n\nSome crops will allow a second crop and harvest, but not too many things will grow in the remaining season. \n\nWhen you get produce out of season, it's usually grown in a greenhouse, at a location that doesn't really have a winter, or in a temperate zone in the other hemisphere (some products, like apples, can be stored for long periods of time, too). \n\nOrchards (fruit and nuts) or vinyards will prune their trees in the winter (when the tree is dormant) but leave trees or vines in for many years, even decades. "
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2rc51f | why is it that an gun optic will point to slightly above the original sight? | I don't know if this is true to real life but it seems like gun optics like red dot sights and stuff always indicate that the bullet will go slightly above the original sight. If this is true then why are the actual gun sights made lower than where the bullet will go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rc51f/eli5_why_is_it_that_an_gun_optic_will_point_to/ | {
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"It's not necessarily true to real life. Essentially gun sights are zeroed to a specific range. So at, let's say, 100 yards the bullet will hit exactly were the site indicates...regardless of whether it's a scope, red dot, or iron sights.\n\nHowever, some guns don't have the range of adjustments that a scope, red dot, whatever has. So if the sight was \"stuck\" at 25 yards and the scope was zeroed to 100, at 25 yards the scope would be pointed higher because it's adjusted for bullet drop over range.",
"_URL_0_ \nYou can look up here for scopes and you can also zero your gun sights like faloi explanied."
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5qhg51 | what does switching from fossil fuels to renewable resources really mean? | What exactly are we switching from fossil fuels to renewable resources? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qhg51/eli5_what_does_switching_from_fossil_fuels_to/ | {
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"Mostly electricity generation. There are many ways to make electricity and there is migration to more renewable ones for environmental reasons.\n\nTransportation is partially involved, cars that run on ethanol and electric cars can be renewable. Experiments have been done with biofuels for airplanes.\n\nOther applications, like steel production where the coal provides heat and also the carbon atoms needed to make steel, are not switching because it doesn't make sense. It's not an all or nothing thing.",
"We are switching how we generate energy on a large scale. \n\nMost energy sources work by turning a turbine. Some like wind power and hydro power turn the turbine directly (water or air flowing through a turbine turns it). This produces electricity.\n\nOther types of energy work by heating water into steam, which rises, turning a turbine. This is how Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, etc. work. \n\nThe few exceptions are sources like solar which works by using the photons of light to excite atoms in the solar array, directly producing an electrical charge. \n\nRenewable energy sources are ones which we can harvest indefinitely at a sustainable rate. We aren’t likely to run out of wind, water, or light anytime soon. \n\nFossil Fuels are all carbon-based energy sources we burn, which releases CO2 (and occasionally other undesirable byproducts). \n",
"Pretty much anything... At the moment, most cars and trucks are powered by burning petrol (\"gas\") or diesel, both of which are derived from oil. Home boilers which provide heating and hot water typically burn natural gas. Electricity is mostly generated by burning coal, oil or gas in power stations, and hence anything that uses electricity is currently dependent on fossil fuels.\n\nAlthough less widely discussed, many products are made using petrochemicals - including almost anything plastic (_URL_0_). Note that total consumption of these products is far lower than the uses described above ([listed as \"petrochemical feedstocks\" on this page](_URL_1_)), but another important issue is disposal - plastic pollution is a major problem, where as products made from renewable materials (typically plant-derived) tend to be biodegradable."
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"http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use"
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8u8bzv | why do tornadoes only go up to ef5? what happens if they get faster? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8u8bzv/eli5_why_do_tornadoes_only_go_up_to_ef5_what/ | {
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"It's a common misconception that the Fujita Scale and the hurricane categorization scale are based solely on wind speed. In actuality, the categorizations are based on *destructive potential*. Since there is a pretty good correlation between wind speed and destructive potential, generally TV meteorologies conflate those two things together. \n\nAn EF5 tornado is generally considered to be \"catastrophic damage\". The basis for categorizing a tornado is the type of structure that is damaged by the storm, not the measurement of the wind speed. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nTo that end, once a storm has reached \"catastrophic\" proportions, is there much use to calling a storm \"extra catastrophic\"? There's arguments for and against, as there always is. ",
"The short answer is that you reach 5 on the EF scale, there is no maximum wind speed. A tornado with faster wind speeds than we've ever seen will still be called an EF5. This is because the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale is more of a damage scale than a wind speed scales.\n\nWhen a tornado is suspected, trained meteorologists go to the site of the damage and inspect it. They use 28 damage indicators (e.g. small farm outbuildings, mobile homes, multi story buildings, power lines, flag poles, and especially trees) which help place the storm on the EF0-EF5 scale.\n\nOnce you reach EF5, the damage is pretty much total. Once you reach the point of train cars being thrown a mile, its time to stop the scale. There's not much more damage 250 mph winds can cause over the 200 mph winds at the low end of EF5.\n\nThe fastest wind speed ever measured was in a tropical cyclone and was in the neighborhood of 250 mph and that was a gust lasting around 3 seconds. Sustained winds were closer to 120 mph. If the EF scale were applied there, I wouldn't be surprised by a high EF3 rating based on the damage described (roofs, trees, power lines, but not the leveling of frame homes described by EF4)\n\nThe original Fujita scale EF is based on is wind speed and is actually goes up to F12, running between F0 (40 mph) to F12 (the speed of sound). Those top 7 categories are of no practical use and were not included in the EF scale when introduced in 2007.\n\nYou may wonder why today's technology cant solve this. While radar may indicate wind speeds in the EF5 range, is just that, an indicator. True measurement of wind speeds is done 10 meters above the ground by an anemometer. Once the meteorologists are able to get there and inspect the damage, more often than a lower EF classification is the final judgment and even that can be rethought later.\n\nThis happened in 2013 in El Reno, OK with a 2.5 mile wide tornado, the largest ever recorded. It looked like a possible EF5 on radar, but produced EF3 damage.\n\n[NOAA has a good paper on the history of the scales (Beaufort, Fujita, and Enhanced Fujita) and how damage inspection plays into them.](_URL_0_)"
]
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||
7i668i | how does an "absolute pitch" work ? | I read that those people can recognize any note without reference tone. How the hell is that even possible ? Like you hear something and you are instantly able of reproducing it on a piano even though you have never played piano ?
Can someone explain this to me I really don't understand. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7i668i/eli5_how_does_an_absolute_pitch_work/ | {
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"From my understanding absolute pitch is more like remembering how each note sounds. For egsample, when I try to hum a melody i do it more relatively than absolutly. I mean I start with some note (more or less correct) and then basing on this note I produce next one (higher or lower tone) and so on. Person with absolute pitch will start such humming with correct sound (proper frequency) and continue using further corect sounds (without basing on previous note). So my hearing is more relative (i know next note must be higher or lower), person with absolute hearing knows exackly what sounds should be used next (e.g. C, A, E, F...). Regarding your piano example, absolute pitch have nothing to do with ability to play an instrument. The phenomenon is that person with absolute pitch after hearing note single time will reproduce it correctly (either humming or playing known instrument). Without need to hear it again, without comparing sounds, person hears note and knows what this note is. Part of absolute pitch is being able to name sounds, so it is hard to talk about this skill without any music education. What is more if such person hears accord (few tones together), it is able to name all basic tones. Even more interresting is that absolute pitch gives ability to name basic tones of everyday sounds e.g. car horn. ",
"Absolute pitch has nothing to do with one's ability to play any instrument. It is merely the ability to identify a musical note without a reference tone\n (contrary to relative pitch, where a reference tone is needed and you're mainly identifying the intervals)\n\nSo if someone were to play a single note on an instrument, and you were able to say \"hell yeah, that's a C#\", then it's absolute hearing.\n\nHowever, it doesn't stop there. If you're able to hear absolute, you may identify the pitches of everyday life objects.\nE.g. : my electric razor makes a sound that's pretty close to an E. However, when it starts to lose power it drops into the Eb range. That's how I know it needs to charge\n\nSources : I have absolute hearing. Also Wikipedia lul"
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3v8y20 | why doesn't israel acknowledge its nuclear weapon capability? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v8y20/eli5_why_doesnt_israel_acknowledge_its_nuclear/ | {
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"Why should it? They have the best of both world's right now. Their enemies act as if they have it and no one is compelling them to comply with any sort of regulation and/or inspections.",
"As others have said, everybody knows, but as long as they keep denying it, the international community has some kind of \"plausible deniability\" to motivate not caring."
]
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49jtzl | why in sport we can't have people doping, wouldn't super athletes be a way more interesting viewing experience? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49jtzl/eli5_why_in_sport_we_cant_have_people_doping/ | {
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"Yes, if everyone was doing steroids and doping sporting events would be much more action filled. But all drugs have a down side if not done in moderation. ",
"Sure would be..... but when they die after crossing the finish line because they are so doped up and their heart gives up it's not so good.",
"I personally don't think so.\n\nThe path you're looking at has a few flaws. For one, you're pretty much encouraging people to hurt themselves and die early for very, very temporary gains. We know steroids and other drugs have bad side effects, and if it was OK to use them, it'd probably get to where people have zero regard to health. This happens *now* when it's *not* legal. \n\nPlus, where does it end? If you allow unlimited medication, does my artificial knee count as medication? How about replacing my legs with rocket-powered pistons? Eventually we just end up racing robots. \n\nNo, to me it's a lot more interesting to see what Humans can do with training and dedication. That's kind of the idea of organised sports, really. Not that robot races aren't fun, but it's not the same thing. ",
"A few reasons:\n\n* doping usually has long term negative effects...unlimited doping would make them much worse\n* most people don't want professional sports to turn into a money fueled chemical arms race over who will spend the most and risk their health the most in exchange for performance\n* for every professional who makes it, a hundred amateurs fail...we don't want our hospitals littered with young people who trashed their health pursuing a failed dream\n\nBut if you are curious, [here](_URL_0_) is what it might look like.",
"ELI5: Do we really want to be selling the use of drugs and highly toxic chemicals on athletes to be a success? The \"game\" of being an athlete is to become the best NATURAL competitor at your sport. An achievement that no one can or has completed. A naturally occurring thing. If you start to throw chemicals at the problem of advancing the sport, you move the focus away from the athlete and towards that of the chemistry team on the sidelines, feeding the athletes whatever meds needed to push them over the line. It's really not the way sports should be played and is no example for our youth that hard work and practice can get you great things, instead of taking a few pills and waiting for the hard work to be done for you. \n\nHope this helps! Peace!"
]
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rd23t | file extensions | What is the difference between a .JPG picture file and a .JPEG picture file?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rd23t/eli5_file_extensions/ | {
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"There is no difference. The file extension is just a label, and the three letter 'jpg' was probably originally necessary because computers only supported 3-character file extensions. This is no longer an issue.",
"Another fun fact: Microsoft Windows relies on file extensions most of the time (but not always).\n\nLinux doesn't really do this, and it's not uncommon for some or many files to have no extension at all, file type is mainly determined by its content.\n\nAs with everything, these are not rules and are not always the case."
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cjr1r8 | why is the download of a software update 100 mb, but does it need 1 gb of free space to complete the installation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cjr1r8/eli5_why_is_the_download_of_a_software_update_100/ | {
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"It might be highly compressed, and decompression takes up space, then it has to install which takes up more space. At the end the decompressed contents are deleted. So you end up needing 2x the file size + the download to install something.",
"So you download the update (100MB).\nThen, it gets decompressed to a scratch directory (500MB).\nThe old versions of those files get backed up in case something goes wrong (400 MB)\nThen it gets copied to the final destination (new files 100 MB larger than the old files).\n\nAt that point, you're at 1.1GB total. Then the backups get deleted bringing you down to 200MB (100 for the installer, 100 for the larger updated files).",
"Imagine you buy a new TV. You bring it home, you're gonna replace your old TV. Maybe the new TV is the exact same size as the old TV, so it doesn't take up any more space. But obviously it takes space just to switch them out. You're gonna make a mess, there's gonna be boxes, you have to move the old TV out of the way, etc. So after you're done and you clean up, it doesn't take a lot of space. But you need a certain amount of space just to move stuff around, and your computer is asking for the same thing.",
"Think about it like an inflatable boat. While deflated (compressed) it takes up very little space and is easy to move around, but you can't really use it for its purpuse. But when you inflate it (decompress) you can use it as intended.",
"Setup files are heavily compressed to save download bandwidth/time. During installation, the setup program unpacks all the files into proper locations. You may be asking why don't just use those files still packed to save space? It's because uncompressed files can be read and written to, fastest, at full disk speed. If you can accept slower read/write speed for lower used space, you can set the folder to use compression. For Windows, right click the folder > Properties > Advanced button > enable \"Compress contents to save disk space\" and click OK a few times to compress the folder. It will free up some space but may not back down to 100MB since Windows NTFS may use different compression algorithm from the original compression."
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1zwccc | what makes titanium good for bio-medical implants | I want to know what makes titanium good for biomedical implants in terms of physical and chemical properties. Density, tensile strength, conductivity, etc.
I'd also like to know how these properties relate to bone, and if these properties can cause bone deformation. I've read up on it, but can't find many articles or journals that explain it in terms that anyone without a vast knowledge of such things would understand well. Any explanations/links to good journals/articles would be much appreciated. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zwccc/eli5what_makes_titanium_good_for_biomedical/ | {
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"Titanium is very light (low density), very strong (high specific strength and yield), and, most importantly, very non-reactive. It doesn't dissolve in your body, rust, corrode, or bond with anything else to produce potentially unwanted chemicals. It's basically bio-inert. \n\nIt should not cause bone deformation because of its material, although its physical presence might because bone may try to grow around/over it. ",
"Also the molecular structure of titanium is very similar to that of bone, so it bonds well with the surrounding bones."
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d79jst | as the magazenes of guns are downwards, how do they load bullets in the chamber(?). i mean how do the lower bullets reach up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d79jst/eli5_as_the_magazenes_of_guns_are_downwards_how/ | {
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"Normally a spring loaded mechanism (so the spring will push upwards as a space is made available)",
"I am no specialist or even a tiny bit knowledged in this matter, but I believe there is a spring at the bottom. When the chamber opens, it pushes a single bullet up.",
"You ever use a Pez dispenser?",
"As mentioned, there is a spring connected to a plate that has a protrusion on one side in the shape of a bullet, so when you load the first round it will always go to the same spot... then as you add more bullets the spring compresses so that the top bullet is always located at the top of the magazine.\n\nIf you leave ammo in the magazine for a long time the spring can suffer from metal fatigue... and it won't push the bullets up as normal... leading to a stoppage.",
"\"A spring\" is the simple answer. The more complicated part of the question is how spent rounds get ejected and new rounds get loaded.\n\nSide-note: an automatic gun uses the recoil from the round firing to drive the mechanism to eject and pick up a new round. A bolt action or pump action requires the person holding it to move the mechanism manually. There are other differences to make those two things function, but fundamentally they do the same thing.\n\nWhen the new round is chambered it is held in place by the slide, which also covers the ejection port (where the spent round will leave). When the slide is moved back, either by recoil or by hand, the ejection port is uncovered and the spent round slides back with the slide. It catches on the *extractor* which sort of pinches the casing between the extractor and the slide until the round springs itself out through the ejection port. The chamber is empty and the slide is still back.\n\nThe next round in the magazine was being held down by another part of the slide, which has now moved out of the way. The spring in the magazine doesn't just push the round up, though. That would be too easy to get jammed. Instead, the new round moves up slightly, just enough for the slide to catch the back of it. The front of the round angles upwards slightly, too. The slide catches the back of the round and pulls it forward and up into the chamber where it becomes locked in.\n\nIt's kind of difficult to describe, but very easy to understand [visually](_URL_0_)."
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avdi3v | how did we breed the canine species to what it is today? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avdi3v/eli5_how_did_we_breed_the_canine_species_to_what/ | {
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"1) Get a bunch of wild dogs\n2) Pick out the least aggressive ones\n3) Breed the least aggressive ones \n4) Create a bunch of slightly less aggressive dogs\n5) Repeat steps 2-4 until you have reached a satisfactory disposition ",
"Some individual canines like people. Some don’t and bite us. If we chase away the ones who bite us, what’s left are the friendly ones. \n\nThese friendly canines have pups. Some are friendly, some are mean. \n\nRepeat the process for a long, long time."
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5wkwxm | why is colon cancer more common after the age of 50 for males? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wkwxm/eli5_why_is_colon_cancer_more_common_after_the/ | {
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"All cancers have an increased risk as we age. Cancer is caused by damage to DNA. Normally our bodies do a very good job of copying DNA exactly when they divide, but the risk of an error occurring increases the more often it happens.\n\nKind of like dying in a car crash. If you own a car, you probably drive every day, and the longer you live and drive, the greater your odds that *someday* you're going to die in a car crash. It *does not* make tomorrow any more dangerous to drive than today.\n\nEvery time your cells divide, there's a small risk of something going wrong in the DNA copying and causing a cancerous growth. Because it's a rare event, younger people see it happen less often than older people."
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2bbz6a | when i'm driving, and i'm at a stop light/sign, why does my radio become staticky unless i move up about a foot, and then it's clear again? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bbz6a/eli5_when_im_driving_and_im_at_a_stop_lightsign/ | {
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"The radio signal gets reflected, split and distorted while traveling from the radio station to you. It can also take different times to arrive at your car. Maybe you know about interference of waves, but in short when you're at a unlucky place two of those paths can cancel each other out. One paths value is +1 and the other paths -1 they add up to zero (this effect is usually called fast fading and the points where you have lots of noise should be about 4-5 foot apart).\n\nAnd i am 99% sure but the magnetic coils for car detection shouldn't be able to affect the radio frequency."
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4gu9gt | when a company is bought for "$3 billion in cash" what actually happens? | Is cash actually exchanged, or is cash just a liquid asset that is transferred to a different account digitally? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gu9gt/eli5_when_a_company_is_bought_for_3_billion_in/ | {
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"The only people who deal in large amounts of cash are people trying to hide something from the IRS. \"Cash\", in this case, just means liquid money.",
"It's likely a wire transfer from one account to another. \n\nI'm an anti-money laundering compliance analyst, and I have to review cash and wire transactions to ensure the funds are clean from end to end. I see transactions like this fairly regularly. ",
"The \"cash purchase\" is a juxtaposition to an equity exchange where stock is used to purchase another company. A literal transfer of funds occurs - just like if you were to do a bank-to-bank transfer between two of your accounts, or to execute a wire transfer. ",
"It also differentiates a deal where one company borrows a huge amount of money for the transaction. These leveraged buyouts use loans or bonds to finance it, and frequently use the assets of the company being bought as collateral.",
"Cash is the term for a deal involving the full price in dollars, as opposed to issuing stock in the acquiring company in exchange for stock of the purchased company, or some sort of financed deal where the amount is paid over time. The company doing the buying would wire dollars from their bank to the company being acquired, to be paid out to their shareholders/owners. So if the purchase was for $1 billion, and there were 10 equal partners they would each get $100 million in cash deposited to their bank account. This is in comparison to where shareholders/owners would be issued stock in the new company at the valuation agreed to (say 10 million shares of acquiring company valued at $10/sh), or a payout done over a period of time ($10 million annually for 10 years)."
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3kggiz | how are cards in packs randomized and packaged (i.e. magic, pokemon, yugi-oh)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kggiz/eli5_how_are_cards_in_packs_randomized_and/ | {
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"They aren't really random, more like semi-random. In Magic, commons, uncommoms, rares, mythics, and premium foil cards are all printed on their own sheets, then cut out, and the resulting stacks of cards are then put into packs. You can get \"print runs\" of cards in Magic packs which are far more likely to appear with each other than not in the packs. This also means that it is possible to \"map\" boxes and predict with high accuracy where all of the mythics will be without opening the packs, which is why you should only purchase product which still has the Wizards shrink-wrap, if you are purchasing sealed product.\n\nThe print run issue is actually a good thing for draft and sealed formats, though, as it means that most packs will contain some creatures and some spells, rather than all creatures no spells or vice versa."
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dve6sc | how does changing an exhaust on a vehicle improve horsepower? | Just want to know :| | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dve6sc/eli5_how_does_changing_an_exhaust_on_a_vehicle/ | {
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"Exhaust gas has like any other gas fills the volume of its container equally creating pressure. Upgrading the exhaust to a larger diameter pipe with less bends both lowers the pressure and allows the gas to move more freely out of the system. This allows the engine to not work as hard to clear it out. Thus increasing horsepower because the engine can use that power for other functions.\n\nEdit for grammar",
"Tale a breath. Now try to exhale but not all of it. Rinse and repeat.\n\nYou will soon run out of breath and possibly hyperventilate.\n\nGranted this is to a point. If you make the exhaust too large you won't have enough back pressure in the cylinders for it to inhale.",
"Bigger pipes or less bends (or both) allow for a easier air flow out letting the engine breath better. Like how having a giant butt hole makes more fart come out at once lmao.",
"“Power” for a car means getting a lot of fuel and air into the engine to burn and then getting the resulting exhaust out as quickly as possible.\n\nA “better” exhaust system will quickly make room for fresh air and fuel, usually at the expense of being louder.",
"To add, there is a concept called scavenging. Exhaust gasses traverse down the exhaust system as a charge with a wave front, and they pull a vacuum behind. By combining the exhaust ports together in a manifold, the previous exhaust charge can pull a partial vacuum on the next exhaust port opening, drawing the exhaust gasses out faster, increasing efficiency. To further increase scavenging, banks of cylinders are further tied together, as found in V style engines. These bank ties in the exhaust system are configured in an H, an X, or a Y, depending on packaging, cost, efficiencies, and other characteristics. These exhausts are slightly tuned, where too big a pipe can slow down exhaust velocity and reduce scavenging efficiency.",
"So far the comments have missed the most important factor. Yeah, bigger pipes lower the amount of back pressure, which does take *some* load off the motor. But the real increase in horsepower comes because lowering the pressure in the exhaust allows more exhaust to exit the cylinder before the intake stroke.\n\nThe intake/exhaust cycle isn't like moving boxcars around; when the exhaust valve is open, exhaust flows out, but not all of it. Some stays in the cylinder. Installing an exhaust that flows more freely reduces the amount of exhaust that stays in the cylinder. Which creates more empty space for the fuel/air mixture to enter on the intake stroke.\n\nSince all the power in an internal combustion engine comes from burning the air/fuel mixture, increasing the amount of air/fuel in the cylinder increases the power. That's also why engines with superchargers, which go about this by pushing more air/fuel into the cylinder from the intake side, have more power than the same engine with no supercharger. But changing to a performance exhaust is cheaper than adding on a supercharger. And yes, if you have a supercharged motor and you replace the exhaust with an exhaust system with less backpressure, you'll gain yet more power."
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785fel | why insects don't splat in accelerating vehicles | So you're in your car/on a bus/train. A flying insect enters and is flying around when the vehicle goes from stop to accelerating. It doesn't splatter on the back of the vehicle.
Can someone explain the physics of this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/785fel/eli5_why_insects_dont_splat_in_accelerating/ | {
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"The same reason you don't go splat if you jump while flying in an airplane, or why helicopters don't go splat because of the earth's rotation - relative momentum. \n\nThe air in the car is moving the same speed as the car, the bug won't just remain stationary while the car moves around it.",
" > A flying insect enters and is flying around when the vehicle goes from stop to accelerating. It doesn't splatter on the back of the vehicle.\n\nThe air within the vehicle is carried along with it as it accelerates so that tends to cushion any movement. But also keep in mind that the acceleration forward is significantly less than one gravity so even if the insect was sitting on the back window and subject to the entire force it wouldn't have trouble. *You* would splat before an insect would!\n\nThe issue is the rapidity of the change in speed. A bug being hit by a 60 mph car changes speed to that of the vehicle in an instant while the accelerating vehicle takes a while."
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45w8rd | if left and right wing just says how much influence the goverment should have in your life, how come things like being racist, or too polticalliy correct are also always either left or right wing ideas? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45w8rd/eli5_if_left_and_right_wing_just_says_how_much/ | {
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"Many leftists believe that anything bad that happens to a minority can only happen as a result of something called *institutional racism*, which is vast, unconscious conspiracy by white people to organize the laws, public values, language, culture, the educational system, and every other facet of everyday life into exactly the more that will most efficiently oppress minorities. Leftists want to crush this big conspiracy with aggressive government action - which, as you say, is often associated with the left end of the left-right spectrum. But of course, the idea that \"institutional racism\" is something that justifies massive government interference in our lives and that the more you oppose this interference, the more \"racist\" you are, is naturally a left-wing, big government idea.\n\nBy the way, I personally wouldn't say that big government or racism are left-wing ideas *per se*... creating a classless, egalitarian society is the best candidate for a defining left-wing idea. Leftists get caught up in racial struggles to the extent that racial minorities vote for leftist parties."
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2lya8k | since the written chinese language is more compressed than others, can chinese people read faster than others? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lya8k/eli5_since_the_written_chinese_language_is_more/ | {
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"Short answer: no, they cannot. \n\nLong answer has been answered by [Veritasium on Youtube](_URL_0_)"
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2pby92 | with everything going on in sydney right now, i'm curious as to how hostage negotiations work. when the perpetrators get what they want, do they leave? are they eventually tracked/caught? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pby92/eli5_with_everything_going_on_in_sydney_right_now/ | {
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"Adding to this, has there been a major public hostage situation that was actually successful for the perpetrators? ",
"Generally, if criminals end up with hostages it is because they fucked up. A real life, successful crime needs to be over within seconds, and certainly before the police arrive. You watch any CCTV footage of a ban robbery or jewellery heist, its usually a case of smash and grab before riding down an alleyway on a motorbike, I can't ever recall a criminal taking hostages except for political purposes, and even then escape is never a possibility or a goal anyway.",
"They get captured or shot, unless they have an actual exit strategy which would usually involve keeping some hostages with you all the way, and then I suppose killing them later, or else there's really no reason for the cops to not just gun you down once you've sacrificed your leverage\n\n"
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5umyti | why is the us government pulling public data from their websites? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5umyti/eli5_why_is_the_us_government_pulling_public_data/ | {
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"Secrecy and default suppression of information is a common feature of [authoritarianism](_URL_0_), and also a very strong feature of more extreme examples of it like [fascism](_URL_1_).\n\nThe current occupants of power in the United States have expressed a desire to limit science, and have acted to remove public access to scientific data generated from past taxpayer-funded scientific programs.\n\nHowever, they have not publicly offered an explanation for these actions, as per the attitude described above in the first paragraph.",
"Every time there is a change in the Whitehouse they take all data down then put it back up phrased in the manner the new administration wants. "
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6cysk2 | why are doctors'/nurses' scrubs v-necks? | I realize there are crew neck styles available now, but the v-neck is the "classic" style. Is there any sort of advantage to this (e.g. keeping body cooler due to increased surface area for sweat evaporation, etc)?
Edit: is there any sort of historical significance to the v neck? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cysk2/eli5_why_are_doctorsnurses_scrubs_vnecks/ | {
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"text": [
"Easier on and off. Off is a big plus when you have scrubs soiled from blood or puke or whatever else. "
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65ymro | how were airports different pre-9/11? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65ymro/eli5_how_were_airports_different_pre911/ | {
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"Aircrafts changed: No more metal silverware for coach. A door to the cockpit that locks. \n\nThe airport was more or less the same. A bit more strict through the metal detector (I don't remember ever taking my shoes off before 9/11). Some years later they introduced the rule of no liquids, which is the most annoying thing ever.",
"I can remember meeting family members at the gate when they arrived. I was pretty young at the time but I can remember walking around the terminals looking for my aunt's gate since she was older and we didn't want her to get lost. ",
"Most of the readily apparent differences have to do with airport security. Pre-9/11 the only thing you had to do at airport security was have your bag x-rayed and walk through a metal detector (removing anything that might set it off beforehand). You weren't required to remove shoes and there were no restrictions on carrying liquids (you could even carry things like pocket knives as long as they weren't too big). Furthermore, anybody could get through security, even if you didn't have a ticket. Thus, it was possible to walk someone you were dropping off to their gate, or wait for someone you were expecting at their gate instead of baggage claim (no necessarily a great thing since it could significant increase crowds at certain airports).\n\nThere are also lots of things differents that aren't due directly to 9/11, such as the fact that few people travelled with a bunch of electronics like laptops pre-2001, so there were no special rules for them either.",
"The biggest difference is security. Now you need a ticket and ID to get through security. Before 9/11, anyone could just walk through the metal detectors to meet someone as they deboarded. \n\nSecurity was also more relaxed. I remember one time my mom had bought kitchen knives for a family member that we were visiting. Security stopped her and explained that she couldn't carry them on the plane. \"Why not? What are you saying? I'm a good person.\" She was outraged by their implication. She put up a fuss. A security person walked us to the gate and explained the situation to the gate agent. They examined the knives. They compromised that they'd wrap them up and put them in an overhead bin for the flight. That'd never happen today.",
"Prior to 9/11 the airport security was much more relaxed. You basically just had to go through a metal detector and fairly light inspection of your carry on luggage compared to today's standards.\n\nAfter 9/11 the TSA got a little carried away. It's important to note that the TSA has horrifically failed nearly every benchmark it has set and in the overwhelming vast majority of internal testing to see if a passenger could get contraband on board the TSA failed to identify the items.\n\nThe reason we have TSA still today is because it's government bureaucracy and they're hard to do away with. A lot of the people making the rules today have little to no security background. It's a very politically motivated system. For example, they implemented the \n\"Rapey-Scan\" (Rapidscan) body scanners company headed by previous Director of Homeland Security, only to do away with them when naked pictures leaked. Instead of doing targeted search and enforcement of people most likely to be a threat, they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings and force 95 year old women to take their shoes off and undergo enhanced security screenings at random. They allow politicians and political appointees to make these decisions and not people who have a security background.\n\n",
"Security was basically just a metal detector. You didn't have to take off your shoes or anything or at least I don't remember ever doing it. I was less than 10 at the time. \n\nYou didn't need a boarding pass to get through security. I remember being greeted by my family at the gate as soon as I walked off the plane. \n\nYou could also bring water and stuff through security. There are probably a lot of other things you used to be able to bring but I don't know any. ",
"You could basically do whatever the fuck you wanted. Security was only tighter on international flights but even then it was more of a suggestion.",
"Pre-9/11 you could walk all the way through security to the person/family members gate with them and say goodbye to them as they went to board the plane. Now you can't get through security without a ticket.",
"For one, [this scene](_URL_0_) could no longer have worked out. Back before 9/11, people who weren't flying could pass through security and wait right at the gate for their friends and/or family to get on or off their flights."
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1e9g24 | networking code on video games. i.e "lag compensation." | As many people may know, the code in Black Ops 2 is horrible causing terrible lag compensation and "shooting around the corners." How do you code it so that it makes you "lag" and give a fair advantage to everyone with bad internet? Has a game almost "perfected" it? And if they have, why haven't they shared it around with other developers to make games better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e9g24/eli5_networking_code_on_video_games_ie_lag/ | {
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"Short answer is they don't make you lag. Multiplayer games constantly send your information (position, projectiles fired etc.) to a server and that server redistributes that information to everyone else as required so their games can place your character appropriately.\n\nSlow network connections can cause a situation where your server position is not perfectly up to date with your position on your own computer. Usually the server position is used to resolve hits, which can feel unfair if either your position or your target's position on your computer doesn't correspond with the server position.\n\nThere's a number of stop gap solutions but that really is just what they are. Crude solutions. Some games (I think the recent call of duty games do this) started using the local opponent position for hit detection. Ie. the position your opponent occupies on your local computer is used to resolve hits from your weapon. This gives you the feeling that the game is always completely fair to you because your opponent can't lag out of position. You won't miss because your opponent is actually elsewhere but your computer hasn't updated yet.\n\nIt's terribly unfair to your opponent of course. If your connection is slow to update his position, you'll still hit him and he might feel you shot him even after he moved behind a wall. The general idea is that this feels the least frustrating for the shooter and it's a lot harder to determine if you were shot unfairly than it is to feel like you missed unfairly (ie. I hit him right in the chest but nothing happened)\n\nThere's more complicated solutions that involve prediction and extrapolation. Ie. a player is moving 2 meters per second and he has a half second lag time. That means he's 1 meter further along in the direction he was going than the currently reported position. So the model is moved accordingly. It's basically just predicting positions based on reported position + speed * direction.\n\nIn the end its all just guess work, favoritism and extrapolation though. The best solution is faster networks and better optimized netcode to avoid lag in the first place.",
"_URL_0_\n\nDrift0r explains it better with demonstrations better than I ever could hope to. Unfortunately BO2 does not do a good job with lag comp; if anything, the CoD series has taken steps backwards with it since MW and MW2. The reason being it is very, very difficult to code properly with every little change having an effect on it.",
"Man, I just had a great analogy involving nerf guns, but I realized it didn't really explain your specific question. :/\n\nThis is difficult to explain without some sort of graphical presentation. But I'll try.\n\nMultiplayer games like Call of Duty have two different aspects to them: the client and the server. The client is you and your system playing the game, and the server manages all of the players' data, collecting data like your position, health, damage, etc. and transmits that data to all of the other players.\n\nSo when you fire a gun, the client (you) tells the server (or host) that you've fired a gun. The client tells the server exactly how many bullets, at what angle, etc. The server then tells all of the other players that you've fired those bullets in that direction. \n\nEach time data is transmitted from the client to the server, it takes time. We're talking a fraction of a second. And then it will take another fraction of a second to relay that data to all of the other players.\n\nSo in your scenario, you're running away from an enemy. The enemy starts shooting before you make it around the corner, but you manage to make it around the corner before he kills you, and then you die anyway (an we're assuming he's not using the hardened perk, or attachment or whatever the heck it's called in BOII that lets you penetrate walls). Here's why:\n\nYour character is a few feet away from the corner. Your game client tells the server that you're a few feet from the corner. The server then tells the enemy that you are a few feet from the corner. By this time, a fraction of a second has passed, and you are now *at* the corner - but because of the time it took to transmit your location data to the server and to the enemy, the enemy still sees you a few feet from the corner. So he starts shooting at you. Another fraction of a second passes, and you have made it around the corner. However, *because of the time it takes to transmit that data all the way to the enemy, he still sees you AT the corner*. So he is still shooting at you from his perspective, but you have made it to safety from your perspective.\n\nWhen the enemy kills you from his perspective, his client tells the server that he's killed you. In Call of Duty, the server goes \"OK, I believe you\" and kills you off.\n\nI could go further, but I think the explanations just get more convoluted after answering your question. Also, I've spent too much time writing this XD ... ALSO, I don't know how they managed to screw it up, but I really feel like Modern Warfare 2 was the last CoD that didn't have absolutely horrid multiplayer code. I first started noticing horrible lag problems with Black Ops 1, in that you could get 6 or 7 hit markers on an enemy, but the server only saw 3 or 4 by the time you died... therefore those last few shots just didn't count. In MW2, you simply didn't see this happen unless the host's connection was abysmal, and even then, it was incredibly rare (on XBox).\n "
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5bw234 | why do people push non-voters so hard to vote? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bw234/eli5_why_do_people_push_nonvoters_so_hard_to_vote/ | {
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"There's definitely an implication they'd like you to educate yourself *then* vote.\n\nWhether you chime in or not, the government will make decisions about stuff like\n\n* how much money you might have to give them (taxes)\n* how much money they might give to you (benefits)\n* what they might do with the taxes (roads, public works, police)\n\nAnd all of that WILL impact your life, and impact the lives of everyone in your town, state and country. This stuff isn't hypothetical, it effects your wallet, your life and your friend's lives.",
"There are tons of people out there who vote with little information and/or tons of misinformation already. I feel like the people who claim they don't vote because they don't really know enough about politics are at least self aware enough to realize that the very act of going out to vote means they should be doing research beforehand. Those people are the people who SHOULD be voting."
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5ymjj6 | why do phone chargers break much more frequently than those for other electronic devices? | In six years my laptop charger never once faltered on me despite not handling it with the best care, and I don't think I've ever had an HDMI cord or microUSB cable stop working. So why does my phone charger (even official ones) break so easily then? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ymjj6/eli5_why_do_phone_chargers_break_much_more/ | {
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"I go through phone chargers constantly, the part that plugs into the phone can bend easy and then your screwed.",
"Well there's a few ideas..\n\nYour moving your phone around more when it's being charged so the charger is having to bend much more often.\n\nYour phone chargers is also going to be less bulky because the charging port is smaller. No ones going to design a charging cable where the wire is bigger than the port.",
"While MicroUSB was designed to me a lot more durable than previous usb connectors, it still isn't perfect. Used for charging a phone, a connector might be subjected to multiple connect/disconnect cycles a day, which adds on a lot of wear to cables. And then there is the proliferation of cheap cables that weren't built to last.",
"Phone chargers are: \n\n* smaller (cable and connector) -- > more fragile\n* moved around way more\n* maybe packed in a bag frequently\n* a good possibility to get your money if you need to buy a new one every year (I am convinced that apple (e.g.) EASILY could build better chargers, but they just like selling them over and over again)",
"I've not found the same result. Phone chargers and USB cables have rarely if ever broken for me, but there's this one tablet we have with a proprietary charging port that's on its 3rd or 4th replacement charger, and my 3DS charger isn't broken but it does feel worryingly loose when connected.\n\nSo it could just be bad luck on your part."
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yuc13 | how does the metal plug-in and wires of a pair of headphones work? | I'm asking about the little metal tip with 2-3 lines at the end of the wires that you plug into the computer/ipod/whatever. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yuc13/eli5_how_does_the_metal_plugin_and_wires_of_a/ | {
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"As I'm sure you know, metal conducts electricity. And that's great for wires, because that's what we need wire to do.\n\nWhen it comes to headphones, we need 3 wires total- one wire to send the signal to the left ear, one to send the signal to the right ear, and one to act as \"ground\" to complete the circuit.\n\nThe headphone jack is specially engineered to allow all three of those wires to connect at the same point. Looking at it, it appears that it's all one piece.\n\nHowever, the headphone jack itself is made out of three main metal components, and two plastic components.\n\nThe black lines you see on the jack are actually only the outside visible parts of sheathing that's inside the jack, insulating the three layers of metal (outside, middle, and inside) from each other, making sure that they only conduct the signal that's meant for them.\n\nSo, when you look at a headphone jack, with the two black stripes separating the three visible metal sections, you'll know that each of those three metal sections carries one of the necessary signals.\n\nSome headphones have four sections instead of three- these headphones typically include a microphone, and use the additional contact to carry that signal.",
"Incidentally, while we're all here: how do I extend the lifespan of my headphones, and why do they all break down after X months?"
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9m2zn1 | how do they contain drug addicts at prison? | do they just simply dont give them anything and they have to get the drugs through other methods? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9m2zn1/eli5how_do_they_contain_drug_addicts_at_prison/ | {
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"Jails and prisons are required to take steps to ensure that the people in their custody get medical care and don't die, so if they are addicted to drugs that can cause death if someone is without them they have to get that inmate medical care.",
"Depends.\n\nSome prisons have programs like methadone, but generally they'll only *continue* an existing 'done prescription, but make you reduce off at say 5ml a week or whatever; they usually won't *start you* on 'done just because you're withdrawing off opiates. The main exception is pregnant women, where normal withdrawal can cause miscarriage, so a pregnant opiate addict may get put on a methadone reduction program.\n\nBut generally prisons just expect you to ride it out. As someone else said, prison nurses are super-cagey about giving out even asparin or band-aids. Usually you'll only get drugs to help with withdrawal symptoms (usually not 'fun' drugs, but pills for diarrhea or whatever) if your withdrawal makes life *really* difficult for COs. Like if you're passing out and causing drama, or shitting yourself in canteen line or whatever.\n\nAnd of course you can buy dope in prison, but it's crazy expensive (like 10 to 20x street prices, often more), and dealers are unlikely to give you credit unless they already know you. So (IME) *addicts* in prison aren't as common as many people think; most addicts who get locked up withdraw, and they may still use in prison, but only on the relatively rare occaission they can afford it- not on a daily basis like on the street (unless they have family than can send $$, but most addicts have burnt up their family's generosity by the time the get to the 'going to prison' stage of addiction)\n\ntl;dr 99% of the time the prison does nothing, and leaves you to your own devices."
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46iaer | how are elements made? | Geologically | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46iaer/eli5how_are_elements_made/ | {
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"Elements are for the most part not made geologically. They are made astronomically. \nStars are giant element factories. The immense gravity of a star causes atoms to fuse. They take hydrogen and fuse them into heavier elements. Take two hydrogen atoms smash them together and you get helium, smash two helium atoms together you get beryllium, smash a beryllium and a helium atom together and you get carbon, and so on. \nThe largest stars are capable of producing the heaviest elements, when these stars die they explode catastrophically as a supernova. This explosion spreads all the elements around many light years, these free floating elements might eventually clump together and form planets. ",
"You may need to edit your question to clarify exactly what you're asking. \n\nElements, as in the [periodic table](_URL_0_), aren't 'made' [geologically](_URL_1_). Geology means the study of the earth and elements are not made on Earth. The elements which make up the earth, and you and I, were made much, much earlier. \n\nMost elements are forged in the heart of stars where the immense gravity causes hydrogen (the simplest and most abundant of the elements) atoms to fuse together. Then those elements fuse, etc, etc. That's how elements are made, in the heat and pressure of a star. To make the heaviest elements it takes a catastrophic explosion of a very large star to make enough heat and pressure. This also disperses these elements across the universe. \n\n"
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5gnuvq | can wikipedia actually go bankrupt? | they always ask for these donations making it sound like theyre gonna close down at nay moment if noone donates enough | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gnuvq/eli5can_wikipedia_actually_go_bankrupt/ | {
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"Wikipedia can certainly go bankrupt; there is no rule giving them infinite money or something. They might also consider being bought out by another entity if they can't keep running themselves.",
"Wikipedia is run by the Wikimedia Foundation, a charity. If they don't get enough donations they would need to get money another way or they would go bankrupt. They could sell ads, which would be a huge bias, or they could sell the data to someone with another means to monetize it (like _URL_0_).\n\nThere is no free lunch, if you see computers and huge collections of data, then somebody has to pay for that.",
"Yes Absolutely especially since they are pretty much a free service that doesn't even monetize using ad's (would ruin the integrity of the service) and whatnot it's completely dependent on donations for it's year to year operations. A large amount of people use wikipedia for free like it's a government service paid for with taxes or something but it isn't.",
"So I asked the same thing and this is what I saw Kelly Martin a long time wiki critic say on qora and I don't necessarily eat it up but here \n\nIt costs the Wikimedia Foundation between $800,000 and $1,000,000 per year to keep Wikipedia running. The Wikimedia Foundation had, at the end of 2014, $60 million in cash reserves. This is enough money that, prudently invested, would generate sufficient income to pay Wikimedia’s hosting costs indefinitely. (With quite a bit to spare: investing $60 million in essentially zero-risk US Treasuries should produce at least $1 to $1.5 million in income a year.)\n\nIf everyone stopped giving Wikimedia money today and never made a single donation ever again, Wikimedia would still have enough money to keep Wikipedia online, forever. There is absolutely no risk that Wikimedia will run out of money to keep Wikipedia up, short of absolute and total incompetence (or outright graft) by its governing officers.\n\nThe annual (indeed, more like “ongoing” these days) “please give us money so we can have better parties” fundraising drives have become increasingly hypocritical. But people continue to donate increasingly large amounts of money despite the fact that only a tiny fraction of what is donated actually goes to keeping Wikipedia running. Virtually none of it (less then $100,000) goes to producing, moderating, or otherwise editing content on Wikipedia or its sister projects, and none of it goes to pay editors on the English Wikipedia. While many Wikimedia employees are also Wikipedia editors, they are not officially being paid to edit Wikipedia (although at times it is difficult to tell what they are being paid to do). Most of it instead goes to “community outreach” programs of dubious merit, to paying a large squadron of cargo-cult software engineers to repeatedly and comically fail at improving the MediaWiki software that Wikipedia uses, to fly Wikimedia insiders around the world to conferences of dubious purpose, and to hold parties for Wikimedia insiders at exotic venues around the world (this year’s is being held in a tony little ski resort in northern Italy).\n24k Views · ",
"It can, but we wouldn't lose anything. When you're asking \"can Wikipedia go bankrupt\" you're really asking \"can the Wikimedia Foundation go bankrupt?\" - the answer is yes, should expenditures exceed revenue.\n\nWe wouldn't lose anything though. The WMF doesn't own the content on Wikipedia. All of the original content (i.e. non fair use content) is legally copyrighted to whoever contributed the content. Wikipedia has as much of a right to host the content as I - or anyone else - does. We're all legally allowed to use the content because the copyright holder (i.e. the original contributing editor) released the content under the CC BY SA license.\n\nSo should the WMF go bankrupt, we'd lose nothing except an inefficient organization which spends more money on \"outreach\" efforts than actually goes to maintaining and hosting the encyclopedia. Anyone can download a copy of Wikipedia's content at _URL_0_ and host it themselves."
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3eruym | why were so many police vehicles chasing oj simpson? | As you can see at this [link](_URL_0_), it seems like at least 10+ cars were chasing OJ. I know he's a famous person and "alleged murder" is a big thing and all, but why were *that many* cars chasing him? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eruym/eli5_why_were_so_many_police_vehicles_chasing_oj/ | {
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"1) if you only had 1 car chasing, you could lose the subject. 2 gives you better chances if 1 car loses visual. 3 gives you even more.\n\n2) the more officers you have once the chase ends, the more effective you can be to subdue the subject. ",
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they think that OJ was armed? They wanted backup in case they got shot at."
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4rbccq | how excess energy is stored as fat and what exactly does "burning fat" entail? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rbccq/eli5_how_excess_energy_is_stored_as_fat_and_what/ | {
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"Say you eat some bread. The bread is digested into sugar in the stomach, then absorbed in the small intestine. Sugar is the body's main energy source. After being absorbed, the sugar circulates in the blood stream. It goes to every single cell that needs energy. If there is leftover sugar, it goes to the liver. The liver turns the sugar, which is also called glucose, into a short term storage form called glycogen. Once the liver has topped up on glycogen, it sends the rest of the available sugar through the blood to special fat cells called adipose cells. These cells absorb the sugar turn it into fat. \n\nA few caveats. Technically all cells can turn glucose into an intermediate molecule called acetyl-CoA and then turn that it into fatty acids, but it's the adipose cells that store the fatty acids as long term fat. Furthermore, this fatty acid creation mostly happens in the liver and fat cells. Also, two more caveats. Next, all this stuff happens at the same time. Finally, the liver doesn't send anything anywhere becuase it doesn't have decision making powers. It just sort of happens based on the biochemistry of the cells involved.\n\nOh, as for burning fat. When your body is low on energy, it tells the adipose cells to release fatty acids into the blood. The fatty acids are then \"burned\" for energy in most of the different cells of your body, (but especially heart cells and muscle cells.) The reason it's called burning is because it's actually the same chemistry as setting a piece of paper on fire, but slowed down into many steps. The energy in sugar and fat is stored in a chemical bond between carbon and oxygen. When you break that bond, you release energy. If your body does it slowly, it can turn it into energy. If you set it on fire, you do it quickly. The original way to see how many calories are in a food was to set it on fire and see how much the temperature changed.",
"Energy is stored in fat by assembling the molecule acetyl-CoA into fatty acids, or taking in fatty acids themselves and attaching three fatty acids to glycerol to form a triglyceride. These triglycerides are stored inside special cells, called adipocytes. Basically as a drop of semi-solid oil inside a cell. Acetyl-CoA is a molecule the body creates when it breaks down sugars and carbs, and fats. Its the molecule that goes into the mitochondria to make energy. If you have an excess amount, you make fats with them instead. \n\nFat is burned when the body runs out of freely available energy in the form of sugars. The triglycerides go through the inverse process and just have that glycerol removed and get converted into free fatty acids. Those acids can be broken down through the process of beta-oxidation in the mitochondria to get back acetyl-CoA. Then that acetyl-CoA can enter the citric acid cycle, which is a series of chemical reactions that produce smaller molecules that can be converted by the electron transport chain into ATP, just like it would have before being turned into fat if there hadn't been an excess. ",
"When we eat, our digestive system takes apart our food at the molecular level. This creates lots of smaller molecules that are useful for doing various kinds of cell-level work, which we often just gloss over and call energy. There are a lot of different processes that happen all at once and compete with each other to use that energy.\n\nIf we ingest enough extra energy, the processes that normally grab it immediately have more than they can use, so other processes start to pick up the leftovers. Those processes can take those small molecules and stitch them together into fats.\n\nIf in the future, there's not enough energy floating around for the processes that need it most (say, moving your legs on the treadmill), other processes tend to grab those fats and break them back down into something the rest of your body can use.\n\nThe complicated part is that these \"processes\" aren't really similar to computer programs, and they're not directed by any controlling logic. They're just patterns we've observed that happen as a result of what cells are where, and how electrical charges are distributed, and which bacteria live in our gut."
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2o2t3j | why and how does my jaw hold itself closed without effort? likewise, why are my neck and head upright without conscious effort? what brain mechanism controls things like that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o2t3j/eli5_why_and_how_does_my_jaw_hold_itself_closed/ | {
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"There are areas (or nuclei) of your brain that are responsible for what is called subconscious somatic motor control. These nuclei control things like subconscious breathing, muscle tone (the natural state of muscles when they are not being flexed or extended) and your eye movements. You can override all of these nuclei, but when you're not paying attention, they take control. Imagine having to consciously think about breathing. \n\nSome other examples of these nuclei are: The reticular formation in the medulla oblongata, which controls subconscious breathing.The tectum in the midbrain controls reflexes to visual and auditory stimuli (like how you flinch when there's a loud noise). The nucleus that you specifically asked about is the Red Nucleus, which controls involuntary muscle tone, which ensures that your muscles are alway supporting you, even if you aren't consciously thinking about them. "
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39ag1g | the charles manson sympathy/fandom | I know some people who are huge Charles Manson fans, and I had considered it to be the same kind of fascination that drives people to read about and study serial killers, but they often post articles and quotes from him and they seem to be really sympathetic. Often referring to him as "Uncle Charlie" and calling him a genius or calling for him to be let out of prison. Why? He's a psycho, right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39ag1g/eli5_the_charles_manson_sympathyfandom/ | {
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"Many people can have many different reasons, but a theme that seems to crop up is the idea that they can 'change' a bad criminal into a good person. Some people are sexually attracted to violent criminals (Hybristophilia).\n\nAlso, Manson is quite the master of manipulation."
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2r4bef | why are yakuza able to be so public in japan? | I was reading this [vice article](_URL_0_) and got curious as to how yakuza are able to "exist as semi-legal entities in Japan with offices, business cards, and even fan magazines". There's pretty much nothing to my knowledge even close to this in the U.S. If you are engaged in illegal activity over here, you better hide or you will get caught. I read in Wikipedia that they even take part in parades where they show off their tattoos... what? How is it that the Japanese government tolerates this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r4bef/eli5_why_are_yakuza_able_to_be_so_public_in_japan/ | {
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"There are lots of criminal enterprises, or rather, enterprises with criminal wings, which exist pretty openly in the US. The Hells Angels are probably the most famous. \n\nAnd that's generally how the Yakuza do it. They've got a number of legitimate activities going on, while the criminal stuff is at least officially denied. ",
"I think its exactly analogous to biker gangs in the US. The Hells angels has a registered trademark, is incorporated, has a website and open clubhouses. Having a Bike Club is not illegal. Wearing colors is not illegal. The things those clubs do is illegal. ",
"The cops/government turn a blind eye because the yakuza presence keeps the peace on a local level. They own large swaths of property and local businesses rent from them. The yakuza like the businesses in their area to do well, so they also look out for their \"clients\" by taking care to keep the area safe from small crimes like theft and vandalism. Those living and working in the area have no complaints about their presence as long as they are not in debt to the yakuza. "
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2qennq | what do film companies (such as paramount, columbia, etc.) actually do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qennq/eli5_what_do_film_companies_such_as_paramount/ | {
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"They fund film projects. \n\nI am Columbia pictures. An author or screenwriter or director or internal somebody comes to me with an idea for a film. I maybe do a little market research, talk it over with the board members, and we hire a producer and say, you have 50 million dollars to make this movie, go do it. We might have some producers, directors, writers, or actors that are signed with our company, and we can put them on the project for a prearranged fee, or the producer can go out and find his own personell with the money that we gave him. \n\nTwo years later, the movie is made, it's advertised, they give me the finished product and it's my job to get it out to as many theaters as possible, broker deals to get it screened so many times a day, and to give me back a certain percentage of the ticket revenue (for most films, it's 100% for the first week, ~80% for the second, which is why movie theaters make almost no money from screening, and have to get all of their revenue from concessions). If the movie does well, then I've made back my initial investment of 50 million dollars or more. If it doesn't, then I've lost some money, and I'll think twice about greenlighting similar projects in the future. "
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1fgwtp | the pros and cons of a country joining the eu | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fgwtp/eli5_the_pros_and_cons_of_a_country_joining_the_eu/ | {
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"Pros: free (nearly) unrestricted trade, access to a higher value currency, the capacity to have a greater say in regional issues, access to the largest (richest) economic bloc in the world.\n\nCons: you aren't allowed to protect domestic industry, you lose direct control over monetary policy, you no longer have an exchange rate to help your unproductive industries",
"Actual ELI5 answer:\n\nPro: You can get better cookies.\n\nCon: You have to share your cookies, and someone else hands them out.",
"Nobody seems to have explained means that the EU was fundamentally for facilitating trade of goods and services. It makes it easy to sell A from B to C. No tariffs or other barriers and common standards. The downside is that you don't get to decide on the standards alone and it means other people can sell stuff to you too.",
"By EU, I'm going to assume you mean not only the European Union, which is mainly political, but the Schengen Area and the Eurozone as well.\n\n\n** *The European Union itself* **\n\n\n**Pros:**\n\n\n* You can start the process of joining the Eurozone\n\n* You have a say in the EU's supranational political entities\n\n* Europe has historically been full of conflict -- especially in the last century. Having everyone operate under a single political banner promotes unity and makes outright wars between members less likely.\n\n\n**Cons:**\n\n\n* You have to follow whatever laws the EU decides to pass, as with joining any political institution.\n\n\n\n\nSeparately, we have the Eurozone, which is a monetary union, meaning all of its members have the same currency (the Euro).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n** *Eurozone* **\n\n\n**Pros:**\n\n\n* Free trade, meaning no restrictions like tariffs\n\n* Having the same currency means you don't have to exchange one currency for another, which not only takes time, but can involve substantial risk if the value of one currency against the other is fluctuating.\n\n* There is [substantial evidence](_URL_1_) on the side of exchange rate pegs (keeping your currency at the same price relative to another, within a range) and currency unions helping promote trade. The link above shows +21% trade volume for a direct peg and +38% for a currency union like the Eurozone.\n\n\nThe pros look pretty good, but the cons can be hefty.\n\n\n**Cons:**\n\n* *Preemptive TLDR:* **Asymmetry ruins everything** -- this is really the big point. Asymmetries between members of the currency union combined with a single monetary policy can lead to disastrous economic consequences. For example:\n\n\n* Say Country A goes through some sort of exogenous boost to its economy. People now have more money, but the total supply of money in the economy didn't really change. How can that happen? Let's say people are spending more rather than saving. This is a bit of a simplification, but it suits our purpose. People start taking their money out of banks, but banks still need the money so that they can give out loans.\n\n* So what happens? Banks raise their interest rates so that their deposits look more attractive. This dampens the economic boost in some ways, as we'll see in a bit, but it's not enough to prevent Country A from enjoying a stronger economy.\n\n* How about Country B? Let's say Country B's currency is pegged to Country A's, so that their exchange rates are fixed (a currency union is pretty much the same thing but more rigid.) Because Country A raised its interest rates, savvy investors all around the world are moving their money to invest in Country A. To do that, they have to exchange their currency for Country A's. This naturally drives up the value of Country A's currency.\n\n* But remember that Country B has to keep its currency at a certain peg to Country A's. This means it has to raise its own interest rates somehow. There are a bunch of ways to do this, but let's just say it happens. Now, Country B's currency is worth more. Unless Country B wanted to slow down their economy or had a similar positive shock to GDP, this **sucks** . Country B's exports are relatively more expensive abroad, while imports are relatively cheaper. Additionally, companies in your country are more hesitant to invest because interest rates are higher (loans are more expensive).\n\n* Replace Country A with Germany and Country B with Great Britain, and you've got [Black Wednesday](_URL_0_), GB ditching any plans to join the Eurozone. By the way, this seriously paid off compared to France, which saw about 6% less real GDP growth in the few years that followed.\n\n\nWe see a similar event happening today all over the Eurozone, most notably with Greece, which can't use monetary policy to lower its interest rates, devalue its currency, and raise its GDP when it most needs to.\n\n\n\nFinally, there's the Schengen Area, which basically allows free migration among its members. The idea is a good one, but each country is so culturally dissimilar from the others that there is very little actual labor migration.\n"
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fs7e1v | why does intestinal gas cause pain? don't the intestines have limited senses, otherwise we'd feel food moving through them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fs7e1v/eli5_why_does_intestinal_gas_cause_pain_dont_the/ | {
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"Not all types of sensory nerves are the same. Some only detect certain sensations. There are no (or very few) nerve endings in your intestines that can sense temperature or touch for example, but there are nerve endings that can sense things like inflammation and stretching. Gas distends your intestines which causes them to stretch, so the nerve endings can detect that."
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a4b2c7 | why does a video feel unnatural to watch if it has too many frames per second? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a4b2c7/eli5_why_does_a_video_feel_unnatural_to_watch_if/ | {
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"My understanding is that there is no blur, like the motion is too crisp. You generally perceive blur when something is moving. Think of a tennis ball. It's a yellow streak through the air when you watch it, a nice fuzzy blob of yellow. When a video is too high of resolution and too many frames per second, blur disappears and movements look unnatural.\n\nVsauce covered this in an older video. _URL_0_ ",
"Because from the time you've been capable of watching and comprehending movies, you've never seen a film at any frame rate other than 24fps. If movies had always been filmed at say, 60fps, nobody would think it was weird or unnatural."
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adcdgl | marginal tax rate | I've heard the term and I think I get it but I want to make sure. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/adcdgl/eli5_marginal_tax_rate/ | {
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"Every dollar you earn within a certain margin is taxed at a certain rate. \n\nFor example, if you earn $300K a year with a 50% marginal rate above $250K, $50K would be taxed at 50% while the remainder would be taxed at the corresponding marginal rates. \n\nIf the marginal rate from $0 to $10K is 0%, nobody pays taxes on their first $10K of earnings. \n\nMake sense? ",
"Basically, it means that only money *in a given tax bracket* is taxed at that rate.\n\nMarginal tax brackets work like this:\n\nSay you have three tax brackets. One for $0-$1000, another for $1001-$10,000, and a third for $10,001+. The rates are 5%, 10%, and 20% respectively.\n\nA person who makes $11,000 is going to get taxed like this:\n\n5% of the first $1,000, 10% of dollars 1001 through $10,000, and 20% of the remaining $1,000.\n\nHe's going to pay a tax bill of $1,150 because only money that falls within a given tax bracket is taxed at the rate of the bracket.\n\nThe reason this is so important to understand is relevant to current US politics. (Note: I'm not soapboxing, I'm mentioning this because of how frequently the issue of marginal taxes comes up alongside political discussions, and I'm only stating objective facts without political bias). Currently, some politicians are suggesting we increase taxes by creating new higher-level tax brackets at up to 70% tax rates. \n\nOther politicians are saying that this means that 70% of workers' paychecks will be taken as taxes, but this is *blatantly false* because you don't get assigned a tax bracket based on your total income--you divide your income up into sections that correspond to the tax brackets and pay like that. If you don't have enough income to fall into a higher level tax bracket, none of your paycheck is taxed at that rate. If you do have enough income to be taxed in a given bracket, only income within that bracket will be taxed at that rate.",
"In economics, the marginal tax rate is the tax rate applied to the last dollar of income. For example if there are 5 tax brackets and your taxable income puts you in the fourth bracket, your marginal tax rate is whatever rate applies to the fourth tax bracket. ",
"The best way to visualize the concept of marginal tax is as follows:\n\nImagine that you've got a large jug of water beside you; this is your income.\n\nIn front of you, you have a line of buckets with markings on them to indicate when it's full, and different percentages written on them, increasing from left to right.\n\nYour job is to start pouring water into each bucket, starting with the lowest marked percentage and changing buckets when you fill the previous one.\n\nThis is a good visual metaphor for tax brackets in the US. Your marginal tax rate, then, is the percentage written on the last bucket you poured water into.",
"To rehash what others have said... \n\nThe three terms you need to know is adjusted gross income, marginal tax rate, and effective tax rate. \n\nYour *adjusted gross income* is your total income, minus deductions and exemptions. You only pay taxes on your *adjusted gross income*, not your gross income (i.e. every dollar you make in a year). Suppose you make $150,000 a year. As a single filer, you can take the standard deduction of $12,000 or calculate the exact amount (mortgage interest, donations, etc). If you take the standard, then your *adjusted gross income* that you will pay tax on is $138,000.\n\nEach tax bracket has a percentage that is applied to *only those dollars of your taxable income in that bracket.* The tax brackets, look like this:\n\n* $0 to $9,525 10% of taxable income\n* $9,526 to $38,700 12% of the next $29,174\n* $38,701 to $82,500 22% of the next $43,799\n* $82,501 to $157,500 24% of the next $74,999\n* $157,501 to $200,000 32% of the next $42,499\n* $200,001 to $500,000 35% of the next $299,999\n* $500,001 or more 37% of the amount over $500,000 \n\nSo, we would pay:\n\n* $0 to $9,525 $95.25 *plus* \n* $9,526 to $38,700 $3,500.88 *plus*\n* $38,701 to $82,500 $9,635.78 *plus*\n* $82,501 to $157,500 $13,320 ($138,000 - $82,500 \\* 0.24)\n* Total: $26,551.91 in income taxes (I just noticed I did the calcs so I am off by a buck here and there - but I'm not going to go back and fix my sub dollar calc errors. Sorry.)\n\nThe *marginal tax rate* is the tax rate applied to *the last dollar of your taxable income*. In this case, the marginal tax rate is 24%. But, that's not the whole story. \n\nYour *effective* *tax rate* is the total taxes that you paid divided by your total income. This is the number that really matters. In this case, the *effective tax rate* is 19.2%. \n\nThe main take away is that outside of some special circumstances where you lose preferential tax rates or access to services, makings an extra dollar in income means more money in your pocket. If you made $82,500 and then earn that extra dollar, you don't pay the new 24% marginal rate on all of the money you have already made - It's just $0.24 on that last dollar. \n\n & #x200B;",
"Thanks everyone! Definitely learned a little more about how everything works here!"
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1mqfny | the political situation in greece, specifically the golden dawn and similar radical groups. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mqfny/eli5_the_political_situation_in_greece/ | {
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"ELI5 version: Greece came out of World War II as a \"winner\", but with an identity crisis. They couldn't decide if they wanted to side with the West (US, England, etc.) or with the East (Russia, or Soviet Union to be exact). A civil war started and that was the beginning of the mess, since a number of people died, a number of people lost their possessions and in general nothing good came out of it\n\nFollowing the civil war, and a few years of monarchy, Greece went into a dictatorship. Many people sided with the junta (dictators) and many sided with the resistance\n\nComing out of the sever year junta, the majority of the population has already experienced a huge disconnect between the right (ranging from fascists to conservatives parties) and the left (ranging from communists to socialistic parties). Younger people were indoctrinated by the stories heard by parents / grand parents (e.g.: \"the communists killed my grandfather\", or \"the fascists raped your grandmother\")\n\nSeveral years in the future, Greece joined the EU, became more prosper (although only in paper as we see today) and started having an immigration influx from poorer countries: Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, and later from African or Asian countries: Pakistan, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. That was not very problematic, until the huge economic crisis hit Greece\n\nWhile all that was happening, Greece had a bunch of people being Hitler admirers (the core of Golden Dawn), and a number of people being communism admirers (Communist Part of Greece, and some more \"unofficial\" entities). These people, the extreme right and the extreme left never really liked each other, but they had a steady following\n\nBack to now: The crisis (mainly) and some criminal related incidents with immigrants led the people to get pissed off by the government. On top of that, the two parties that mainly ruled Greece for the past 30 years have proven to be inadequate. People got seriously pissed\n\nGolden Dawn suddenly became popular, because they are advocating against the immigrants and for \"Greece for Greeks\". They want to deport (or worse) all illegal immigrants, stop dealing with the EU (\"cause we are not their slaves\") and want to give more power to the police. These arguments convinced a number of people (approx 600.000) to give them 7% of the Greek parliament seats and then things started going crazier\n\nI don't know which part interests you the most, so let me know and i will elaborate accordingly\n\nSource: I am Greek, and old enough to remember events taken place after the 70s"
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5a956y | canada's prostitution laws | Just searched the sub, found nothing.
From [Wikipedia](_URL_0_):
> Current laws on prostitution in Canada, introduced in 2014, make it **illegal to purchase sexual services but legal to sell them**.
How does this make any sense?
Edit: I see it's to protect the prostitute in case they have no other options. But why not just make it all legal and regulated at that point? If I was so inclined to buy a prostitute, I would probably be more willing to if it was legal. Making it legal would maybe even improve business for the prostitute because people wouldn't be afraid to buy her services. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a956y/eli5_canadas_prostitution_laws/ | {
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"Basically, the prostitute cannot be charged for prostitution, but the John can be charged for buying a prostitute. Of course there are other laws that make it near impossible for the prostitute to legally sell themselves, such as laws against procuring (a.k.a. pimping), operating or working in a brothel and soliciting in public.",
"If you were a prostitute and a john beat you up or robbed you would you be willing to say anything to the police knowing that you would get arrested as well?\n\n\n\n",
"There are surely some women who become prostitutes because it sounds fun or whatever but there is basically a tremendous about of people that go into it under all sorts of duress. \n\nFor that reason it generally makes no sense to punish some homeless women who was sold into slavery as a minor or whatever. She already would not be doing it if she had a choice, sending her to jail or fineing her will likely not make her want to do it any less. \n\nThe idea is generally that buying sex is a willful act but selling it is often not. And therefore makes no sense to put penalty on. ",
"It is illegal to go to a club, pay a manager, and then have sex with a dancer.\n\nIt is not illegal for that dancer to sell you sex herself."
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6btpjt | how does pounding meat make it tender? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6btpjt/eli5_how_does_pounding_meat_make_it_tender/ | {
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"You break up some of the protein by pounding the meat, that makes it tender. Chemical tenderizers are enzymes that breaks apart the protein. "
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ahsy3i | why use a savings account when you have a checking account? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ahsy3i/eli5_why_use_a_savings_account_when_you_have_a/ | {
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"Back in the 90s and earlier, interest rates were WAY higher. We're talking 10% on your savings accounts. Having even $1000 in your account means you made $100+ in interest per year for doing nothing.\n\nNowadays, interests rates are insanely low, often in the 0.5-1.5%. It's not really worth it to keep money you might need in savings."
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bgc4pg | in what ways is a professional boxers head different from mine that allows them to get punched so much? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bgc4pg/eli5_in_what_ways_is_a_professional_boxers_head/ | {
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"In the end, nothing. They are used to it, and better able to defend it, but a strong blow to the head can knock out or kill anyone. Boxers also suffer CTE badly and early from repeated hits to the head.",
"[A strong neck can help prevent against concussions](_URL_0_). I remember reading that Mike Tyson used to do a 500 shrugs a day in addition to other neck exercises.",
"Repeated blows to the head causes brain damage, a condition which used to be called 'punch drunk' in the old days, modern name eludes me."
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akdu4y | how dangerous are plutonium and uranium | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/akdu4y/eli5how_dangerous_are_plutonium_and_uranium/ | {
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"That depends, uranium ore is regarded as not very radioactive and can vary substantially with purity. Plutonium ore is rare but looks to be not safe from what i can find.\n\nThe enriched kind used for fuel is not safe at all to be around but can be used safely in the correct setup.\n\nWhen thing go very wrong: _URL_0_",
"It depends on what for they take and at which dangers you look.\n\nFor once even leaving radioactivity aside, they are both simply regularly toxic as many heavy metals are.\n\nEven depleted uranium which is a form of the metal not particularly radioactive, is still very toxic, which is arguably a secondary problem for most who come into direct contact with it as it is mainly used to make bullets out of to shoot things and people.\n\nLike many other metals, they both react with the oxygen in the atmosphere and if you grind them down into forms with high surface areas like flakes or small grains or dust they can combust quite vigorously. What sets them apart from for example a similar dust of aluminum or grain, is that their radioactive nature gives them an in built heat source and that they may start to ignite by themselves. Metal fires and explosions represent a health hazard to humans even if they are not radioactive.\n\nThe radioactivity of course is a primary concern. Enough exposure radioactivity will destroy your various organs or possibly give you cancer or just outright kill you.\n\nAnd then there is that whole nuclear explosion thing. You are unlikely to cause one by accident, but if you ever find yourself in possession of two chunks of barely subcritical masses of uranium or plutonium, don't try banging them together to see what sound they would make.",
"Funny to see comments here about 'natural plutonium'. This only exists in trace amounts, essentially all plutonium is artificially produced. \n\nPlutonium gets very hot- 10 watts from a 5kg piece- and can burn and smoulder like a glowing ember in moist air\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"They're both alpha radiation emitters. If they're nearby in small quantities they're not dangerous. If you ingest or inhale them then they cause problems due to the radiation but more so due to the fact they are heavy metals. Luckily the body recognizes they're heavy metals and so mostly rejects them.\n\nMost of ingested uranium and plutonium will pass right through the system, only .04% of plutonium is absorbed and only .\nOf the uranium ingested and absorbed into the body, the biological half-life is about 15 days. So after 150 days it's pretty much entirely gone.\n\nPlutonium on the other hand is around much longer. It gets absorbed into the blood cells and liver, taking the place of iron. It has a biological half-life of about 200 years. So pretty much any plutonium ingested will be in your body causing damage your whole life. However the medication DTPA can be administered to greatly reduce that time frame. It binds to the plutonium allowing it to be excreted in the urine.",
"I learned relatively recently that where I went to college at, Iowa State University, produced 900 tons of uranium metal for the Manhattan Project during WWII. That was in the middle of campus no less! I have never heard that there were ever any serious cases of uranium toxicity due to that production."
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c5lst7 | how do ski jumpers not sustain injury when landing? vertically it appears to be at least a 100 foot drop. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c5lst7/eli5_how_do_ski_jumpers_not_sustain_injury_when/ | {
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"They drop a great distance while moving forward with great speed landing on the incline of the slope. That all combines to be within human tolerances for a safe landing force.",
"The direction they fall after their jump is similar to the direction of the slope they hit. So they just keep on going, and it doesn't jar their legs too much.",
"They preserve their forward momentum. Not a lot of energy is transferred through their joints since they maintain a forward speed. They only get hurt if they have a sudden stop because then a lot of energy is transferred through the joints.",
"When a skier jumps he/she follow a parabolic trajectory which is a symmetrical curve. The landing ramp is designed so that skiers coming down on a ramp that follows that curve. When they first land they are basically going the same direction gravity wants to take them. But landing on the ramp while likely not gentle involves a much slower change in momentum for skiers.",
"A skier jumps in a curve ramp is shaped like curve so skier lands the same angle he is falling",
"Like the saying goes, “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end”. Ski jumpers are falling due to gravity, but they’re also moving forward from their momentum off of the ramp. When they land they are landing on a slope that allows them to keep going in more or less the same direction, forward and down. Like a car on the highway, you can be traveling 80mph and as long as you don’t have a dramatic change in speed or direction you’re fine.",
"If you do a big jump with lots of speed the speed carries your landing forward lessening the force of impact on landing, if you do a big jump with no speed it can be heavy landing",
"Another instance where this happens is in parkour. They can fall great heights and not sustain any injures by diving forward and rolling at the end of the jump. Obviously not as extreme but still similar.",
"Imagine you would fall from the sky and you land on a flying airplane. You would still die, because instead of hitting the ground, now you hit an airplane.\n\nBut now imagine that the airplane first started to move in the same direction you fall, untill it's basically falling besides you. Your relative speed to the plane would be zero. You could touch it and nothing would happen. If it was under you and slowly slowed down, it would feel like a car slowing down. You would be pressed against it, but only a bit. But for a long time.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe same happens with the slope they land on. At first, it follows your path directly, lets say you fall parallel to it. Then it slowly diverges a bit from your path, and you are lightly pressed against it. This happens again for a long time, and over that long time you are always lightly pressed against it, losing energy.",
"A key point that everyone seems to be missing out is that they get their body and skis so flat, that they are doing a half decent job at parachuting/gliding down, so although they have dropped 100 foot, their vertical speed is very different compared to if they were in freefall over that distance.\n\nThey are still travelling fast enough that they need to land on a slope as well, though even when they miss most of the slope and land on the almost flat they don't tend to injure themselves badly. (See [_URL_0_](_URL_1_))",
"Low angle of approach, like how a plane doesn't land by just slamming into the ground at a 90⁰ angle.",
"Ski jumpers land on a steep slope, so even though they have a lot of downward speed, most of that energy can be transferred to forward motion once they land instead of vertical force through to the ground.\n\nThink of it like an airplane coming in to land. Those are huge machines, but they approach a runway at a 3% decent angle (90% being straight up and down), so most of their energy is moving forward when they land. \n\nNow turn the runway up 45 degrees, replace the runway with a mountain, and an airplane with a person on skis.",
"In answer to your question, we do frequently get injured. Ski jumping is a sport that takes years to master. The first year usually results in torn tendons and broken bones. When this happens part of the rehabilitation involves replacing joints and bones with titanium and tendons with kevlar strips. You’ll often see ski jumpers with a tattoo that says “IRON BONE”. The process of bone and tendon replacement results in ski jumpers becoming “stiff legged” the rest of their lives. Here you can see Olympic Champion Ski Jumper Chris Wallace walking through the practice facility in Aberdeen, he had the replacements about four years ago. _URL_4_ And he walks like that everywhere he goes. He not only walks like that he even trains like that. Here’s another video of Chris weight training to strengthen his legs _URL_3_ Training athletes is a serious business and some families are starting off training children at a very young age. Here you can see a young athlete named Kane who recently underwent bone and joint replacement. He will have stiff legs the rest of his life: _URL_0_ His brother Martin had the surgery last year and has almost completed his rehabilitation _URL_2_ So, to answer your question, yes there are injuries but once the transplant has been made your legs are pretty much indestructible. Here’s another video on Iron Bones _URL_1_",
"Are you asking about when skiers drop off cliffs or when they do jumps? It’s similar mechanics, but different. Skiing off a cliff isn’t so bad unless the landing isn’t in your plane of motion. You can huck it off a 50ft cliff if the landing is also near vertical. The biggest thing is that you accelerate a lot in free fall and you need the leg strength to overcome the other forces to turn or to stop. \n\nPark jumps are similar but also different as the angle of the slope is generally less than 30 degrees. The physics are similar and if you pop off a large jump the landing is designed to be soft. If you land hard, it’s generally because you were not going fast enough before the pop, or you didn’t pop correctly.",
"dV/dt is small. Therefore no injury.\n\nIt's about change is velocity(speed and direction) over time. As they land they are still moving down amd forward pretty fast and the actual change in speed is very little."
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2ccxx8 | why is eric cantor resigning early? | Just read about this, and a quick google search didn't turn up any obvious scandals. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ccxx8/eli5why_is_eric_cantor_resigning_early/ | {
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" > “I want to make sure that the constituents in the 7th District will have a voice in what will be a very consequential lame-duck session,” Cantor said in an exclusive interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Thursday afternoon.\n\nThere you go. Cantor lost his primary already so no matter what, this is his last term as a Congressman. Now, there will be a special election the same day as the General Election in his district. The result is that whoever wins will take office immediately instead of in January. So the people in Cantor's district will have a Congressman who has the authority to speak for them during the lame-duck session as opposed to someone who has been voted out and can't claim to be what the people in his district want anymore. "
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3712uv | why cant countries just submit their most famous singers for eurovision? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3712uv/eli5_why_cant_countries_just_submit_their_most/ | {
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"Singing quality is not really what Eurovision is about. It's just this crazy, kinda camp show where quality of the songs pretty much takes a backdrop to how flashy a show you can put on. And politics. Also a lot of politics. ",
"I think they actually send their worst singers to avoid wining at any price, otherwise they would become host and have to organize the next edition."
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3ne7x6 | why do more males play video games than females? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ne7x6/eli5_why_do_more_males_play_video_games_than/ | {
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"A recent brain-imaging study by researchers at Stanford's school of medicine suggests that while playing video games, men have more activity in the mesocorticolimbic center, the region of the brain associated with reward and addiction, than women. Study participants - 11 men and 11 women - were asked to click on 10 moving balls before they hit a wall on the screen. Successful players were rewarded with territory, though the participants were not told the benefits of clicking on the balls.\n\nAll participants figured out the objective of the game and displayed similar motor skills, but because the men figured out which balls (the ones closest to the wall) earned them the most land, they gained significantly more territory than the women. The researchers also found greater activation in male brains in three brain structures - the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and orbitofrontal cortex - and that the brain activity increased according to how much territory they had gained. The female brains showed no such correlation.\n\nResearchers believe these findings can help explain why most avid video gamers have a Y chromosome. \"These gender differences in the brain may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games than females,\" said Dr. Allan Reiss. \n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"There are a lot of theories about this and some are extremely sexist, but honestly the real reason is probably because games are just not tailored to girls' interests. Just look at games like bejeweled and candy crush. The overall user base is something between 60 and 80 percent percent female among those types of games. The thing that's extremely bad about the gaming industry as a whole right now is that most games that are made are very formulaic and target a specific audience, the tried and true audience of male gamers. This is in part to due with the fact that most game developers are males. If developers started making games suited to girls' interests I'm sure we'd see more girl gamers. \n\nThere's also a really negative stigma associated with being a gamer, and the stigma is stronger for females than it is for males. Gaming among males is something that is slowly starting to become accepted. Guys can play video games and still be \"cool.\" For girls, the negative stigma of being \"the weird girl gamer\" is still very much prevalent among female social circles. I play league of legends regularly and I used to run a collegiate club for said game. Many of the girls that we had gotten to join the club had never told anyone before that they were gamers for fear of being excluded from their social circles. Many of these girls upon meeting other female gamers who played the same game became extremely good friends with each other. \n\nAlso, you need to kind of define what you mean by \"plays video games.\" Most surveys put the demographics of those who played video games at fairly close to 50/50 because they include mobile games like candy crush or browser games like neopets. Many hardcore gamers would not consider this to be true \"gaming,\" and will rarely associate with these types of gamers (the vast majority of the female gaming audience) leading to the impression that there aren't as many female gamers. ",
"I don't know - I'm a chick and have been a gamer since Dino Wars (on my trash-80 lol) but I was a rare breed in my younger days. A hard core pc / console gamer who could hang with the \"big dogs\" in every game I played. But, given the 10 to 1 ratio of men to women at the game cons I went to in the 90's, early 00's, I knew that, at that time, I was the odd girl out. \n\nIt seems that NOW there are Way more female gamers than there have ever been - and I think that's because they are being introduced to the fun of gaming at a much earlier age then we were when I was growing up. \n\nI think there is a huge segment of female gamers that like the same games that men do to. I just don't think too many people believe they exist in the number they actually do. The old assumption that most women in games are actually dudes, and all that rot.\n\nGive it a little more time and I think the numbers will prove to be a lot more balanced than they seem. ",
"Trick question: [they don't](_URL_0_). It's just a difference in perception, as others have noted. We have this idea of what it means to \"play video games,\" and we tend to assume anyone who does \"play video games\" is male (since we can't usually see or hear them to verify). It doesn't help that plenty of women who do a lot of multiplayer gaming deliberately lie: I know my girl gaming buddy does. It's easier than dealing with 1) people hitting on her immediately, 2) calling her a liar if she *does* say she's female, and 3) assuming she's not as good because she's female and/or calling out every mistake she makes because of it."
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3m71h9 | what exactly is at mecca? | And why would people risk today's crushing stampede (which has happened before) to go there? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3m71h9/eli5_what_exactly_is_at_mecca/ | {
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"I believe there is a black stone that is small enough to fit into your hand. And it is said that the stone was sent from the heavens. So it is most likely an meteorite. It sits in a small black building that very very few are aloud to go into.",
"Mecca is the most holy site in Islam - the place where Muhammad was born and where God supposedly revealed the Koran to him. \n\nAt the center of Mecca is the Kaaba, the holiest site of Islam. Muslims are expected, once in their lifetime, to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and walk around the Kaaka seven times. \n"
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6pxjuj | do extremely hot foods that cause "pain" actually cause physical harm to your body? is it a chemical burn type thing? | you see people eat ghost peppers and such and they certainly appear to be in serious physical pain. I've eaten spicy foods, but nothing extreme, and even experiencing it myself, I cant understand the effect.
once the heat passes, there is no lingering physical damage to my mouth that I can detect, no cuts, sores, burns, ect.
So is that to say a super hot food is "harmless"? or is there damage being done on a cellular level? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pxjuj/eli5do_extremely_hot_foods_that_cause_pain/ | {
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"It can cause inflammation, which can cause other complications. Anaphylactic shock is inflammation from allergies which can kill people by preventing breathing, similarly, peanuts are not destroying that person's cells but the reaction to the \"harmless chemical\" can be a medical emergency.\n\nOutside of the body's reaction, capsaicin (the spicy chemical) is not denaturing proteins, boiling water away, or otherwise doing the same damage heat does. \n\nBut if it causes you to vomit or have chronic diarrhea, those things can be bad for your throat and digestive system long-term. And if you breathe a cloud of pepper spray and you experience extreme coughing or swelling, those things could interfere with your ability to breathe and you could even die (you probably wouldn't but you could)",
"Capsaicin has this effect because it affects the nerves your body uses to detect temperature/pain. Capsaicing activates receptors of a type called TRPV1, which are normally triggered by painful stimuli. Pretty much everything bad that happens in response to exposure to high concentrations of capsaicin (tearing up, swelling, etc.) is all happening because your body THINKS that something physically damaging is happening to you, and those reactions are attempts to mitigate the damage.\n\nIf it seems odd to you that your body's *reaction* to a painful stimulus could be so painful itself, think of it like the fire department: The fire department's job is to stop fires, and if your house is on fire you probably want the fire dept. to show up, but if the fire alarm (TRPV1) went off for no reason and the fire dept. showed up and tried to put out the nonexistant fire, it'd kinda wreck your shit. They might try to hose the house down to prevent the roof catching fire, soaking the house, they might cut through some of your doors with axes, stuff like that."
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1kkxv4 | post-scarcity economy | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kkxv4/eli5postscarcity_economy/ | {
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"Oh baby I love talking about this.\n\nEconomics is the study of how people act when there is a limited supply for something. For example, rice is very inexpensive because there is lots of it and we have no reason to think there won't be any in the future. Homes are expensive because it takes a lot of time and resources to build them, and because there is only so much land to build them on. Post scarcity is a pretend situation where humanity figures out how to provide everything everyone needs at basically no cost. There is enough food for everyone, and it's good food, too. There is enough homes for everyone to live comfortably. There is enough energy that you can travel all over the world or even beyond and not have to worry about the gas bill.\n\nIn a world like this, things would be very different. Would people still have jobs? After all, most people work to get paid, but if food, housing, and transportation are so easy to get that they're free then why work? Well, maybe there are things people would want to do as their job even if they know they'll be fed and healthy. People might choose to pursue art or explore outer space or just lie around and have sex all day. Who knows? Maybe that would get boring and people would form organizations that still somehow encouraged each other to work towards some goal, something that individuals wouldn't be interested in doing on their own.\n\nHowever, there are some things that unlimited technology probably can't create an infinite supply of. Beachfront property, fame, social status, etc. Perhaps there will still be some form of money and people work to earn it so they can buy those few things that can't be printed out of a computer or simulated in a hologram. \n\nThere are a lot of scifi books on this idea, but I would recommend Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. It's short, funny, and thought provoking. People in that book earn \"whuffie\" when they do something that other people like. It's actually a lot like Reddit Karma but for everything you do all the time. People are constantly competing with each other to provide the most interesting or entertaining ways of modifying the world around them. The main plot line is about the people who currently run some of the attractions at Disney World. You can read it for free on his site: _URL_0_"
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63msf8 | how do cyclists and runners get huge, muscular legs? | This may seem generally obvious but I'm looking specifics. If they burn so many calories and don't really lift heavy weights how do you see cyclists build so much muscle on their thighs? I play hockey and weightlift, and unless I squat and deadlift heavy and eat like a bear, there's no way I'm putting on muscle with just cardio and high intensity running. If muscle needs calories and heavy weights to grow how do these runners who shed so many calories and only do cardio get these huge legs? Cyclists especially, those legs are huge. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63msf8/eli5_how_do_cyclists_and_runners_get_huge/ | {
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"The guys with huge, muscular legs are sprinters. They squat and deadlift specifically to build those huge muscles, to give them massive acceleration and short-distance speed.\n\nLong-distance runners tend to be the opposite, for the reasons you describe. They tend to have longer, more spindly-looking legs.",
"Cyclist here who used to run marathons. You're right--normal road cyclists don't get giant legs nor do they want them. That's mostly a track sprinter thing. There are road cyclists who specialize in sprints, but they still have to make it all the way to the finish to use their legs.\n\nThose giant sprinter legs can produce ~2kW for a few seconds. That's great for a sprint, but not so great for a long race because giant legs are heavy and it's a lot of work to move them around. So track sprinters who only sprint have the biggest legs. But if you're doing a long race, you don't want gianormous legs even if you specialize in the sprint--you'll have to carry those legs all the way to the finish to really use them. You also have to feed and oxygenate all that muscle the whole time.\n\nYou don't actually need a lot of power to win the Tour de France. It's only 350-400W which is about what an untrained cyclist can produce for a few seconds. So untrained people *mostly* have the muscle to be a world-class cyclist. What they're missing is a completely ridiculous aerobic engine. Instead of a few seconds at 350W followed by a week on the couch, you need to do that power for 5 hours a day, every day. That means a strong heart, muscle packed with mitochondria, lots of red blood cells, the ability to efficiently clear metabolic waste, good form with strong stabilizer muscles, etc. But these are things you can't really see appearance wise.\n\nTo get into that shape, endurance riders train with long rides and often have high cadence to keep the repetitions up and the pedal force down. Even up mountains, they make sure to have adequate gearing to keep the pedal force relatively low. So they don't get big legs.\n\nTrack sprinters on the other hand, are totally focusing on bulking up because bigger legs will only help them. Track bikes are fixed-gear so a track sprinter will reach crazy high cadences, but they are going to be doing a more traditional body-builder leg training with high weight combined with high cadence drills.\n\nRunners have the same concerns. World-class marathon runners are very thin and have crazy aerobic systems. Track sprinters are massive and produce lots of power.\n\nedit: [Froome's Legs for reference](_URL_0_)"
]
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c4m2eo | what happens in a car engine when the head gasket fails? why is it such a bad thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c4m2eo/eli5_what_happens_in_a_car_engine_when_the_head/ | {
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"I'm going to assume you have a rough idea of what an engine is and how it works.\n\nMost engines are split into a block & a head. The block has the cylinders in it & the head is where the valves live. These are two pieces of metal. The head gasket sits between the two & forces them to make a good seal.\n\nIf your head gasket blows, you can no longer maintain compression in your cylinders & the whole cycle of the engine gets less efficient (or outright fails).",
"Imagine a pressure cooking pot with a leaking gasket. Pressure will not build up and vapor will leak.",
"In addition to the other answers, there are holes in the cylinder block and matching ones in the cylinder head for cooling water to circulate around. If the gasket fails between the cylinder and cooling path, water can get into the cylinder itself possibly causing damage or corrosion.",
"the seal that holds the kapow in is letting it leak out. this is bad because kapow is what makes your engine go vroom-vroom. if just a little kapow is getting out, there isn’t enough vroom-vroom. and it might get worse and let a LOT of kapow come out all at once, which would wreck your car and maybe get you into an accident.",
"A head gasket is a sealant layer between the engine block (The bottom part) and the cylinder head (The top part). This seals multiple parts, including the cylinders themselves and the oil and coolant channels. It is important to keep all of those sealed from each other.\n\nWhen a head gasket begins to leak, it's usually between the cylinder and the oil or coolant channel, or between all of them in the worst case. Though it can also happen between the outside atmosphere and the cylinder. Getting either oil, coolant into the wrong part of the engine is a serious issue. Also, if the cylinder can't create adequate compression if the leak is large enough and it will reduce engine performance."
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5q232a | how do broken bones fuse together? | Why does the same not happen for teeth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5q232a/eli5_how_do_broken_bones_fuse_together/ | {
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"Someone can more fully explain the actual mechanism that bones use to fuse but teeth and bones are not really the same thing. Even though bones seem hard they're actually made of almost all living tissue, collagen mostly. The outer layer is harder, but still a living tissue. When it breaks the bone can grow new cells and the pieces quickly fuse together. Basically a bone is like a really really dense sponge, but fluid still flows through it.\n\nTeeth are different. Most if it is not living tissue, there's no blood running through them. When it breaks it's there's no way to send new cells to repair the outer tooth enamel. The inside is mostly just nerves. whereas breaking a bone is like breaking a sponge, breaking a tooth is like cracking a rock. It can't grow because it isn't alive. \n\nEDIT: we're obviously talking about the exterior of the tooth. I love pedantry but jesus fucking christ.",
"The simple answer is that bones heal because they're living tissue. Teeth contain living tissue, but the outside (enamel) is entirely made of a glassy mineral. It's not alive, so it can't heal.\n\nBone healing has three phases.\n\n**1) Reactive**:\nBlood vessels contract to stop bleeding. Cells in the vicinity of the break die, and a fibrous tissue called \"granulation tissue\" forms in their place. Meanwhile, cells called osteoclasts absorb the dead bone tissue.\n\n**2) Reparative**:\nBones are coated in a layer of connective tissue called the periosteum. A few days after the break, cells from the periosteum start to reproduce and change. Cells very near the break form into hyaline cartilage (the kind of hard cartilage that's inside joints) and cells further away from the break produce woven bone (a weak kind of bone tissue, made of disorganized fibers). The growing tissue from both sides eventually meets in the middle, filling the gap. The bridge of new tissue is called the \"fracture callus\". At this point, the bone is still weak but able to perform some of its original function.\n\nOver time, the fracture callus absorbs minerals and becomes harder. At this point, it starts to be penetrated by little channels, containing a tiny blood vessel and lots of osteoblasts (bone-forming cells). The osteoblasts lay down new lamellar bone (a stronger kind of bone tissue, made of fibers organized into plates). The new bone is what's called trabecular (spongy) bone, the kind of bone that's normally on the interior of bones. When the formation of spongy bone is complete, the bone is mostly as strong as the original bone.\n\n**3) Remodeling**:\nOver the next 3-5 years, osteoclasts absorb the surface of the trabecular bone, and osteoblasts replace it with compact bone; the kind of solid bone that the outside of bones is regularly made of. At this point, the repair is complete and the bone is pretty much restored to its original condition.\n\nTL;DR: Step 1: cleanup the broken bits. Step 2: Build a scaffold, then replace it with spongy bone. Step 3: Replace the spongy bone on the surface with solid bone."
]
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fcacwy | how do electronics without internal fan maintain safe temperatures? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fcacwy/eli5_how_do_electronics_without_internal_fan/ | {
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"Two main ways:\n\nFirst if they don’t use that much power or dont move much they simply don’t get that hot.\n\nSecond natural heat loss to the surrounding air happens with or without airflow, and increases with differing temperatures. This is a factor of the materials used and their surface area, some devices add heat sinks to increase surface area to help heat loss. Airflow from fans helps make sure that the different temperatures mentioned above stay about the same, because it moves the heated air away and puts new colder air in contact with the hot thing.",
"For electronics, the heat generated is roughly a function of complexity and speed. (not counting things like batteries, lights and speakers etc which are not \"electronic\" in a sense)\n\nSo during design, the components and speeds are selected that can perform the functions needed without generating too much heat. By spacing components and using items like heat spreaders etc, it is possible to avoid hot spots and spread the heat evenly enough that temperatures are managed. Mobile devices even use the frame (magnesium or aluminium or similar) as a heat sink - ie it rapidly absorbs heat from the electronics and brings it away to the outer shell of the product where it can dissipate. \n\nEvery object has a \"natural\" rate of heat loss - where it will lose heat to it's surroundings when it gets hotter. So as long as the heat loss rate is sufficient to dissipate the heat generated to the surroundings, the device will stabilize at a certain temperature. All of these factors are considered and tested during the design phase of a product."
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8jpj35 | crowdfunding? what is it and how does it work? also, what would it be used for? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8jpj35/eli5_crowdfunding_what_is_it_and_how_does_it_work/ | {
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"Have you heard of kick starter? That's an example of crowd funding. Basically, rather than finding one person to give you a ton of money to do something, you ask many people for like, 50 bucks. It can be used to start businesses, fund medical treatments, anything really. ",
"Crowdfunding is when a project (or business, or whatever) is funded through a large number of low value donations/funding (such as 10,000 $5 donations) as opposed to typical large value venture capitalism/donations (5 $10k donations). A common example of this is Kickstarter, which uses the internet to fund projects through crowdfunding.\n\nOften crowdfunding works well for projects that might not be able to easily gain access to venture capital (such as indie game companies) or projects that have large fan bases (such as some music albums). In addition it can sometimes serve as a type of \"preorder\" for a product, with donators giving donations in return for copies of the final product once it is done being created.\n\nThe drawback, of course, is less control and more risk involved for the donator should the final product fail, be canceled, or run into other difficulties that prevent its completion."
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412zke | what is going on when you feel a tickle on your skin like a tiny bug is moving on you but your closest examinations reveal nothing is there. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/412zke/eli5_what_is_going_on_when_you_feel_a_tickle_on/ | {
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"There are very tiny nerve receptors in your skin if two or more of them are stimulated at the same time you get this sensation, sometimes the bug moved before you saw it, sometimes it can be dust or other debris, sometimes it can be a phantom response. For more on the nerves in your skin - _URL_0_",
"That's called Formication. There's lots of causes--menopause, some drugs, even static electricity moving your hair.\n\nWhen an actual bug crawls on your skin, you sense it because it moves your body hair, triggering nerves there to tell your brain about it. When the nerves in your body hair are triggered by non-bug things (like menopause or meth), your brain explains it to you by saying \"Hey! There must be a bug on you!\"\n\n",
"It may be that knowing a bug is on you is so important that having some false positives is necessary. It's better to think there is a bug when there is not, than to not think there is a bug when there is a bug.",
"Every time this happens to me, I've made it a habit to quickly check out the area just in case it actually was a bug. Its almost always an arm hair or something. ",
"What about when it feels like it's under your skin? Like you can feel the itch but you can't quite scratch it because it feels like it's inside you, like your muscle tissue or something is itchy ? Does anyone else get this? Do I have weird insects in me? And I dying? ",
"You ever seen The Mummy?"
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1pu5sb | why is it illegal to not wear a seat belt if i'm only endangering myself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pu5sb/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_not_wear_a_seat_belt_if/ | {
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"Everybody ends up paying more when your head goes through the windshield.",
"You're not only endangering yourself. If you're not wearing a seat belt, you are thrown at a force that is possibly deadly if you are thrown into another person in the car. If you are in the back seat, and not wearing a seat belt, and the person in front of you is, you are going to hit the seat with such force it is going to crush the person between the seat and seat belt.\n_URL_0_",
"It's not in [New Hampshire](_URL_0_). When you cross the border there are signs saying all passengers/ drivers under 18 must wear a seat belt. Implied is the statement \"If you're 18 or over, go ahead and splatter your head on the pavement, see if we care.\" ",
"1. Because it massively reduces the risk of your own death or serious injury.\n2. So that when someone else is involved in an accident - which might or might not be their fault - what was a minor accident doesn't become one where someone is killed.\n3. When not wearing a seatbelt, any kind of sudden deceleration turns you in to a projectile within the vehicle - and sometimes outside the vehicle. If you're not wearing a seatbelt, you can collide with another passenger (who is) and injure (or even kill) them just as much as yourself.\n4. Because you're not the only one you're endangering. Noone wants to have to be first response on a scene where you've flown straight through the windscreen and ended up wrapped around a tree for everyone else to see.",
"I would say in countries with free healthcare, it costs less to treat someone with whiplash than someone who lost half a head grating it down the road. Or if the airbag deploys and you aren't in the right place due to being flung around without restraint, you're more expensive to treat again.\nLastly, politicians get boosts if the road death toll is lower. Seatbelts might not stop crashes, but they do save lives. ",
"Because you are not just putting yourself in jeopardy. It could keep you from flying out the window and into a motorcyclist or the back seat of another car where you crush an infant. In other words, you become a projectile and that isn't fair to anyone. If you truly want to be no danger to anyone... wear your seatbelt.",
"Because you run the risk of more sever injuries when not wearing your seat belt. This causes insurance companies to pay higher expenses on your behalf. Insurances companies don't like huge medical bills and large pay outs. insurance companies rule the world.",
"Because it causes preventable injuries. If you're in a collision and not wearing your seat belt, emergency services might have to spend time treating you instead of another person who's injuries might not have been avoidable.\n\nI'm all for personable responsibility and liberty, but the more effort someone puts into protecting themselves, the less time would need to be spent with them in the event of an accident. This includes Bike Helmets and leathers.",
"Another reason is that in places where health-care is free. People want to pay to help those in need. Not the stupid ones who injure themselves on purpose. We pay for those but would rather not. Personally, if you die in accident because not wearing your seatbelt it's either natural selection or suicide."
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2djqr7 | how come there are cracked downloads of the popular anti-virus softwares? | Isn't the fact that said software got cracked proof that it is not secure? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2djqr7/eli5how_come_there_are_cracked_downloads_of_the/ | {
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"The software itself, while supposed to be somewhat hard to decode, can still be cracked, but many of these softwares have some from of prevention for this. For example: Trend Mirco anti-virus uses some of your computer info, (Sometimes a product number, always a software purchase number) While the software says \"super secure\", in all reality, all software can be cracked\n\nTL:DR: All softwares can be cracked given enough time and someone who knows how to crack software\n\nAlso.... why were you looking at cracked anti-virus software??? o.O",
"Completely unrelated.\n\nCracking a software is relatively easy, and it doesn't matter what the software is (photoshop, windows or norton), the general method is always the same.\n\nTo put it *very* simply, if you want to crack Norton, you just have to remove/change the line that check if you have a proper key. That's it. It doesn't affect how good the software is doing his job.",
"When the anti-virus software is running, it will detect most viruses, malware, potentially unwanted programs, system settings changes, and software changes. Assuming the software is actually good.\n\nOf course, there's nothing stopping any of these things once you turn the software off. I could install the software on one computer, take out the computer's hard drive, and put it in my hard drive dock on another computer. Then I would be able to view all of the installed files from the first computer without the software defending itself.\n\nIt's also possible to dissect the installation files. Whether taken from the CD or downloaded online. These are the files used to install the program, but the program hasn't been installed yet. So I could fiddle with the installation files before they are even used to install the program.\n\nYou **could** do this all on a running anti-virus program. You may be able to disable the program temporarily or create a custom program which modifies the files without the anti-virus program knowing. This would be difficult because the program would need to have a higher priority than the anti-virus, be able to modify files silently without leaving a trace, can't look like any malware the anti-virus knows about, and can't have any characteristics which the anti-virus would think are malware-like."
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1yaddp | what the hell is going on with twitch and pokemon right now? | I've been picking up bits and pieces from other subreddits but if someone could just give me a summary of what's happened/happening, that'd be awesome. Also a link would be nice. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yaddp/eli5_what_the_hell_is_going_on_with_twitch_and/ | {
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"text": [
"Here's the [link](_URL_0_) The FAQ bellow the video should explain everything."
]
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"http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon"
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|
2bhott | why do giraffes have horns? | I was just wondering...
Edit: thanks for all the responses you guys even the bad ones :D And no I don't think that giraffes have ended their evolution process, your reading into it to much. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bhott/eli5why_do_giraffes_have_horns/ | {
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"They fight with them. _URL_0_",
"They're not actually horns, they're [ossicones](_URL_1_), which are made of cartilage that slowly turns into bone over time, and is covered in skin and hair. \n\nThe simplest answer to your question is that the giraffe's [ancestors](_URL_0_) (deer-like ruminants who ate shrubbery) used them for sexual attractiveness, defense, and/or dominance displays. Giraffes no longer needed them for that purpose, but as the horns weren't hurting its ability to get to mating age and have babies, they have remained in some form. ",
"I actually did not know they had horns. I know that doesn't help, but I'm in shock here.",
"fun fact: Giraffes have the same number of vertebrae as us!",
"You are thinking about evolution as if it has an end goal, or if every feature an animal possesses must have a purpose. \n\nThis is incorrect.\n\nGiraffes have horns for the same reason that every living thing on this planet has anything: at some point in its evolutionary history, it granted it an evolutionary advantage, and it was passed on, or it was a random genetic mutation that was not eliminated from the gene pool, and it was passed on. This, and no more."
]
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9jevwn | why is it common for people minutes away from dying to feel so calm? | Obviously there are exceptions, but it seems like many on their deathbed have come to accept it, why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9jevwn/eli5_why_is_it_common_for_people_minutes_away/ | {
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"If there's nothing that can be done to change ones fate, then what sense does it make to fret over it? Enjoy it while you got it.",
"I suspect perhaps their hormonal system starts to shut down preventing them from being agitated or afraid. This may be a case of the body diverting all its resources to keeping the heart and brain alive.",
"It's a common hormonal death response. Basically any \"happy juice\" you've got left in the tanks the body just dumps into the bloodstream. "
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3j5s4o | when people pay fines (speeding, littering, etc), where does the money go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j5s4o/eli5when_people_pay_fines_speeding_littering_etc/ | {
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"text": [
"The city where you got the fine in. That city made laws that are punishable by a fine. Money goes to them."
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||
1yk7du | how can pantone copyright colors? | How is it legal for them to copyright colors? Isn't that like copyrighting shapes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yk7du/eli5_how_can_pantone_copyright_colors/ | {
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"text": [
"They aren't actually claiming copyright over the colors (obviously you can't copyright a naturally existing phenomenon)... They are instead trying to claim copyright over the color system they have developed (i.e. the names and numbers they assign for each color and/or how the colors are organized within their color system). \n\nThis means that if someone started selling paint (for example) using Pantone color codes, they would be responsible for licensing the use of the color system from Pantone otherwise they may be taken to court for copyright violations.\n\nIn reality, copyright law is very complex and it's not exactly clear whether Pantone even as the right to claim copyright over their color system. In many countries/jurisdictions, for instance, you can't legally claim copyright ownership over data like sports statistics or number codes assigned to different items/categories."
]
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|
j2pmw | the use of the atomic bomb on hiroshima & nagasaki. | I've been researching a lot about the Manhattan Project, but I never really understood WHY it came to be. I understand we needed to end the war quick, but I never got why we needed to use such immense firepower on the innocent civilians who took no part in the war. I get that it sends a VERY powerful message, but..there were so many lives wasted when it could have been entirely different. What's even worse is the fact that we along with many other countries after the war ended up stock-piling so many nukes. Which brings in the cold war.
My dad tells me all about the Cuban Missile Crisis all the time, but really, how fucking stupid could we have been to get THAT close to complete global thermonuclear war. We could have wiped out the human race along with everything else (and still can unfortunately) all in the name of nationalism and nuclear deterrence.
If I'm ignorant on any of these subjects please educate me with all that you know, as it's an incredibly interesting subject nonetheless.
Thank you. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j2pmw/eli5_the_use_of_the_atomic_bomb_on_hiroshima/ | {
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"The Japanese were very determined to continue fighting regardless of the cost. Even when it was clear that they would never beat the United States, they continued to send their soldiers to fight. And the Atomic bomb was, as you said, \"a very powerful message.\"\n\nClearly it was unfair to use it on civilians and twice for that matter but I'm not defending the US government.\n\nWhat little good that did come of the bombings was that after seeing the results no nuclear weapon has been used in war since.",
"Bare in mind that during world war 2 massive slaughter of civilians was par for the course.\n\nBerlin and London had been reduced to pretty much rubble and even before the atomic bomb america had been fire-bombing toyko (which at the time was mostly wooden buildings, so fire spread very fast) to dust. In one night of fire-bombing 100,000 people died in Tokyo, more than immediately died in either of the atomic bombs.\n\nSo the point im making is that the atomic bombs weren't massive step-up in terms of civilan slaughter than had already been about.\n\nThe other main fear was that japan could hold off against an invasion very well. The US would have to move from island to island accross the ocean, taking them one at a time which would have been very costly in both japanese and american troops. \n\nThe atomic bomb was seen as a relatively quick and painless way to end the war. And infact two atomic bombs were actually needed. When the first bomb dropped the japenese presumed there was only one, and they prob would not have surrended, because they knew there wouldnt be more for a long time, when the second dropped they presumed the US had many more (when infact it only had two at that point).\n\nI'm not defending the use of the atomic bomb, but during times of war difficult choices have to be made. Was the atomic bomb the right one? I dont think anyone really knows.",
"Thank you for all the replies, keep them coming. You guys are educating the & *^@ out of me.",
" > The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. - Carl Sagan\n\nThis feels slightly relevant, if it doesn't belong here though I apologize and will delete it.\n\n"
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33nvu6 | what happens to my bodily fluids when i pleasure myself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33nvu6/eli5_what_happens_to_my_bodily_fluids_when_i/ | {
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"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\n > How long do sperm live after ejaculation? Answers from Roger W. Harms, M.D. \n\n\n > The life span of sperm after ejaculation depends on the circumstances. Sperm ejaculated into a woman's vagina can live in a woman's cervical mucus or upper genital tract for three to five days. Fertilization is possible as long as the sperm remain alive. Sperm ejaculated outside the body might survive in semen — the fluid released during ejaculation — up to a few hours. \n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/getting-pregnant/expert-answers/pregnancy/faq-20058504"
]
] |
||
ctps90 | how do rain forests burn if they are wet | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ctps90/eli5_how_do_rain_forests_burn_if_they_are_wet/ | {
"a_id": [
"exml8oq",
"exmljpv",
"exmn2vi"
],
"score": [
4,
6,
7
],
"text": [
"They usually don't. That's what makes the Amazon rainforest such a big deal. We cut down so many trees, that would normal provide the moisture for the rain, that we altered the climate enough to allow for a forest fire to spread in a \"rain\"forest.",
"theyre not alwasy wet. The area near the equator usually experiences a dry season and a wet season. It just so happens to be the dry season for them right now.",
"If you are asking specifically because of the Amazon fires: these fires are not natural and are set up illegally by henchmen of land owners tied to agrobusiness with the intent to clear the area for pasture (soy, in most cases) destined to feed cattle."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3fvumx | why do many people get squeamish when we see the internal anatomy of another human? | Like a dissection?
(I apologize if this is a repost)
Why do we become unsettled even though we KNOW that it's just what makes us move? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fvumx/eli5_why_do_many_people_get_squeamish_when_we_see/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctsdoyj"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"It's an old survival instinct. From prehistoric times, seeing the inside of a person usually meant that there was some danger (another peson, or an animal) that made the insides become the outsides. So, we're wired to have a revulsion to such things and get away from them (and, hopefully, the danger).\n\nEven though we *know* there's no danger, millions of years of instinct can be hard to overcome."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
16ysbj | eil5: how debt consolidation agencies work, and how they make money from helping people out of debt. | I see lots of ads on TV for debt consolidation companies that roll all your various debts into one regular payment, with lower (or zero) interest than what you'd pay back to the original lender.
I don't get how this business model works, it seems too good to be true. If they don't charge any interest then how do they make a profit from this?
I have about $4k in credit card debt that is difficult to wear down, so have been considering approaching one of these companies but want to know what the catches are.
EDIT: I fucked up the title, d'oh. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16ysbj/eil5_how_debt_consolidation_agencies_work_and_how/ | {
"a_id": [
"c80o6qv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's different with different agencies, but most function like this.\n\nMost people are not completely without money, even if they owe a lot of money. They have a little bit, and it's enough to get by.\n\nThey use some of that little bit of money to pay the consolidation agency. The agency then negotiates with the person's creditors to reduce the person's monthly payments, or to extend the period over which they can be paid back. The person then continues to make monthly payments, but usually at a lower interest rate, over a long period of time.\n\nThe debt consolidation agencies can either take their little bit of money up front, or as a portion of the monthly payment to the creditors."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4dof1p | if business owners have the right to refuse service, why did mississippi target the lgbt community specifically? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dof1p/eli5_if_business_owners_have_the_right_to_refuse/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1su7uj",
"d1sz4ls"
],
"score": [
15,
5
],
"text": [
"LGBT is a protected class for discrimination purposes. Being a anime fan, race car driver, or avid no shirt wearer are not protected classes. Business owners have a right to refuse service for any unprotected reason. Denying service on the basis of a protected class such as race, sex, sexual orientation, etc is illegal because most state laws says it is.\n\nHowever, laws are only unconstitutional when a court says they are. Courts cannot rule on a law until a citizen who was harmed by that law sues the government. This takes not only time, but requires enforcement of the law. This is why stupid laws can remain on the books for a long time.\n\nEdit: I live in the majority of states that protects LGBT as a protected class.",
"Does their law extend to fundamentalist interpretations, such that if a business owner believes women should stay home and raise the children -- \"Women stay home, men do business\" -- he can refuse to do business with -any- woman? "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3mtmj1 | why is nasa finding evidence of flowing water on mars not a big deal to news organizations? | This may be a bit too complicated for this subreddit since it involves 2 major factors (science and "news"). So explain it like I'm 5 and a half. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mtmj1/eli5_why_is_nasa_finding_evidence_of_flowing/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvhywj4"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The media is usually terrible at reporting science stories. I can't remember the number of times I've seen them do a story on say Jupiter and they show a picture of the Moon, a galaxy, etc. \n\nPlus you have to remember that most people would rather know what one of the fucking Kardashians was wearing today or what stupid thing they said than learn about something that's actually important about the future of humankind. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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