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13wm5y | how can adderall be used as a performance enhancing drug in sports if its main use is to treat adhs | Primer: _URL_0_
As the above Wiki entry states Adderall has, as of late, been used frequently as a PED (Performance Enhancing Drug). As a current college student I understand Adderall's effects when you need to cram for a test or write a long essay, but the article doesn't really explain how it can be used as a Performance Enhancer in sports.
So..... anyone? And please, Like I'm Five!! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13wm5y/eli5_how_can_adderall_be_used_as_a_performance/ | {
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"So you admit that it enhances your performance, right?",
"Football players don't just practice on the field. They watch film, learn new plays in their position meetings, and sometimes learn new cadences for the next game. They need to cram all this information in addition to practicing. Also, if they have been out all night on a Saturday, taking adderall before a Sunday game will give them an extra \"boost.\" If anyone suspects anything they can just say they were pumped up for the game.",
"Adderall is speed - don't think it's something different because it comes in a pill from a pharmacy. Speed gives you more available energy, stronger focus, faster reflexes & allows you to exert yourself more fully.\n\nNext time yo pop some Adderall, try going for a run."
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c31byr | why and how are paradoxical statements expressed mathematically? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c31byr/eli5_why_and_how_are_paradoxical_statements/ | {
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"Paradoxical statements are frequently used when trying to prove that some mathematical fact must be true. In order to prove something must be true mathematicians assume the opposite is true. If the opposite of what you want to prove somehow leads to a paradox that means logically the thing you tried to prove must be true. This kind of proof is called a proof by contradiction.\n\nBasically if you show that the opposite of what you believe leads to paradoxes the thing you want to show is true must be true."
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1kqg73 | what makes adolf hitler's paintings bad, apart from who the creator was? | I've read many times that Hitler was a bad painter. What makes his paintings bad, though? For instance, is [this](_URL_0_) picture bad? Why?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kqg73/eli5_what_makes_adolf_hitlers_paintings_bad_apart/ | {
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"Hitler actually had decent technique. Lots of artists have decent technique. However, only few artists get accepted into art schools (then and now). This is because technique simply isn't enough. Hitler's art style was considered old-fashioned and plain. Realism in a time where abstract art is on the rise is a tough sell. Art schools considered it impossible for him to be a relevant artist in the art world of the 1910s. His style was, crudely put, outdated.\n\nEDIT: Also, he was known to be very unwilling to think outside the box and paint something beyond what he was familiar with, i.e. landscapes and buildings.",
"Well, Hitler might be judged especially hard because of who he is, but he was no great artist. \n\nHe never painted people, and some have speculated that this might be simply because he wasn't good enough (people are hard to paint). LIFE magazine did some features on his paintings shortly before the war, and they didn't think much of them.\n\nHowever, there are some who say that he did have some talent. He just wasn't great. \n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"Most of the criticism I've seen says he was good at painting landscapes and architecture, but unwilling/unable to paint people. If you google search some of his other paintings you'll see that he almost ignores painting people even in paintings containing them. \n\nThat's probably why he wasn't accepted into Vienna's art school.\n"
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2c7fa2 | what determines the "market price" of a fish? | You know how you see on a menu of a restaurant next to a fish based entree that might say "MP" which stand for market price. What determines that price? I understand the basics of economics but surely the restaurant cannot be selling me the fish at "market price" Also how volatile are fish prices in general? Is it determined by how much a fisherman caught that day vs the amount of restaurants that want to buy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c7fa2/eli5what_determines_the_market_price_of_a_fish/ | {
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"As you suspect, the restaurant isn't going to charge you straight market price for the fish, they'll add on whatever it costs for them to make the meal plus a profit margin.\n\nThey don't print the price on the menu because the price of the fish will change, the amount will very depending on where they're getting their fish from and which fish they're getting.\n\nThe price at an actual fish market will be affected by the supply. If catches have been particularly large then the price will begin to fall, but if catches have been small then the price will rise accordingly. demand is relatively constant, it's not often that a particular fish is \"in demand\" and will attract a premium price. The specifics will again vary by location (there are often multiple vendors at any market with may compete).\n\nEDIT: just to note, in some restaurants the price doesn't actually change with the market, they list 'market price' to make customers think the fish is fresher than it probably is.",
"Supply and demand always. seafood is one of those markets thats constantly up and down depending on a lot of factors so id imagine they just put MP because it's hard for them to set a price in stone since it can vary so much."
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b0htp8 | where does the garbage go when it is removed from the sea or a collective clean up? is garbage just being transferred from one place to another or does it have an end? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b0htp8/eli5_where_does_the_garbage_go_when_it_is_removed/ | {
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"Test question arised because I read someone cleaned up their city dumping ground. I thought landfill)dumping ground is the last place for the garbage to go.",
"It gets sent to landfills. Modern landfills are made by digging large holes, compacting the trash, filling the hole, then covering it with dirt. At the end of the landfill's life cycle, it'll get planted over with new grass."
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3usl15 | what is the difference in sight between having 2 eyes and having 1? | Or, what are the differences | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3usl15/eli5_what_is_the_difference_in_sight_between/ | {
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"Stereo vision gives you depth perception. hold 2 objects out in front of you, but with one further away from you than the other. When you close one eye, they can appear to be on the same plane. Having both eyes open lets you see that one is further away from you.",
"The Mars rover actually has 2 cameras side-by-side so it can sense depth. When it takes a photo from each camera it is basically forming a 3D image from (2) 2D pictures"
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55xql1 | what's the difference between a matrix scheme, pyramid scheme and ponzi scheme? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55xql1/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_matrix_scheme/ | {
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"#Ponzi Scheme\n\nYou get asked to invest cash in an investment promising huge returns (and a fee paid to an advisor). The investment never generates returns, you're paid from the money coming in from new people investing in the \"Scheme\". They work until it collapses on itself. If I invest $10,000 with a promise of it returning $1,000 a month, that $1,000 comes from other people's $10,000 and so on until it collapses. These are **always illegal**\n\n#Pyramid Scheme\n\nThere is a product behind the scenes. You can sell the product profiting pennies, or recruit new *salespeople* and get a huge cut. Take *It works.* You buy a starter pack which includes a buy in fee, and that fee is given to who recruited you. I could sell the dream of \"being your own boss\" to 10 people, and from each one I would get a cut of their buy in fee.\n\n#Matrix Scheme\n\nThink bigger and better. You buy a bunch of DVD's overpriced for $50. Are told if you get 20 people to buy these DVD's, you'll be put on a list for a flat screen TV. However math shows if the entire world were to join, 90% of the people would never get the better product.\n",
"**Pyramid Scheme:** \n\nYou often pay an upfront cost to get sales privileges with their company. They may also promise that you will get a bonus if you meet certain performance criteria (i.e. sign up additional sales people). More bonuses are promised down the line. However, in reality it is really tough to get past the first threshold. It is even harder to earn a steady wage. These schemes often promise more than money and claim that they will somehow give your life meaning. \n\nExample\n\n*\"You pay $100 to get a license that allows you to work for us! While we only take a small commission! If you get 1000 people to buy our license you get a prize (color TV). 10,000 signups gets you a $1000 Mall of America gift card! Meanwhile you earn a steady $1 per widget sold\"*\n\nUnfortunately it is very hard to recoup your $100 and even harder to make a living doing this. The company makes bank though.\n\nExample, Marketing scams (see: WakeUpNow). \n\nQuasi-example, Amazon mechanical turks",
"Ponzi: people invest without knowing they're being played\n\nPyramid: people seek to recruit others to cash in on them\n\nMatrix: prize is attained after a number of people pushes them far enough\n\nIn simple terms, that's kind of how it goes, of course things get more complex ",
"The difference between a Ponzi scheme and a pyramid scheme is that in a Ponzi scheme, the scam is hidden away from view. People who fall into pyramid schemes are generally greedy idiots, but anyone could get caught up in a Ponzi scheme (and in fact a lot of really smart people fell for Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme).\n\nA pyramid scheme, or reverse funnel system, is clearly unsustainable: your profit depends on new people joining the scheme; eventually the scheme will run out of new entrants and the people at the bottom will get burned. Scammers go to great lengths to distort this, but they can't hide the fact that your profit depends on new entrants joining.\n\nMadoff, on the other hand, took money from new investors and gave it to current investors but, crucially, nobody knew that this was what he was doing. He pretended his profits were coming from a sound investment strategy. Journalists wrote articles praising his genius, and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated him six times and found no evidence that it was a scam.\n\ntl;dr if you fall for a pyramid scheme, you're probably an idiot.",
"Now where do those people selling me magazines I never received fall into? God I was a gullible college kid. Fell for it twice. ",
"Are Landmark Worldwide and Lifespring pyramid schemes? \n",
"Where does \"multi-level marketing\" fall into this whole mess?",
"**Ponzi:** This key idea is the company is lying to investors about the value of its assets and paying out new investors' principal while pretending it's the old investors' profits. \n\nYou raise $100 from 10 people and promise them 100% per year return. You start with $1000. After a year you tell people you have $2000 but you don't, you still only have $1000. \n\nTwo investors want out so you give them $200 each because if you refuse, you're busted. So you have 8 investors and $600, but you're telling them you have $1600. You have to keep recruiting new investors or you'll run out of money.\n\nSometimes investments start out with good intentions but turn into Ponzis when they try to cover up losses.\n\n**Pyramid:** You tell people up front that you're going to take their money, and they get paid by recruiting new people to join. These lower recruits pass money to the person who recruited them and to you, say up to 3 levels. Your sales pitch is that in return for one fee, the recruit gets a fee from the 10 people he recruits, the 10\\*10 people they recruit, and the 10\\*10\\*10 people *they* recruit.\n\nThese inevitably collapse because you can't keep finding exponentially more suckers. MLMs are basically a pyramid scheme with the addition of a real product being sold instead of just \"memberships\".\n\n**Matrix:** You buy some overpriced thing and get put on a list for a prize. For every 10 people who buy in, the person at the top of the list gets the prize end everyone else moves up one spot. So no matter how many people buy in, 90% don't get the prize.\n\n----\n\nPonzi schemes involve lying to investors. The other two are open about how they work but the vast majority of participants are guaranteed to lose money.",
"So pensions are pyramid schemes?",
"I see these things on IG a lot, trying to take advantage of the fitness community. Who wouldn't love a sponsor, cheap swag, and more likes and followers. Thing is, they say you're getting a great deal on premium products. They have you purchase these packages and use their hashtags. So you're not only buying their stuff, you're advertising for them. It usually involves the word \"ambassador,\" and is advertised as exclusive (it's not exclusive at all, and you're likely not doing anything special to get an invitation). Maybe it's not dirty, but it seems pretty dirty.\n\nAlso, I have an irrational hate for this product line called Vemma. I see these miracle drinks (bode and verve, I think) all the time. Is that stuff a scam?",
"Let's say I'm running a contest where I promise to give away a Ferrari to the person who is most awesome at Reddit in a year. I don't have any money and can't afford a Ferrrari but if I get enough people to enter my contest it can happen. \n\nEntry fee is $300 so I need 1000 members. The plan is to get 2000 contestants and buy me a Ferrari also. \n\nNow only one person is getting anything (maybe) so is not really any of those schemes but it still seems like a fraud. What is the name for that. ",
"There was this energy/wellness drink called Vemma that was a scheme to pray on young guys my age into believing they could be rich in a month or so. The feds shut them down I believe last year, I can't believe people really fell for it. One of the red flags was the owner changing his name so Google couldnt show you he got caught before. ",
"I still am lost on matrix... Can i get an example plz?",
"I remember back in the day. My mother almost fell for the pyramid through Amway.\n\nShe promptly educated herself and said nay.",
"**Ponzi:** I tell you lies and trick you into giving me money (lets say $100). A few months later I say congrats made you money and hand you $110 back. Now I say I can keep making the same rate do you want to put in money. Usually people put in the same amount or more.\n\nThe $10 comes from the second guy I tricked into giving me money. His $10 comes from the 3rd. After I get as many people as I can to give me money (like $100K or more) I call it quits and disappear with everyones money. I didn't earn shit I just took one persons money and gave it to the other\n\n**Pyramid:** This involves selling something. Lets say I have a catalog of healthy food & drinks. I sell you the membership (they could be 1year or longer) or order (over 1K). I earn a commission and my boss earns another for recruiting me. If I can keep selling and recruiting people to do the same (works best if you travel multiple cities) I'll eventually have hundreds of people who I recruited and I earn commission on their sales. I then don't have to do shit to earn money and new members won't be able to recruit anyone whos interested or sell to anyone since chances are the friend who recruited you sold to them already. The people at the bottom no matter if they're willing to work can't make a profit.\n",
"While I was in college, the area I grew up in was hit by a big frenze of the \"Friends Helping Friends\" pyramid scheme. It started with just a single $2k buy-in, but once several people got paid out, some industrious individuals decided to start more anywhere from $100-$5k. \n\nHowever, my hometown is like population 150, and most surrounding towns are the same (some up to 800). So obviously to get more participants they had to branch out well beyond the boarders of the area. So people there pretty much all got payouts, and never knew the ones that got stiffed. \n\nMy mom and my sister got into it and made upwards of $20k. It was so incredibly tempting to after that, but I still couldn't bring myself to f-over so many people.",
"Something I haven't seen mentioned is that Even though Pyramids are the same as MLMs, the second one let's you earn money directly from the product, and optionally earn money from recruiting more people, in pyramids your only way of earning is recruiting. ",
"MLM's are basically pyramids? Lol oh I thought that was my JOB. The owner making all the money, me staying broke... yeah everything's a pyramid.",
"Ponzi: Imagine you're at lunch with a group of your friends and your mom forgot to give you money for oreos. You ask your friends for one of their oreos and say you'll give them back tomorrow\n\ntomorrow your mom forgets to give you oreo money again so now your friends are pissed and are like \"hey I want an oreo you said you'd give me one\" so you have to find a few more people to give you oreos so you can give it back and offer them the same thing you offered your friends initially. \n\n\nPyramid/MLM: Say you're friends are out on the playgrounds and you're like \"yo lets start an oreo business. Give me a few oreos now and then when you recruit people, they have to pay you oreos so that they can be part of our business, but for every X amount of oreos you get you have to give me 3. But you can do this to the people below you as well\n\nMatrix: say you have this really big oreo and your friends are like \"cool lemme get a piece\" and you are like \"If you give me one of your crayons, I'll put you on the list.\" but the list is really long and by the time you get to the top the oreo may be gone ",
"Can someone ELI5 to me how companies like It Works are not shut down? Have they found a loophole in the law?",
"Thanks for providing a name to something I dreamed up one day. \nI was hiking in the woods for 2 days, and thought up a variation of the Matrix scheme (didn't know the name yet) as a potential cure to poverty. \nBear with me...\nIf I could sign up 1000 people to contribute $100 per month, I would collect $1 million dollars in just 10 months. \nThe first person on the list would get $1M. \nBut it would come with strings. Some amount of that would be set up as some sort of annuity that pays (say) $1000 per month back into the pool. The rest of the money would have no strings, but would also come with money management advice.\nThis would all be made clear up front. \nEach year, the rate at which money goes into the pool increases. \n\nCame home, fired up a spreadsheet, and, no, it doesn't work. I mean, it works for the first 100 or so, but the rest die of old age before they get their million. Or, I have to have the newly minted \"millionaires\" give up about half of their money. \n\nIf you can sign up a whole lot more people, more will get a million, but it just takes a little longer to reach that point that most (and a lot more) people pay a boatload of money in and get nothing out. \n\nMoral of the story: don't fall for this sort of scheme. \n\n[edit: putting in missing text]\n\n",
"Can someone explain to me how pyramid schemes like Herbalife and Mary Kay exist in 2016? Like everyone knows what they are and they still grow",
"Lot of people believe that if you fall for these types of scams you're either stupid, greedy, or both. I never fell for these types of schemes but I've fallen for the old lending a friend $50 and never seeing it again multiple times (different friends/family). These types of scams work because they all manipulate information that the person being sold to holds to be true. /toolboc made a great post about world financial group detailing how they operate and why they are so effective at recruiting.",
"Pyramid Schemes involve participants recruiting new participants for a fraction of the profit that \"flows upwards\". Take a hypothetical scheme called \"Aeroplane\" where participants \"get on the aeroplane\" by paying $2000 upon joining. Their $2000 is paid to the person who recruits them who then takes a cut (how much depends on their \"seat number\" on the \"Aeroplane\") and passes what's left of the $2000 up to the person who recruited them. \"Aeroplane\" is an n-ary tree that eventually exhausts the entire population of people who can be recruited, leaving a substantial proportion of the recruited population unable to recoup their $2000 \"investment\" while simultaneously sending the bulk of the money collected to the root of the tree. \n\nPonzi schemes use money collected from new \"investors\" to pay old \"investors\" who wish to cash out while lying to everyone about how much of a return \"investor\" money is generating (the idea that a high rate of return will prevent the majority of \"investors\" from cashing out). Ponzi schemes collapse by a single mechanism: more old \"investors\" cash out than can be supported by new \"investors\" contributing. Ponzi schemes are characterized by a guaranteed rate of return higher than a central monetary system's prime borrowing rate. It can sometimes take decades before \"investors\" become aware that they are participating in a Ponzi scheme; however, once this idea communicates through the population Ponzi schemes collapse just as rapidly as a Pyramid scheme exhausts its population.\n\n\nMatrix schemes transfer the idea of population exhaustion or outgoing to incoming investor ratios to that of time. Essentially, participants are promised access to (a) desired, high-dollar item(s) via a queue of an indeterminate and non-guaranteed waiting period that is typically based participant recruitment performance. Matrix schemes fail by non-delivery of (the) promised high value item(s). Participants may each have differing tolerances for queue wait times and social communication of non-delivery is easier to disrupt. Just like Pyramid schemes (population exhaustion) and Ponzi schemes (zero cash-out tipping point), queue wait times eventually goes to infinity primarily due to population exhaustion.\n\nAs a side note, almost everyone in a modern economy participates in some sort of variant of \"continuation non-viable\" financial schemes. Social Security (in the USA) is often pointed out as a Ponzi scheme. There are, however, significant differences between \"continuation non-viable\" schemes that collapse rapidly and the Social Security Fund that has a myriad of parameters that can be used to sustain it indefinitely. The most important difference between the Social Security Fund and an run-of-the-mill Ponzi scheme is that Social Security promises nothing of substance to its participants while participation is mandatory. Social Security also has a multitude of parameters that can be adjusted to prevent or delay collapse.\n\nStock markets are a multi-facilitated hybrid that is probably best described as a zero-sum debt issuance parimutuel betting system that periodically resets via large crashes that wipe out capital placed into the system in a \"legally credible manner\". Instead of exhausting a population or reaching a unsustainable tipping point or requiring that people live longer than their biology affords, stock markets destroy money itself (usually in the form of debt).\n\nA bigger question posited by non-neoclassical economists is whether or not the very definition of money, in a fractional reserve debt issuance based context, falls into the category of \"continuation non-viable\" (and, in point of fact, most evidence points to the reality that all fractional reserved debt issuance \"money\" eventually fails, although the failure is usually attributed to political reasons rather than some fundamental flaw with the idea of money as defined in that context).\n\nCuriously, about the only thing that is guaranteed in any sort of continual manner is the assembly of biologicals via DNA, sexual reproduction and a comfortable energy gradient. Even if you look at this throughout time, [you will see collapses caused by life itself](_URL_1_). With respect to human life, [a clear linear growth line existed in the per-industrial world and became exponential with the discovery and utilization of oil](_URL_0_). In this regard and because energy is finite (to include human knowledge/creativity) , the current non-linear, above carrying capacity population of earth may be, in and of itself, a \"continuation non-viable\" situation.",
"**Pyramid Scheme:** New members pay money to the old members. Last people to join lose their money. Everyone knows what's happening but hopes to not be the last person. \n\n**Ponzi Scheme:** A pyramid scheme that pretends to be an investment. New members pay money to the old members through a middle-man. Last people to leave lose their money. Everyone but the middle-man thinks the payouts are coming from the investment, until the scheme falls apart.",
"Ponzi: This is typically a failed business plan where a promised return on an investment is no longer possible or in the worst cases was never intended to work. In any business plan or government! as long as your incoming dollars exceeds the interest you have to pay (and those you owe money don't all try and collect at once), then you can sustain a long, long con. If the people you owe try and all collect or your ability to bring in new dollars stops and your incoming money doesn't match the interest you owe, then your business plan comes to an end. This is really how ALL businesses works in down years frankly. The Ponzi part is when the business owner lies to investors that all things are great and you need to continue to invest. The government is complicit in a ponzi right now frankly. It will end badly nobody will say it out loud though. \n\nPyramid scheme: This is really just a get-rich-quick spin on traditional sales commission schedules that exist in almost every large company. Pyramid schemes that do not get shut down by government regulators are selling legitimate product for legitimate prices. Like in any company, Sales managers make a commission on their subordinates, the VP of sales makes a bonus or commission on the whole organization. The trick of the Pyramid scheme is that the average human is sold on the idea that they can become their own VP of Sales it is all up to them on how well they recruit. There does not have to be a scam involved at all in a Pyramid scheme. People say it is about finding only so many suckers and then it collapses. This is naive-speak and is frankly the exact same problem in every company reliant on daily sales, eventually you have to find new markets or your sales WILL dry up. Pyramid schemes are only illegal when the only purpose of your involvement is to pay someone else's commission not to buy and consuming a legitimate product. These type of schemes are considered by the government as most definitely unsustainable and are really a veiled attempt at legalizing a ponzi scheme. Another example of an illegal Pyramid scheme would be trying to use a product as a front for just selling commissions, for example, selling a $10 phone card for $1000, these types of schemes are again really just ponzi schemes disguised as a sales business. \n\nMatrix: This is just a variation of the Pyramid scheme, there are an infinite number of ways to adjust the payout of a sales organization, if you find a great way to do it that motivates your sales people to go out and sell fast, then you should probably create a new name for your Pyramid sales program, BRAND it as something new and fantastic. Go find a legit product to sell, don't mark it up too much, don't pay commissions on stock piling large inventories that people will never use or sell, and go make millions!\n\nFootnote: Government regulators can investigate any business for breaking the basic business laws addressed above. ANY business can violate basic disclosure laws that create a Ponzi...... video stores, lawn mowing services, medical equipment companies have all been prosecuted for fraud violating the above principles. ",
"What about companies like \"It Works\" that have you sell wraps and \"health\" products to other individuals. Would they be considered any of the above schemes?",
"A dozen people already responded to this but I'm gonna anyway because I'm a know-it-all and pretty bored at the moment (and the rest of reddit sucks today). I'm gonna actually try to explain this using references from The Office:\n\n**Ponzi Scheme**: A Ponzi scheme is when you ask someone for an investment and promise a huge or quick return on investment, then deliver on it by promising someone *else* the same thing and paying off the first person with someone else's investment.\n\nExample: At lunch time, Dwight says to Ryan \"If you give me your pudding, I'll give you two puddings tomorrow.\" Ryan agrees, and gives Dwight his pudding. Dwight then goes to Phyllis and Stanley and says the same thing. They both agree. Now Dwight has 3 pudding packs, eats one, then the next day gives the other two from Phyllis and Stanley to Ryan to follow through on his promise. Ecstatic about his return on investment, Ryan is more than happy to give Dwight even more pudding containers. He gives Dwight 5, Dwight eats one and gives the other four to Phyllis and Stanley as a return on his promises to *them.* They too are happy with the return on investment, and invest even more pudding packs in the hopes of doubling their investments. In order to sustain this, Dwight needs to continuously get more people to give him their pudding to pay off his debts to others while simultaneously taking a pack for himself each time. \n\n**Pyramid Scheme**: The classic red flag of a Pyramid scheme is when someone who is looking to \"hire you\" tells you you need to \"invest in your future\" or that you have to \"spend money to make money.\" The days of a recruitment pyramid scheme are falling to the past because people have caught on to the premise of basically investing in nothing. So nowadays to keep it legal, Pyramid schemes have to offer some kind of tangible thing which is usually something pretty petty or worthless / has marginal value. Basically what this is is a system where one person at the top recruits a bunch of people who invest in something and they only see a return by getting more people to invest in it through them. The closer to the top of a pyramid someone is /the more people you have beneath you, the more money you make.\n\nExample: Phil drives a corvette, and Michael wants to know the secret to Phil's success. Phil tells Michael he's made a fortune selling calling cards, tells him they are the wave of the future and that they sell themselves. He tells Michael that the *real* secret, though, is to buy a bunch of calling cards and then sell them to other people who can then sell them for him. Makes complete business sense, right? After all, you're just being a middle man. That's how Michael justifies his investment in calling cards; the only catch is that Phil wants Michael to cover the full costs of the calling cards that Michael purchases from him, and then Phil gets a percentage of Michael's profits from what he sells. In order to make money back, the *quickest* way isn't to actually sell the calling cards but to recruit Ryan, Jim, Toby and Stanley to buy them in large quantities *from him* with the intention of making a fortune selling them themselves after making a large initial investment, with Michael also taking a percentage of their profits and as a result Phil making a percentage of their profits transitively. The higher up you are on this pyramid, the more you are making off of the people beneath you. Regardless of whether or not they actually sell any calling cards, the \"initial investment\" on the part of the recruit/salesman is where the people higher up in the pyramid really make money.\n\n**Matrix Scheme**: This is when you pay a small amount to be on a list of people who could win something significantly more valuable than your initial investment. The more contributions you make, the higher your odds become of being the person who wins the larger prize.\n\nExample: Dwight, being the scheming assistant to the regional manager that he is, has some shady ways of being the best salesman at the office. His secret is the matrix scheme. He calls clients who are interested in getting a brand new Sabre printer. Unfortunately for clients, Dwight knows that he can make more money profiting off of hope than profiting off of printer sales. Dwight tells his client that if they pay twice as much for printer *paper*, they will be placed on an exclusive list of people who can receive a FREE Sabre printer. Can you hear him saying \"What if I told you you could receive a FREE Sabre printer just by buying more paper?\" But there's a catch: there are about 20 clients ahead of them on that list. The more orders of overpriced paper they place through Dwight, the closer to the top of the list they get. Eventually one of the clients receives a free printer, meanwhile Dwight has sold so much paper at such a high profit margin that the cost of that free printer is insignificant.",
"Would you guys consider Mary Kay to be a MLM and/or a pyramid scheme? Personally I do, but I have read \"technically\" they're not. Just looking for some other opinions/examples of MLM ",
"**Ponzi:** You pay people off with other people's money. You get me to give you one dollar and pay me back two tomorrow. Those two came from other people who you took money from. It only works as long as you can keep getting people to buy in. A takes B's money. A then uses C's money to pay B after taking C's money. Keep repeating this with lots of people and you have a Ponzi scheme.\n\n**Pyramid Scheme**: You get paid by people you recruit below you, but also have to pay up to the people above you who recruited you. A recruits B and gets paid by B. B recruits C and D and get paid by C and D, he uses that to pay A and keeps some for himself, keep repeating. C basically pays A and B and would then in turn by paid by whoever he recruits.\n\n**Matrix Scheme:** There are two products. A cheap product that is being overcharged and an expensive product you get for way less than what it is worth. Let's say earbuds and a brand new iPhone. After so many people buy overpriced earbuds and iPhone goes to the top person on the list. You can often bump yourself up the list by roping people in via referral.\n\nThe Ponzi scheme is the simple form. The Pyramid scheme and Matrix scheme are the new evolved forms that emerged as learned about Ponzi scheme. Often times they will try to tack on a product to Pyramid schemes and claim you are salesmen (they call this multi-level marketing.) You end up buying the product form them (and paying way too much) to in turn try to sell it.\n\nThe common thread is they all fail as more people join as they are unsustainable. With Ponzi schemes the people joining late may never get their money back. With Pyramid schemes the late joiners have so many fees they can't make any money. With Matrix schemes the list becomes so long you will never get the product. Lets say for every 10 products that sell you get one good product. By the time 10 people have joined the last person would need 90 people to buy the overpriced product to see a pay out.",
"ELI5: how is social security different from a ponzi scheme?"
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3be2bp | how an original gameboy game that was produced for a system that would display in black and white, shows as colour in a more recent gameboy console? | In example. If I take my copy of Wario Blast, and pop it in my original gameboy, like it was meant to be played, it will of course be black and white.
If I take that same cartridge and put it into a gameboy advance or an sp... It's shown in colour.
How does the game "know" what colour is or which colours to display? Or how does the console have the ability to display a game in colour that was produced for a black and white display? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3be2bp/eli5_how_an_original_gameboy_game_that_was/ | {
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"The Color had a few preset palettes for a few of the original game boy games. Nothing huge or major, but it was initially for those who had either the first game boy and wanted to upgrade, or for those who didn't have one (only gbc), and the games would be in color. \n\nAs time went on, though, the typical palette was one color in different shades (see the Pokemon Red and Blue games, Super Mario Land, etc). \n\nI guess it was a sort of compromise between backwards compatibility for new players and bonus for owners of the original Game Boy? "
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1tw21n | why does my phone say 4g and have 3 bars and still won't load a simple jpg from imgur? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tw21n/eli5_why_does_my_phone_say_4g_and_have_3_bars_and/ | {
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"The most important thing to consider when talking about a phone's 'signal' is it's signal-to-noise ratio.\n I believe the confusion arises due to a lack of standardization amongst manufacturers and the way this ratio is presented.\n So each manufacturer has their own, individual idea of what should be shown - so essentially these bars are totally meaningless. It's pretty widely accepted that this is the case.\n Hope this helped!"
]
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bdl1xi | in the sporting world, what is a salary cap? how is it determined? and what are the pros and cons for both the athlete and the team they play for? | This question is for any sport, though I don't know if cap salaries work the same for each sport. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdl1xi/eli5_in_the_sporting_world_what_is_a_salary_cap/ | {
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"Salary caps exist for the NFL, NBA, and NHL but MLB does not have one.\n\nA cap is an amount of money under which teams need to keep their total roster payroll. It is usually set annually based on a % of league revenue from the previous year. The purpose is to try and maintain an even level of competition by forcing all teams to spend about the same amount of money on player salaries.\n\nSome leagues have a soft cap, which set a cap number but have ways that teams can go over that number -- for example, in order to retain their own free agent player rather than seeing that player jump to another team. Leagues with soft caps have luxury taxes to prevent too high of spending, with teams having to pay the league per dollar sums once they get too far over the salary cap.\n\nThe NHL has a hard cap, meaning all teams have to stay under a certain level -- even if that means trading players or losing players to free agency.\n\nThe pros are even competition, while the cons are keeping salaries down vs. an open market. It can especially squeeze marginal players as teams find money to pay their stars at the expense of the bottom of the roster. So salary caps are mostly to benefit the ownership, because it caps the payroll expense of their business.",
"A salary cap is a limit that the league imposes on teams, not players. It limits how much the team can spend *in total* on player salaries. \n\nThe purpose is to prevent the most successful teams or the teams in the largest markets from becoming even more successful by outbidding the less financially well-off teams for the best players. In short, it adds more parity to the market for hiring players by making sure that every team has the same amount of money to work with. \n\nIn leagues where you don't have salary caps, like Major League Baseball, you wind up with individual players on the richest teams who [*by themselves* make more salary than *entire teams*](_URL_0_). That makes it really difficult for teams with a smaller bank account to be consistently competitive."
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a2ki4c | can snow conduct electricity just as well as water? why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a2ki4c/eli5_can_snow_conduct_electricity_just_as_well_as/ | {
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"Not quite as well, because of the crystalline structure and all the air pockets in it. Especially compared to liquid water, air is a good insulator. The path of least resistance through snow is bound to be a lot more winding.",
"pure ice or water does not conduct electricity. its actually the impurities that act as the conductor."
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4a9ugf | how does fps calculating software work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a9ugf/eli5_how_does_fps_calculating_software_work/ | {
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"They 'hook' a function in the game that is called whenever a frame is finished drawing. For example, it's common to use the function EndScene in DirectX games, as this is called whenever the game has finished rendering a frame.\n\nTo 'hook' in this context means to, by one of various methods, make sure that their own code is run whenever this function is - their code is 'told about' this function being executed. Technical details on how this is done aren't really important though I can expand if you want.\n\nThis is why screen recording software like Fraps also tends to have an FPS calculating feature by the way, since they're already hooking such functions to do their primary job.\n\nIf you are being told whenever a frame has finished being rendered, you can easily work out the FPS, by looking at the time between them."
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4fdisc | why were hawaii and alaska chosen to become states and not, say, puerto rico, or the virgin islands or any of the other us territories at the time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fdisc/eli5_why_were_hawaii_and_alaska_chosen_to_become/ | {
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"Hawaii petitioned to become a state, and they met all of the requirements to be one. Same with Alaska.\n\nPuerto Rico meets the requirements, but hasn't formally petitioned Congress for statehood.\n\nAmerican Samoa is an unorganized territory and doesn't come close to meeting all of the requirements for statehood.",
"Puerto Rico doesnt want to become a state because it would basically mean they get to pay more taxes and get nothing in return other than some 'I VOTE'D' stickers every few years.",
"Alaska was resource rich and Russia really didn't have the manpower to hold it/exploit it. \n\nWhile a lot of people like to point out Seward's Folly for purchasing Alaska from Russia most of the papers at the time said it was a great deal. \n\nSource: Alaskan with a degree in History. ",
"i believe military strategy had a lot to do with making them states. hawaii being in the middle of the pacific ocean made it the perfect place to station a navy in order to protect American interests in the asias. after Japan bombed pearl harbor it only made the decision more obvious to the rest of the states.\n\nalaska became a state because its close proximity to russia served as a buffer during the cold war. russia could no longer put any personnel into Alaska without violating American sovereignty by encroaching on American soil. had alaska of remained a territory then russia could encroach on the land and just claim a border dispute.\n\nso while the states did meet the requirements beforehand. their use as strategic military positions helped expedite the process.",
"Also, we are now \"stuck\" at 50-a nice round number and what we've known our whole lives (most of us anyway).",
"If you are interested in the history of Hawaii I strongly recommend Sarah Vowell's book [*Unfamiliar Fishes*](_URL_0_). She is the most amusing informal history wiriter I have ever read.",
"Also, Hawaii and Alaska had small enough populations (650,000 and 230,000 respectively) that they'd each get 3 electoral votes. (Puerto Rico, with over 2 million people, would have gotten more.) \n\n\nAt the time, Hawaii was heavily Republican and Alaska heavily Democratic. Republican president Dwight Eisenhower called for Hawaiian statehood in the early 1950s, but the [Democrat-controlled Senate held out for Alaska to be admitted too.](_URL_0_) Thus 3 more electoral votes for each side, thus balance. \n\n\nThat Hawaii ended up becoming a Democrat state and Alaska a Republican one just adds to the fun. ",
"Alaska and Hawaii became states during the Cold War, and their locations were strategic to US security. ",
"Hello. I am missing something. A few weeks ago, I watched, John Oliver's Territories episode _URL_0_ and then I was pissed for these territories. What I am reading here indicates Puerto Rico just has to vote to be recognized as a state!?! Am I misunderstanding something? John Oliver made it sound like we were fucking these countries over?",
"Well, in Hawaii there were a bunch of american sugar cane plantation owners. So the US was able to easily arm an overthrow of the Hawaiian Queen, and then get the new governors to apply for statehood",
"Hawaii had been a key trade route since the 16th century. Our acquisition of it was, as usual, strategic. The same could be argued for Alaska, but I don't know for sure",
"Reading through these responses, I didn't see anyone include in their answer how prevalent the notions of racism and Anglo superiority were during the late 19th and early 20th century. Basically, all these US territories were full of either indigenous or Hispanic populations--not whites. The general consensus during this time was that these people groups were inferior, and would be a burden if they became states. They'd have to be cultured, educated, and the infrastructure of these territories would have to be built up, all at the expense of the American taxpayer, who most often didn't consider brown people and white people as equal. Hawaii is the exception here, but there are reasons for its admittance. ",
"Perhaps, it's their strategic military value?",
"So does this mean Puerto Rico is like a AAA farm team for the USA?",
"Puerto Rican here. Puerto Ricans who live on the island (not us mainland folks) have voted on whether to not to become an independent country, become a U.S. state or staying a territory. Staying a territory is the top vote getter. ",
"Puerto Rico has had several votes on statehood, it has been soundly defeated each time.\n\nEssentially if they became a state they would be subject to federal income tax (they currently are not) In exchange for this they would be able to (sort of) vote in presidential elections.\n\nIf you gave me the choice between keeping my vote for president or loosing my income taxes, I'd de-statify myself in an instant. Especially since they get to keep all the rights and privileges of being full US citizens, without having to take on any of the costs. ",
"Hawaii has strategic value, Alaska has oil, Puerto Rico has, uh ... . . Um, enormous debt and Willie Colon?",
"Alaska gained statehood because it was providing valuable resources to the continental USA and had a sustainable population, and the people there, who were doing a lot of good for the nation, wanted statehood. \n\nHawaii is a whole mess. But the short version is, import tax on Bananas. I'm not even joking. Hawaii became a state so you and I could have cheap bananas. The long version is, someone thought we were importing too many bananas from central america and it would be better for the USA to not do that. But transportation costs were cheaper from Nicaragua to the USA than from Hawaii to the USA. And since they paid roughly the same import tax, the US consumer ate central American bananas. So some banana farmers in Hawaii got together and were like \"we've got a great solution, let us be a state\". Worked out well for the americans, Hawaii is kinda a clusterfuck for everything except tourism and bananas, there wasn't any other solid reason for them to be a state, but whatever, cheaper bananas. I wish I was joking but I'm not. The whole banana thing in central america and the Caribbean is where the term banana republic comes from too BTW. \n\nPuerto Rico has the same problem Hawaii had. They wouldn't really be able to contribute much. And we'd have to spend a lot more on them. Just kinda a lose lose for the rest of us.\n\nI'm sure it's a similar problem with the virgin islands. I'm also not sure they have the required population for statehood. I'm not real familiar with that one.",
"Hawaii: control of the pacific \nAlaska : a shit load of natural resources \nPuerto Rico: ?",
"Territories...why not call them what they are? [Colonies](_URL_0_)",
"As an Australian... my guess would be Hawaii became a state, mainly due to Hawaii being a natural buffer between the USA and other countries.\n\nIt has strategic importance.",
"Unfortunately /u/Teekno is wrong. Hawai'i was **annexed** by the United States in 1898 because of it's strategic location. Hawai'i's monarchy, headed by Queen Lili'oukalani, was [illegaly overthrown](_URL_0_).\n",
"Hawaii had sugar plantations and lots of white people living there when it was annexed by the United States who wanted Hawaii to become a state. Alaska was huge and also had natural resources that we wanted, making statehood a cost effective decision. Puerto Rico deserves statehood imo because of the large number of military personnel it contributes to us, but the Virgin Islands would probably lose a lot of business if they became a state. A lot of the appeal of the Virgin Islands are the tax rates, which wouldn't exist if it was subject to state laws most likely. In other words, no one has interest in making the Virgin Islands a state, but statehood would most likely help solve Puerto Rico's problems, so I'm just guessing congress doesn't want to deal with it rn.",
"Hawaii was annexed through military and economic controls from the Hawaiian people against their will. ",
"Hawaii was needed as a refueling stop on the way to Asia. Alaska's proximity to Russia was also strategic. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Guam were not in critical locations. The oil in Alaska didn't hurt. ",
"John Oliver did a segment on this very topic _URL_0_",
"One thing that is not being mentioned is the role of the Cold War in Alaskan and Hawaiian becoming states in 1959. Batista had just fled Cuba and (at the time) suspected Communist insurgent Fidel Castro was about to take over Cuba, around 200 miles away from the Florida, and with Kruschev in power in the Soviet Union, the cold war was nearing it's peak. The US government felt it needed to shore up it's defenses. Hawaii is key to maintaining a strong presence in the Pacific, and Alaska was a former Russian territory that was sold to the US. Making both states instead of just US possessions meant that any military advance from the Pacific would mean instant war, as they would be attacks on full US soil and on US citizens. Two years later, the US would try to shore up it's southern position against communist Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion, which would fail. The global situation is one of the reasons why Alaskan and Hawaiian statehood would have been quickly and gladly embraced by Congress and nudged along. \n",
"I don't care who we let in, but I think we need to hit 53. That way we are a prime number and we can become truly indivisible. "
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6qpstg | when something is zero sugar and zero calories, what actually is it made up of? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qpstg/eli5_when_something_is_zero_sugar_and_zero/ | {
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"If you want specific information you can check the ingredient list, but the vast majority of it is carbonated water.\n\nThe flavors come from natural or artificial flavoring that has zero calories/close enough for the label to say it's zero, and the sweetness comes from one of several different types of sugarfree, zero (or near-zero) calorie sweeteners.",
"Short answer: water and chemicals that aren't digestible. If you ate a piece of wood, it would also be close to zero calories.\n\nLonger answer: some of the chemicals in zero-calorie drinks are actually digestible and so it is not truly correct to label the drinks as zero cal. Many artificial sweeteners are digestible and therefore do have calories, however, they stimulate your taste receptors so intensely that you only have to use tiny portions of the chemical to make something sweet."
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3f4ilj | can needles and vials that have been discarded after medicinal uses (for example, immunizations) be recycled, and if not, why not, and what happens to them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f4ilj/eli5_can_needles_and_vials_that_have_been/ | {
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"You wouldn't want to directly reuse them because when you stick them into someone you might contaminate them with whatever diseases or infections the patient has. You might be able to reuse them if you sterilized them first but this usually isn't practical. The cost of a hypodermic needle simply isn't high enough that it's worth going through the effort to sterilize and reuse them.\n\nYou could recycle them and melt them down for the metal and reuse that metal to make something else. But, there simply isn't much metal in a needle and so it might not make sense from an economic perspective to recycle them."
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exc2kr | why are 18 and 21 considered “adult ages” and what’s the difference between them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/exc2kr/eli5_why_are_18_and_21_considered_adult_ages_and/ | {
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"Well, in the U.S. it’s because 18 is when you are legally independent, you can vote, sign contracts, and other legal matters for yourself. At 21 you can drink alcohol (and I guess the tobacco age moved to 21, I think there are other rights you have around this age). Tbh what’s considered “an adult” is kind of a cultural thing that varies from place to place.",
"The way I see it is just, \"it has to be somewhere.\" Maybe some 17 year olds are mature and some 18 year olds are not. But how do we determine that? Do we deny an immature person adulthood forever? Do we allow a 17 year old mature person adulthood when others don't get it? So there just has to be a set time. It is a bit arbitrary and of course different cultures set it to different ages."
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4la6lp | credit card transaction signing | So sometimes when I purchase stuff using my credit card with card-present, I'll be asked to sign the receipt.
I understand that signing the receipt is for the merchant to proof that you made the transaction so you cannot issue a chargeback. It's to protect the merchant.
However, if someone were to stole my credit card and make purchase with it, they can literally draw a monkey on the receipt and they'll still be walking out of the store with the product.
Okay, even if the merchant were to compare the signature with the specimen signature at the back of the card. I would imagine it to be pretty easy to forge a signature after you steal someone's card.
Then as a cardholder, I can simply say that I didn't sign that. Doesn't this make the whole signing the receipt process useless? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4la6lp/eli5_credit_card_transaction_signing/ | {
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"\"So sometimes when I purchase stuff using your credit card...\"\nCareful, I have a low limit and high APR ;)\n\nEssentially, it's what they call \"security theater\". The absence of a signature may seem suspicious, but other than that, it's pretty much meaningless, as you suspected. Though I'm sure 'they' could figure it out using some process or another, it's probably not cost effective for them to do so in most cases.",
"Yes, signatures are really only done by tradition. The number of signatures manufactured outnumbers the number of signatures we care to verify by several orders of magnitude. They provide little security value.\n\nWhile it is possible to identify false signatures, it is rarely economically worth the effort. Most people sign inconsistently anyway.",
"A signature verifies agreement, not identity.\n\nThe credit card companies need to know two things, that you are the person you say you are, and that you agree to the charges.\n\nA signature does nothing to establish who you are, but it does verify that you agree to the price/terms etc. of the purchase, preventing you from coming back later and claiming someone overcharged you.\n\nVerifying identity is done with other mechanisms. Examples might be having the physical card, confirming the card is genuine with CSV codes, matching a photo ID, etc. What steps are taken depend on the amount of risk the merchant and payment processor are willing to accept."
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3f7fkv | what is the san francisco 'bubble', and when is it supposed to burst? | I live in the bay area, and people reference the 'bubble' (e.g. housing, costs of living, startup valuation/VC capital) all the time in casual conversation - yet when I try to find a comprehensive explanation online, many economist blog posts on this topic feel out of reach for the average joe like me. Any helpful info would be much appreciated! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f7fkv/eli5what_is_the_san_francisco_bubble_and_when_is/ | {
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"A lot of big tech companies moved to SF but SF doesn't really build new housing for all of these people. The influx of people who have high incomes have made property owners do some very shady things to kick people out of rent-controlled apartments (in SF your rent mostly stays the same year to year with rent control as long as you continue to live there, but that only applies to multiple-family dwellings. Some 2-unit places after 1 tenant moves out, they convert to \"storage\" so that it becomes a 1-family place, and then rent control doesn't apply, so the rent that was $3000 a month is now $13000 a month).\n\nThe bubble in this case is that rents keep going up and up and up. The median price for a 2-bedroom apartment in SF is about $4000 now? At some point, the government may put a stop to that, or some other thing will happen, like maybe the tech companies will move out which will severely de-value the properties. When this happens, you can have people who bought a home in SF for 1.6 million dollars, and then all of a sudden it's only worth $900,000 now. They just lost $700,000. That's what happens when a real estate bubble bursts.",
"People think that the housing prices, valuations of companies, and rents are way too high to be sustainable for what the underlying asset is. You saw the housing bubble burst during the \"Great Recession\" and many houses that sold for high prices in 2007 aren't worth as much today.\n\nPeople are expecting a similar \"correction\" of value, kinda like a bubble growing in size and then popping.",
"Quick description of what is happening: tech companies moved in, pay a lot of money to people who work for them, who want to live close to where they work, and can pay a lot for a place to live. Prices are going up, at a fast enough rate that people cry \"bubble\".\n\n\nThe problem is that you can't actually know something is a bubble until after it bursts: while most dot-coms were bubbles, Yahoo got through okay, and Google did well for itself. If the money stays around, this could avoid popping any time in the near future.\n\nOr it could burst tomorrow. One of the major reasons people *are* calling \"bubble\" is that a lot of support jobs: retail, food service, janitorial, etc. jobs aren't paying enough for people to work them: it's just too expensive to live in SF, and too expensive to commute from anywhere affordable. If you can't fill these support jobs, you can't keep work going, and the bubble bursts."
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o4axu | how do people make aimbots? | Something I've always been curious about. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o4axu/eli5_how_do_people_make_aimbots/ | {
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"When you play an online video game, the server produces and sends you information about the virtual world you are playing in, including the position of other players, so that your computer can generate it graphically. \nYou route some of that information through to an external program, who's function is to identify where the other players are (on your screen) and move your cursor to them so that you don't have to manually aim at them.",
"The game knows where the heads are, right? (It drew them, after all.)\nTherefore, anything running on the same machine as the game has the ability to know where the heads are, too. It just has to know where to look. And then you can make the kiddies cry.",
"Saw the term \"aimbot\".....thought of something completely different.\n\nI'm getting way too old in internet years.",
"When you play a video game, you see enemies as they move around, quite obviously you don't when they're behind a wall. But the server isn't that smart, so it doesn't know whether you see the enemy or not, so it just sends you position data.\n\nNow, the game doesn't display enemies when they're hidden, but position data still is somewhere in computer memory. And you can peek into it, if you know how to.\n\nSo what these people do is to find where in memory the game stores the position and reads it, then they figure out what to do with it - calculate angle from player pos and modify the game data about your orientation.",
"In addition to the techniques others have posted about digging around in memory, there's also a cruder one based on image processing. You change the skins for enemy models to a single color. The aimbot then scans the frames for splotches of this color, and then moves the mouse to that location.\n\nWhile clunky, it has the advantage that it has only indirect hooks into the game, so it's harder for anti-cheat programs to detect.",
"I remember very early aimbots that used distinctly coloured enemy player models, such as neon green or pink models. Often it required some small hack to allow custom models in games that didn't allow this.\n\nThe aimbot then scanned the area around the crosshair, maybe in a 10 degree circle. The aimbot would look for the enemy model colour, if it spotted the enemy colour to the right of the crosshair it would send a mouse move command to the right in order to home in on the enemy. Once the aimbot detected enemy model colour under the crosshair it would fire.\n\nThis technique was highly unreliable and work better as a \"triggerbot\" rather than an aimbot. A triggerbot is similar to an aimbot but doesn't do any aiming. It simply clicks (read: pull the trigger) when the enemy is in the crosshair. Mostly useful for snipe type weapons (scoped rifles, rail gun etc).\n\nOne of the inherent problems of scanning an area for enemy model colour would be shadows. An enemy model colour could be as distinct as you like, but as soon as he runs into shadow then your aimbot will fail to see the colour. This was sometimes countered by programming the aimbot to scan for the enemy model colour and a number of darker shades of the same colour. This, however, would increase scan time and decrease the reactivity of the bot. A better solution was the bright model hack - an additional hack which caused all models to be displayed at maximum gamma. All models appeared at max brightness and were unaffected by shadows, allowing the bot to detect them more easily and narrow the number of shades to be scanned for.\n\nAhhhh nostalgia. On an semi related side-note I remember early CS beta (beta 4?) when the console command GL_ZMAX 0 would give you a wall hack. ",
"This was just asked exactly a month ago, and 2 weeks before that. Either reddit recycles users bi-weekly or the search function is broken. \n\n[ELI5: Aimbot in video games](_URL_0_)\n\n[ELI5: How does an aimbot work?](_URL_1_)",
"[You should read this.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt's about the Turing Test and text based AI",
"it is not hard to program aimbots either. with a little knowledge you can make a program that scans what is on your screen, and then tell the program to lock-on to certain colours. then re-skin any player models in the game so that they have red heads, set the program to scan for red. this type of thing can really affect your computer and so it is best to set the program to only scan near the middle of your screen\n\na home made aim-bot like this isn't the greatest and i know there are much better ways to do it but this worked for me",
"I saw a good explanation so I won't try to write another, but if you want to learn more, a program called \n[Cheat Engine](_URL_0_) has built in tutorials to teach you more about how game hacks are made and how to make your own. You can start with something simple like an infinite ammo hack and then use what you learned to make more interesting ones.\n\nJust don't hack in multiplayer games, it's unfair. Use it quite literally for educational purposes."
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3ckqvm | steam engine/power | How did the steam engine or steam power in general come to be? Did someone just suddenly invent it out of thin air or was it slowly developed from something? What was the inspiration behind it? I learned that it changed the whole world and drove the industrial revolution. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ckqvm/eli5steam_enginepower/ | {
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"Am I late? I hope not.\n\nMany people like to bring up the aelopile in terms of the steam engine's invention, but the aelopile is more of an anomaly - it uses a principle which is basically the opposite of how early steam engines worked, and in turn similar to how our modern steam turbines work. A principle that could not really be used in practice with low level manufacturing technology.\n\nSo now we've got that out of the way, how did the first steam engines come about? Contrary to the popular assumption, it was not the \"pushing\" pressure of steam that inspired inventors. It was the opposite. See, in the 17th century, Evangelista Torricielli discovers the existence of atmospheric pressure. Believe it or not, something so obvious was rarely noted by people. They had an elementary, intuitive grasp of it, sure. Artisans knew for example that you cannot make a piston pump pump from a depth lower than roughly 10 meters. But they did not realize why (a column of water at 9.81 m equals atmospheric pressure). So now, you have the enlightenment era, people are doing science experiments, for the first time in history basically. And atmospheric pressure is one of the things they play around with - and to play with atmospheric pressure you need to be able to induce a vacuum. First, a simple vacuum pump is invented - but that is not enough, as it requires to much effort. People are wondering, how to do it with less work. And they are starting to have ideas on what vacuum can be utilized for.\n\nSo how do you make a vacuum? Some try expelling air from cylinders by gunpowder explosions. But around the end of 17th century, it is discovered, that when steam condenses, turning into water, the volume of water is a LOT smaller than that of steam, therefore a vacuum is made. So we have our practical way. I would attribute this to Papin. Around the time, people start toying with the concept. Thomas Savery for example would heat a closed vessel with water, expel water by the pressure, and when it was filled completely with steam, cool it by spraying it with cold water, creating a vacuum and sucking water in from below. He considered that to be a practical steam pump, but it found no use (it did however let him patent the whole idea of \"raising water by fire\").\n\nAn ironmonger (sort of a 'precission blacksmith', a more qualified artisan) called Thomas Newcomen, being only somewhat familiar with the scientific developments, but no doubt familiar with the principles, around the time when Savery and his engine were getting old already, decides to utilize a piston/cylinder apparatus. He fills a cylinder with steam (not as in a modern steam engine, instead he 'sucks the steam in' using a counterweight), and sprays water inside the cylinder. That makes for a rapid condensation, which pulls the piston in - or more accurately makes the atmospheric pressure push it in. This in turn allows to make some real work. Those pistons would be connected to beams, on the other side of which a pump would be connected. Those engines were used mostly for pumping water. The first working engine of the sort is an invention of 1712. Soon hundreds are built in Britain and later around Europe.\n\nThe famous James Watt only improved this design, applying perhaps a bit more scientific knowledge to it – though mankind at that time had very little knowledge of heat. It should be by all means noted, that it was the steam engine that taught men thermodynamics, not the other way around. What Watt knew, or at least realized however, was that there existed latent heat – which we now call 'enthalpy of evaporation' commonly shortened as 'r'. And that each time a phase change occurs, as in steam condenses and water evaporates this goes in and out of the fluid, but it is the opposite with the cylinder which then retains its heat or the lack of it, and either cools the steam or heats the water just at the wrong time. So Watt separetes the condensation into a separate condenser, making the cylinder permamently hot.\n\nWhat about using high steam pressure then? The idea as stated earlier seems much more straightforward after all. Yet it is more difficult to implement. Hero's turbine was 'overpressure' based, but of no practical use for reasons described before. In the 17th century, Leupolds „Theatrum Machinarium”, amongst other machines describes a simple over-pressure steam engine expelling into the atmosphere, with no condenser (yet it is a mere idea sketch, and the drawing presents a mechanically incoherent system – the levers are simply all wrong). So what is the problem? The issue is pressure vessels and their ability to retain pressure, but also steam generation – Newcomen/Watt era 'haystack' boilers are like pots, not much area of contact between the fire and water to generate enough steam at pressure. It was only Trevithick who in turn in the early 19th century makes a firetube boiler, with tubes going through the pot of water, and pioneers the use of „strong steam”. Realizing early that the pressure of the steam can be many times greater than that of the atmosphere, he makes some engines running with no condenser – much, much less efficient but a lot more compact, which then leads him to making the first vehicles and locomotive. Note however that Watt literally thought that he should be hanged for it, as it was considered dangerous.\n\nLate 19th and early 20th century turbines make an expected comeback. Finally we can make them. And while they are of no use for vehicles for many reasons I shall not go into here, they are great for power generation. But that is another story entirely."
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jprgh | why is hate speech tolerated in the gamer community? | I don't get it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jprgh/eli5_why_is_hate_speech_tolerated_in_the_gamer/ | {
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"The same reason it's tolerated everywhere else. Plus the games allow the people to remain anonymous. As a general observance you see the 'nice' version of people in real life. They won't tell you their prejudices or feelings on certain issues. When this public responsiblity is lost, they are free to say what they want.\n\nAlso, the gaming community is built on competition, and I would say this factors in greatly.\n\nYou didn't clarify, but it almost sounds like you're assuming that gamers would be nicer or more immune to hate speech, is this the case?",
"Because they have yet to invent a monitor that allows people to reach through to the other side and punch them square in the kisser.",
"The same reason it's tolerated everywhere else. Plus the games allow the people to remain anonymous. As a general observance you see the 'nice' version of people in real life. They won't tell you their prejudices or feelings on certain issues. When this public responsiblity is lost, they are free to say what they want.\n\nAlso, the gaming community is built on competition, and I would say this factors in greatly.\n\nYou didn't clarify, but it almost sounds like you're assuming that gamers would be nicer or more immune to hate speech, is this the case?",
"Because they have yet to invent a monitor that allows people to reach through to the other side and punch them square in the kisser."
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2avet3 | if dc flows from negative to positive, where do the electrons come from in say a car, where the negative terminal is connected only to the chassis? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2avet3/eli5if_dc_flows_from_negative_to_positive_where/ | {
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"The negative output from the alternator and the battery are attached to the chassis as well. Power, as electrons, flows from the negative terminal of the source (battery and/or alternator) through the chassis, through the wiring, through the devices, back through the wiring, and into the positive terminal"
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4r79dq | why are anti-government groups are labelled "right-wing"? | I ask because logically to me it doesn't make sense - AFAIK, right-wing politics is conservative in nature and possibly lead to advocacy of monarchism, absolutism, fascism, aristocracy, despotism, etc. (i.e. absolute/total rule by a powerful head of state) whereas someone taking an "anti-government"/"anti-state" stance seems to sound more like an anarchist or advocate of stateless communism... which AFAIK is an extremist *left*-wing ideal. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4r79dq/eli5_why_are_antigovernment_groups_are_labelled/ | {
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"What anti-government groups do you mean? It is possible that they are talking about being against a *particular* government (and implementing a new more right-wing one instead) rather than being against the idea of government as a whole. ",
"Right wing politics is supposedly against big government. They want to be left alone, untaxed, unregulated, unhassled by the man. Therefore anti-government groups are just an extreme wing of that philosophy.\n\nOf course for your normal run the mill conservative, being against big government is a lie. They're more than happy to have government all over you when it's something they don't approve of, like telling people who they can marry, telling a woman what to do with her body. ",
"Right wing and left wing are *perspective* positions. Perspective positions translate into different policy positions in different times and places -- what's left wing here and now can be right wing there and then.\n\nLeft wing means progressive; right wing means conservative. **Conserv**ative means you're interesting in **conserv**ing ideas, systems, values, and institutions that currently exist or previously existed; a conservative believes that things are 'tried and true' and that new change is usually a negative. They value tradition, to varying extents -- a mild conservative usually wants things to stay more or less as they are, a hardline conservative wants things to return to a more ideal form that existed in the past. This is usually called the reactionary divide. **Progress**ive means you're interesting in **progress**ing to newer ideas, systems, values and institutions that represent improvements on what currently exists or previously existed; a progressive believes that society should always be in pursuit of a better form and structure and that there's still room for improvement. A mild progressive usually wants things to change in slow steady increments, a hardline progressive usually thinks that's impossible and that only a full deep change from the roots can last. This is usually called the reform-or-revolution divide.\n\nNow think about how that applies to different countries. To a British person, abolishing the traditional monarchy and becoming a republic would be a solidly left-wing position and is supported by the moderate-to-hard left wing. To an American person in 1776, that would have also been a quite left-wing position, representing a revolutionary social change and all-out rejection of traditional ideas and national systems; to an American in 2016, it's a perfectly banal traditional position accepted by virtually everyone on the left and right.\n\nAll left/right or progressive/conservative refers to is your *perspective*. How that perspective translates into specific positions on specific issues is context-dependent. Both the left and right wings have their little-to-no-government positions which vary in structure and goals and can even seem internally contradictory (eg communism is often classified as a 'big government' position but its goal is the complete eradication of the state).\n\nThe second issue is positive vs negative freedom. Despite the name, that doesn't mean good vs bad freedom, those are just the terms used. You can also term them left-freedom and right-freedom. Left-freedom is usually defined as the freedom of a person to do the most things possible; right-freedom is usually defined as the utmost freedom from interference by an authority. This means that both the left and the right are, in Western countries, usually pursuing freedom as the ultimate goal, but fundamentally disagree about what freedom means. Take the civil rights acts in the 60s -- they made it illegal for a business to serve only whites, or only blacks, or only any specific race. The left said this was a win because it gave people the freedom to use any service regardless of race; the right said this was a loss because it was the government robbing business owners of the freedom to choose which races could use their services. Who was right? Which option represents greater freedom? Can the government enforce a law to make people freer? It's an active political debate. And things like libertarianism and anarchism represent totally opposed yet similar little-to-no-government positions representing extremes of those ideas.",
"Like you're 5... tricky.\n\nIt's old, going back a long time.\n\nA long time ago the French nation had kings and nobility - people who were born into a ruling class to run everything and manage the kingdom of France.\n\nThe French had a revolution where the people decided they didn't like how things were. They wanted to have more say in how the rules were made. During the French Revolution, in the parliament (a group of people from the land, representing all the interests of all the people from different areas), the Nobility sat on the right side of the meeting room while the commoners sat on the left side. From this seating arrangement came the terms \"left-wing\" and \"right-wing\". \n\nThe left wanted a new order to things, to change the fact that birth decided who would make the rules and such. The right supported the old order of things. So the left promoted capitalism, equal justice for all, ownership and 'social mobility' based upon ability, etc. The right wanted to maintain the older order - hereditary ownership, the church, etc.\n\nSo the left-wing was seen as those who wanted change to a new way of doing things while the right-wing was seen as those who wanted to retain the old style and systems.\n\nToday the left wants more social 'justice'. To get that, means 'someone' has to oversee the process and that 'someone' is government. So the left wants government to provide more - more education, more healthcare, more food, more housing, etc.\n\nThis means the left wants more government - socialism - meaning the government has to have the resources so they must take those from the people.\n\nThe right wants a return to the old ways - smaller, less government, one that doesn't take so much of what they have to give it to everyone else so they can use it as they see fit.\n\nBecause of this, the 'spectrum' from left to right goes from complete government control through what is called anarchy or complete removal of government (a return to the old 'might makes right', take what you want).\n\nFew find the total extremes all that desirable so most people fall along the spectrum somewhere. Those against government are seen as 'right-wing' while those for more government control are 'left-wing'. (ergo 'the new order' being more government while 'the old order' being less government)",
"There is an idea among right wingers in America that rights transcend government. That government was only instituted to ensure Americans have certain rights or freedoms.\n\nRight wingers can become anti government if they believe this is no longer happening, or particulary when they believe the government is deliberately conspiring to undermine those rights.\n\nThese are probably the people you are talking about",
"Simply advocating for statelessness is not left wing. You can be a right-libertarian.\n\nHowever, assuming you are from America, most extremists groups there are right wing, because the left wing in America is almost non-existent. In Europe you have almost no right libertarians, and if there are any, they are usually a fringe group blown over from the states, its a very American phenomenon.\n\nEven though the political compass is pretty bad for accurately representing ideologies, its better than left and right. [As seen here](_URL_0_), you have an axis for economics and an axis for government. Using \"conservative\" and \"left\" is not correct, because conservatives are only one part of the right wing. Right wing and left wing came from French revolutionary times, when things were simpler, and there was only the king and the church and not having them. After that, humans developed many different ideologies. Trying to put them in boxes or compasses doesn't really work out that well.\n\nBut you are right in that anti-government seems left wing. It has been left wing for almost all of history, and only recently there have been right wing libertarians, such as libertarian capitalists, which pretty much only exist in the USA, and people who are so reactionary that they basically advocate for \"traditional tribalism\" IE racist primitivism communism. Before the last 100-150 years or so, there was almost no state and if there was one it was fully capitalist controlled. The left wing making massive gains for the working class in democracy, welfare etc set up the opportunity for right wing libertarianism to come into existence. Before that, there was no need for the capitalists to advocate for less state and there was no reason for the working class to advocate for it either, because there barely was a state.\n\nConservatives, however, as the name implies, want to conserve. They dont want change. Reactionaries react to changes in society by wanted to go back to what once was. Right libertarians want to have less government, but not economic leftism. Most right wing governments in the world are conservative or reactionary, the latter of which either turns into a conservative state (mostly a dictatorship) or dies out due to its volatile nature."
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a5mya2 | how do websites like the wayback machine work? they can't possibly visit every obscure website in existence to take frequent snapshots, right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5mya2/eli5_how_do_websites_like_the_wayback_machine/ | {
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"That's pretty much exactly what they do.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThey use something called a [web crawler](_URL_0_), which is basically a bot that visits every publically accessible website that it can find.\n\nThey store millions of gigabytes of data."
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5g93al | how do rumble strips slow cars down? | Those thin little yellow and bumpy things. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g93al/eli5how_do_rumble_strips_slow_cars_down/ | {
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"They don't, but they shake your car and make noise, drawing your attention to the road and any potential hazards. ",
"They don't actually slow the car down, they wake the driver up, or pull him away from texting etc. They are an engineered-in warning system.",
"By annoying the driver, who slows down to reduce the vibration and noise that the rumble strips cause."
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1m617n | why bodies of water don't soak into the surrounding ground | Shouldn't all lakes and oceans be a gigantic swamp? what's stopping the ground from absorbing the water? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m617n/eli5_why_bodies_of_water_dont_soak_into_the/ | {
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"The water does soak in the surrounding ground, but eventually the ground absorbs so much water it can't fit any more, after which, obviously, the water pools on top of it, giving you a puddle, lake or ocean.\n\nTest it yourself by filling half a bowl with sand and throwing water in until the sand stops absorbing it.",
"Sometimes the lake is actually at the ground water level. The soils are actually saturated up to the height of the lake.\n\nIn other cases, the lakes are lined with an impermeable layer of clays. These are 'perched lakes', because they are 'perched' atop other permeable soils. These impermiable clays can be organic in origin - consisting of broken down vegitation.\n\nOther lakes are cradled in layers of impermeable rock, either fine-grained sedimentary rocks like shale, or solid igneous rock such as basalt or granite."
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26dom8 | why do people build houses in areas prone to natural disasters and then expect goernment aid to rebuild? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26dom8/eli5_why_do_people_build_houses_in_areas_prone_to/ | {
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"I'll speak to Florida, as its where I live.\n\nWe do pay higher insurance rates. Good god insurance is expensive in Florida. That's the price you pay for living on the beach or in a Hurricane prone area.\n\nThe thing is, those areas are also REALLY nice to live in. Its a wonderful place to live, and people like living there. Our houses are built as best they can be but Mother Nature is a nasty nasty bitch some times. \n\nWe do pay for it. But that doesn't change the fact that we suddenly lost everything. ",
"There are few places that are completely free from the possibility of natural disasters. If you aren't in an area prone to hurricanes, then you're likely in an area prone to flooding, or earthquakes, or tornadoes. I don't think its fair to criticize people for living where natural disasters may strike.\n\nSecondly, when a town is destroyed there are lots of things that need to be rebuilt along with the residential homes. There is plenty of government property that will need to be rebuilt, along with taxpayer funded infrastructure like roads.\n\nThere are lots of things that money will be going towards, and it's very crucial to the rebuilding of the town.",
"If you are speaking of places such as the New Jersey coast, or Massachusetts's Cape Cod, it is because these are historically and economically important areas. It used to be, long before reliable fast transportation, these were the areas to live if you were a longshoreman, fisher, or trader. \n\nBecause millions of people live there, the federal government provides money to help alleviate shock (primarily regarding the loss of infrastructure and to reestablish emergency services). ",
"Many times those \"billions of dollars\" are actually low interest loans. ",
"The right answer requires some background. Most home owners insurance covers all damage like fire, wind, trees, with the exception of water. The reason is because flooding is so difficult to model and so destructive that most insurance companies simply won't underwrite for flood. Some do offer coverage but it is exceedingly expensive. To offset this gap in coverage for many Americans the government encouraged homeownership in riskier areas with the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. The act made sense at the time to protect citizens from freak acts of God involving water and flood. However, it was never intended to mitigate financial risk from climate change.\n\nAs the result of Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, and Ike, the government reevaluated it's purpose and is now being phased out. Likewise, most companies simply won't underwrite in those areas anymore. Period. Owners now live in these areas at their own risk. As such, it is extremely difficult to get new loans to build in these areas.",
"The people who build the houses are not the same people who actually live in the houses. \n\nThe people who build the houses like to build houses where land is cheap because that means they can make more money by selling the houses they build. But they don't care about who happens to the houses after they are sold. \n\nThe people who buy the houses like to live in cheap houses too, many of them would not be able to live in a house otherwise, so they have no choice but to live in a place where natural disasters happen and buy insurance and hope for the best. \n\nInsurance is like a pot of money that everyone puts a little bit of money in to in case of emergencies. This is more affordable than everyone trying to have all the money they need on hand in case of a really bad emergency. It works because only some people will need to get money from that pot, sometimes. \n\nInsurance does not work when everyone needs to get money from that pot at the same time. But when a really big disaster happens, that is what happens. After that the government can help. \n\nNow, we could avoid a lot of this trouble if the people who built the houses would build houses that were better for the natural conditions of the place they build the houses. \n\nSome communities do this. Builders in San Francisco have built many tall buildings and done a lot of work to make sure that a disaster like the San Francisco earthquake would never happen again. \n\nBut a lot of other house builders keep building the same kind of house because they think to people living in the house would not want to live in a house that is different than the ones they are used to. So they keep building bad houses and people keep buying them and paying lots of money to the insurance companies and hoping that a bad disaster will never happen to them. "
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69665t | why do certain ethnicities seem to have a distinct smell? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69665t/eli5_why_do_certain_ethnicities_seem_to_have_a/ | {
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"Probably diet and pheromones. I went to a nightclub whose patrons were mostly Indian. No joke, i left the club smelling like curry and spices. ",
"That and customs/traditions. For instance I knew of an Indian friend im basic training who was vegetarian and lived off of onion sandwiches. He didn't even understand the concept of deodorant. His bunk mate from Nepal sure as hell did and couldn't stand him. My bunkmate was an older black man who would always apply coco butter lotion every morning and night. He had a persistent/delicious smell of cocopuffs every time he was around. I'm sure it also has to do with things such as preferred brands of cleaners, detergents and what not as well.",
"It will mostly be their diet; westerners will often detect the spices in Indian food, for example, while people from south-east Asia (where dairy products are eaten much less often) find that westerners give off the scent of old milk.",
"Peoples odors are influenced by genetics, disease, hygiene, and diet. Diet and hygiene are the two largest factors, with diet being the bigger when comparing people who have relatively decent hygiene standards. ",
"As others have mentioned, food has a lot to do with it. \n\nI'm white, but I like to experiment with different foods and spices from time to time, and I've definitely noticed that when I spend a lot of time over the stove cooking something spicy, the smell will get into my hair and clothes. \n\nAlso the use of incense, which is more common in some cultures than others, will leave a certain smell. ",
"Serious: what contributes to that potato-y smell your Latino neighbors give off?",
"Why so many Haitians have that distinct... Haitian smell? ",
"The ph of the sweat of people from some areas of Asia actually has a different balance than that of Westerners. Diet and possibly heredity factors may play a role in it, but it actually makes a big difference in the formulation of soaps, antiperspirants, and how dyes for clothing are formulated. \n\n( I worked as a textile technologist. The AATCC test for colorfastness to perspiration has different recipies for artificial perspiration. You use the formulation based on typical generic sweat for your part of the world.)"
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a0imge | at the bus stop i saw that the glass had condensation on both sides, how is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a0imge/elif_at_the_bus_stop_i_saw_that_the_glass_had/ | {
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"Condensation happens when the humidity of the air becomes higher then 100%. This usually happens when humid air gets cooled down. For example if it hits a cold surface. If the ambient temperature is low, for example at night. The glass at the bus stop will cool down to those cold temperatures. However in the morning the temperature may rise quickly. However the temperature of the glass will take a bit longer to rise. So it is possible for the air to be higher temperature then the glass and it may form condensation on the glass. Eventually the temperature of the glass will equalize and the condensation will evaporate."
]
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||
2gp5tx | the banach-tarski paradox and how i can use it to have unlimited steaks. | So, I'm sitting here in my Econ class, and we're talking about the Banach-Tarski Paradox. And it just sounds ludicrous. Help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gp5tx/eli5_the_banachtarski_paradox_and_how_i_can_use/ | {
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"I find that [Irregular Webcomic](_URL_0_) explains it better than anyone else."
]
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[
"http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2339.html"
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1owb2k | if something is "compostable", why should i throw it into a compost bin as opposed to the trash? | My university has cans for "Trash" and cans for "Compost", and I'm just wondering... won't the compostable stuff decompose even if it's thrown in a dump? Where does the compost go? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1owb2k/eli5_if_something_is_compostable_why_should_i/ | {
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"If it goes into \"Trash\" it will probably be burned.\nIf it goes into \"Compost\" it might be processed and sold again as fertilizer or soil.",
"If it isnt burned, then it will likely end up in a land fill, where it will decompose but because it is amongst alot of plastics and metals it isnt really something that can get used. whereas composting will give you free fertiliser for your garden. \n\nAlso this is a good guide :_URL_0_",
"Landfills are anaerobic while compost piles are turned and sometimes even watered. This turning and watering helps things decompose quickly as it exposes the pile to air and the elements. Comparatively very little that gets put in a plastic trash bag decomposes entirely as it's sealed up and then buried under piles of other trash."
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24e3es | why can't i use my smart phone to call or text solely on a wifi signal? | Wouldn't it make sense to have this as a feature? If I moved to an area that's outside of the normal service area, I would still be able to keep my cell phone plan and thus keep giving money to the phone company (which they probably want). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24e3es/eli5_why_cant_i_use_my_smart_phone_to_call_or/ | {
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"Some companies do offer that service, it's just not very common. (Republic Wireless does calls/text over wifi, though I have never used them.)",
"There is no reason the phone cannot from a hardware perspective. Cell phone carriers don't want you to so they lock out that ability (in the US with most major carriers). \n\nTo add to that in ELI5: Cell phones talk to cell phone towers like walkie-talkie do. The cell phone tower has house phones in them that your cell phone is connected to. This turns into a phone instead of just a walkie-talkie. To do the same thing over Wi-Fi you would need someone to a home phone somewhere for it to connect to. It could be done but the mean cell phone providers don't want you to do it. ",
"Yes, you can. Firstly, T-Mobile offers this service on its branded phones. Second, Republic Wireless is a carrier that runs off of Sprint's network but primarily uses Wi-Fi for voice, text, and data.\nThe Hangouts app on iOS allows you to make calls and texts by making a Google Voice account. You can do the same on Android with Talkatone or GrooveIP, however support ends May 15 (although rumor has it that Google is going to let you use Hangouts on Android for calls and texts quite soon). Now there are some issues (ex. T-Mobile and Sprint have bad coverage in your area, you use Android, etc.) but it's a pretty solid solution.\n"
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din6lq | what are the most compelling explanations of the causes of the global financial crisis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/din6lq/eli5_what_are_the_most_compelling_explanations_of/ | {
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"I’m going to put this in the simplest of terms until someone else comes along with a more verbose answer. \n\n__greed__\n\n\nEdit: Thought I would actually attempt this one, for real. \n\nSo, the 2008 subprime crisis. \n\n__disclaimer__ - I’m by no means an expert and will happily be corrected. \n\nFrom what I understand it all started with what we call subprime mortgages. These are mortgages that are offered to individuals with lower credit scores and less disposable income. \n\nLenders were basically giving out mortgages to anyone and everyone. Then when the housing bubble hit and house prices dropped as a result of this interest rates soared to compensate for the lower value of the house. \n\nBare in mind these were people with poor credit and less money to spend, so when the interest rates went up people were unable to meet the payments and as a result foreclosures were rampant. \n\n~~Lenders will package debts and sell them to other lenders. Ideally these packages of mortgages would have a rating (it’s been awhile so the actual ratings escape me) of say AAA meaning that it was a collection of low risk mortgages, ie people with good credit and the ability to pay. What the banks did before selling these mortgages on was to include some AAA mortgages inside a pack along with some of the sketchier high risks loans. The rating for the whole pack would still be set as AAA and nobody would check.~~ See reply comment for a more accurate description of packaged mortgages. \n\nThis was all fine until house prices fell and people couldn’t afford to pay and started to default. Now there were loads of subprime mortgages out there. Obviously when people are unable to pay, the banks are losing out on money and the whole house of cards came crashing down. \n\nWhat’s sick is the people offering these subprime mortgages, with little to no checks or even worse inaccurate information, would already have taken their bonuses and made millions. \n\nIt was then left for the tax payers to bail out the banks to get them back on their feet. \n\nNot the most eloquent answer, but it’s been a while since I read up on this. I would highly recommend a Google search for scholarly articles.",
"I once saw it explained sarcastically like this - \"it's almost like every decade or so it benefits the mega rich to collapse the economy so that those with all the capital can buy everything cheap & consolidate even more wealth\""
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2g37k4 | how did the u.s manage to (mostly) eliminate the intense corruption common at various points in the 19th century? | Obviously there will always be corruption but compared to how bad things were and how bad things could be (several Eastern European nations come to mind) the U.S seems to have stamped out the most blatant corruption so common in other parts of the world. How did that happen? And can it be used as an example for other nations or is that just too simple a concept? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g37k4/eli5_how_did_the_us_manage_to_mostly_eliminate/ | {
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"Well I'm no expert on it, but my personal theory, derived after a grueling 30 second debate with myself, states that \"when democracy works correctly corruption is stamped out by the people\". Thomas Jefferson said, and I'm paraphrasing slightly, \"There are two boxes with which to change the way a governing body works. The ballot box and the cartridge box.\" (The cartridge box being basically an ammo pouch) \nThus: if you don't like that your gov't is corrupt, vote someone else into office who won't be corrupt. If they won't leave, shoot them. Or thereabouts. \n\nBut that's just my theory.\n\nSide note: this is (IMO) the most important reason for the second amendment. Otherwise someone could abuse the power bestowed upon them by the people by signing hundreds of tyrannical executive orders superseding congress while simultaneously working to disarm the people, ultimately making their rise to tyranny smooth sailing. Checks and balances are needed in the US gov't. The second amendment keeps all those checks and balances in place.\n\nP.S. the above scenario is actually happening.\n\nHope that helped somewhat? \nEdit: Grammar fixes",
"The problem with Eastern European countries that they spent a long time being ruled over by dysfunctional communist regime which encouraged a culture of political corruption. While they transitioned on paper to liberal democracies in 1989, that kind of political culture isn't something which disappears overnight. I imagine Eastern European corruption will probably lessen with each new generation of politicians, but it'll take a long time."
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17eby9 | why is pirating music illegal, but buying it used it legal? | You can by CDs for as low as a dollar at places like Goodwill, garage sales, or pawn shops, but does the artist or label get royalties for these? How is this any different than if I were to by a CD and charge friends to rip it or even if I just pirated it?
Wouldn't the artist still have the same amount of money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17eby9/eli5_why_is_pirating_music_illegal_but_buying_it/ | {
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"What is illegal is making a copy, hence the term copyright. If you're pirating music online then you're making a copy of the original song and providing that copy to someone else.\n\nWhen you buy a used CD no one is making any extra copies.",
"It is different because the original owner can't use it anymore. If he changes his mind and wants to listen to it again, he has to go out and buy a new CD.\n\nLegal: 1 sale = 1 person playing the song at a time\n\nIllegal: 1 sale = multiple people playing the song at a time\n",
"Music is copyrighted. This means that, legally, nobody is able to copy it without explicit permission from the person who created it. Downloading music is making an unauthorized copy.\n\nCDs, OTOH, are physical property. The law says you can sell your property whenever you want. When they sold you the CD, they lost the right to tell you what you could do with it."
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1wgmdq | how can i break a law if i am unaware the law exists in the first place? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wgmdq/how_can_i_break_a_law_if_i_am_unaware_the_law/ | {
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"Ignorance is no excuse",
"It is your responsibility to be know and understand any and all of the laws or the country you live in. Even if no human could possibly read all of those laws in their lifetime, and few could understand any of the laws that they read.",
"\"I forgot armed robbery was a crime. \""
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16ve70 | smokers should relate to this. why do we feel the urge to smoke after a meal or while drinking alcohol? | The title is self-descriptive. every smoker should relate to this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16ve70/eli5_smokers_should_relate_to_this_why_do_we_feel/ | {
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"Not so sure about the dessert smoke, but there is a [known connection](_URL_0_) between they pleasures of smoking and drinking being linked to the same parts of the brain",
"It might be better to post this to /r/askscience \n",
"I have a theory about this aside from extending the pleasure of the previous action, I think that smokers tend to like to have a certain taste or mixture of tastes in their mouth. Eating or drinking something changes this taste in an extreme way and the smoker corrects or enhances is left over taste with a cigarette.\n\nI know I love Mt Dew but when I quit smoking I couldn't stand the taste anymore and Aldo quit drinking it.",
"The urge to smoke after a meal comes from the fact that nicotine stimulates the emission of stomach acid which helps us digest.\nAs for the smoking while drinking, alcohol blocks the acetylcholine receptors, which are also our nicotine receptors. Thus, the more you drink, the less satisfying a smoke becomes.",
"I too would like to know why drinking and smoking go so hand in hand.\n\nWhen I'm sober I think smoking is idiotic and I don't want to smoke.\n\nWhen I'm tipsy I kind of want to smoke but when I do I don't enjoy it.\n\nBut when I'm starting to get hammered I enjoy smoking. Why is that?\n\nWhy do I want to smoke and more importantly why do I like smoking when I'm drunk?",
"I do know that nicotine inhibits the release of insulin from the pancreas - resulting in high blood sugar levels. I'm not certain if this has any effect on the desire to smoke right after eating, but it seems like there could be some correlation there.",
"it's more of they both release massive amounts of dopamine. smoking after a meal increases the 'high' your body already gets from food.",
"i quit smoking three years ago, yet sill crave a smoke after eating mexican food. ",
"For me, smoking during a night of drinking is the icing on top of the cake which is my buzz. Which feelsgoodman.",
"I still don't understand why I go outside in the winter to smoke a cigarette, and I suddenly need to pee the moment it's lit. "
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2hwecu | why do landline phone companies still charge extra for long distance calling in the us while cell phone companies don't? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hwecu/eli5_why_do_landline_phone_companies_still_charge/ | {
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"Because it often costs them extra.\n\nMost of your calls on a landline are going to be within a company's local network, and can be handled in house. But for long distance calls, they often have to cooperate with someone other company's network, and pay them for the privilege.\n\nBut with cell phones and VOIP services, just about every call is going to be routed through different networks, so that cost is built into your monthly fees. That is also part of the reason cell phone companies offered unlimited minutes within their networks.",
"I think all cell phone calls are long distance."
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lkk1c | why do they say higher savings reduce economic activity when the banks are investing the money that is saved with them? | Basically in Australia we all got a fat check a year or so ago from the government as part of an economic stimulus plan. Commentators regularly said that if people just stick that money in the bank, then it would have no effect.
But banks invest and loan the money that is saved with them, so I don't understand how saving money affects economic activity? i.e. it doesn't matter if I'm spending it or if my bank is investing it, either way it's doing economic "work"... but apparently not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lkk1c/eli5_why_do_they_say_higher_savings_reduce/ | {
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"Spending money stimulates the economy more than a loan.\n\nDue to reserve requirements, banks cannot lend out 100% of deposits. Also, a loan may be used to buy a factory.,the money goes to the former owner of the factory who saves it and does not spend anything. ",
"It has to do with the difference between growing the *supply* of capital and growing the *demand* for capital.\n\nCapital is one type of money. It's not inherently different from any other kind of money, but it's different in how it's used. Capital is, simply put, large boluses of money that people use all at once in order to do things which don't make money, but which make it possible to make money.\n\nBuilding a factory is the classic example of a use of capital. Building a factory isn't cheap! It costs a *ton*, and hiring the workers to run it makes it cost even more. And building a factory makes you no money at all; you don't sit down on the day the factory opens and lovingly admire the fat profit you earned from doing it. But if you build that factory and staff it up — spending a ton of money in a relatively short time — and then *run it* for a while, making widgets and then selling them, you can make back the money you spent building the factory, and then start earning a profit.\n\nThe money you spend to run the factory day-to-day — buying raw materials, paying your workers' wages, shipping your widgets out to customers and so on — is called your *operating expense.* That's what it costs to run your business on an ongoing basis. Operating expense is basically constant over time; it costs you about the same to run the factory for the first month as it costs you to run it for the five-hundredth month. But the money you spend to *build the factory* in the first place is called your *capital expense*. You spend that money once, in one big lump, and then you're done spending it.\n\nOr at least, you're done spending it until you decide to build a second factory. If you're running your first factory at capacity and making money hand over fist, but there's still unsatisfied demand in the market for your widgets — or you come up with a brilliant idea for a new type of widget that people are going to go nuts for — you can choose to build a second factory, make a large capital investment in other words, and then start earning greater profits.\n\nSo capital, in a nutshell, is something new businesses need to get started, and also something existing businesses need when they want to expand or open new markets.\n\nBut remember, capital *is itself a good*, and as such, it's subject to the laws of supply and demand. If there's more demand for capital than there is supply, the cost of money goes up. Interest rates rise, it's harder for people who need capital to buy it … it may in fact be sufficiently hard that people who have an itch to start a new business simply *won't*, because the capital to do so would cost them so much it'd make it difficult, or even impossible, to be profitable.\n\nSo when the demand for capital is high but the supply is low, the overall growth of the economy tends to slow down. We don't create as many new jobs as we want to, competition for labor is less fierce (because there are fewer jobs to be done), wages tend not to rise over time like we want (because there's less competition for labor), and so on. So when the demand for capital is high, it's good to give the economy a kick that encourages an increase in the supply of capital: cut interest rates, encourage investment and so on.\n\nBut it can also be true that the supply of capital is high but the demand for capital is low.\n\nSay you get an idea to start a new business, build a factory, make widgets. What's the *very first thing* you're going to do? You're going to do some basic market research. Ask around. \"Hey, would you buy this widget for ten dollars?\" If the answer you hear back is \"no\", that tells you your business is probably not going to succeed.\n\nNow, one reason you might hear \"no\" is because your widget sucks. That happens. \"No, why would I buy that? That's just a clod of dirt crazy-glued to a piece of scrap iron? That sucks.\"\n\nBut it's also possible that people might not want your widget because they don't have the disposable income to buy it. \"Wow, that's a really nice clod of dirt crazy-glued to a piece of scrap iron, I'd love to have one of those for my front room. But it's pretty expensive, and I don't have a lot of extra money right now.\"\n\nIn either case, the outcome is the same: You *don't* go out looking for capital, even if capital's really cheap and readily available. If nobody's going to buy your widget, there's no point starting your business.\n\nIn that case, the right move is to *stimulate demand for capital*, by encouraging people to spend money buying things. What things? *All sorts* of things. Just stuff in general. The stuff you want, but currently don't buy because you're on a budget, or because you're concerned about your future cash flow and are saving up.\n\nSo in that case, yes, one option would be to just give everybody some money out of the treasury. Here, here's ten bucks, go get yourself something nice. But remember what I said before: It can be the case that people aren't spending money like they otherwise would not because they don't *have* money, but because they're concerned about their *future cash flow*. \"Sure, I've got a good job now, but who knows how long that will last? I better build my nest egg, just in case things go south.\"\n\nIn that case, handing out a bunch of checks *exacerbates* the problem you're trying to *solve*. The supply of capital is already high; the problem is the demand for capital. By giving checks to a bunch of people who are spending conservatively right now, you *increase* the supply of capital in a market that's already capital-saturated.\n\nThat's why \"give out a lot of money\" is rarely a good economic stimulus strategy. If you're in a situation where capital-demand stimulus is called for, people are already spending conservatively, because it's in their own rational best interest to do so: If you don't know where your next bit of income is coming from, you make your *last* bit of income last as long as possible. That's good sense. By giving people a bunch of money, you're expecting them to act *against their own interest* by blowing it all on luxuries, thus stimulating the demand for capital overall. And while we can all agree that people on the aggregate are pretty stupid — one person in two is below average, after all — it's still rarely wise to bet that people will make the *objectively wrong choice* in large enough numbers for such a plan to be effective.",
"Spending money stimulates the economy more than a loan.\n\nDue to reserve requirements, banks cannot lend out 100% of deposits. Also, a loan may be used to buy a factory.,the money goes to the former owner of the factory who saves it and does not spend anything. ",
"It has to do with the difference between growing the *supply* of capital and growing the *demand* for capital.\n\nCapital is one type of money. It's not inherently different from any other kind of money, but it's different in how it's used. Capital is, simply put, large boluses of money that people use all at once in order to do things which don't make money, but which make it possible to make money.\n\nBuilding a factory is the classic example of a use of capital. Building a factory isn't cheap! It costs a *ton*, and hiring the workers to run it makes it cost even more. And building a factory makes you no money at all; you don't sit down on the day the factory opens and lovingly admire the fat profit you earned from doing it. But if you build that factory and staff it up — spending a ton of money in a relatively short time — and then *run it* for a while, making widgets and then selling them, you can make back the money you spent building the factory, and then start earning a profit.\n\nThe money you spend to run the factory day-to-day — buying raw materials, paying your workers' wages, shipping your widgets out to customers and so on — is called your *operating expense.* That's what it costs to run your business on an ongoing basis. Operating expense is basically constant over time; it costs you about the same to run the factory for the first month as it costs you to run it for the five-hundredth month. But the money you spend to *build the factory* in the first place is called your *capital expense*. You spend that money once, in one big lump, and then you're done spending it.\n\nOr at least, you're done spending it until you decide to build a second factory. If you're running your first factory at capacity and making money hand over fist, but there's still unsatisfied demand in the market for your widgets — or you come up with a brilliant idea for a new type of widget that people are going to go nuts for — you can choose to build a second factory, make a large capital investment in other words, and then start earning greater profits.\n\nSo capital, in a nutshell, is something new businesses need to get started, and also something existing businesses need when they want to expand or open new markets.\n\nBut remember, capital *is itself a good*, and as such, it's subject to the laws of supply and demand. If there's more demand for capital than there is supply, the cost of money goes up. Interest rates rise, it's harder for people who need capital to buy it … it may in fact be sufficiently hard that people who have an itch to start a new business simply *won't*, because the capital to do so would cost them so much it'd make it difficult, or even impossible, to be profitable.\n\nSo when the demand for capital is high but the supply is low, the overall growth of the economy tends to slow down. We don't create as many new jobs as we want to, competition for labor is less fierce (because there are fewer jobs to be done), wages tend not to rise over time like we want (because there's less competition for labor), and so on. So when the demand for capital is high, it's good to give the economy a kick that encourages an increase in the supply of capital: cut interest rates, encourage investment and so on.\n\nBut it can also be true that the supply of capital is high but the demand for capital is low.\n\nSay you get an idea to start a new business, build a factory, make widgets. What's the *very first thing* you're going to do? You're going to do some basic market research. Ask around. \"Hey, would you buy this widget for ten dollars?\" If the answer you hear back is \"no\", that tells you your business is probably not going to succeed.\n\nNow, one reason you might hear \"no\" is because your widget sucks. That happens. \"No, why would I buy that? That's just a clod of dirt crazy-glued to a piece of scrap iron? That sucks.\"\n\nBut it's also possible that people might not want your widget because they don't have the disposable income to buy it. \"Wow, that's a really nice clod of dirt crazy-glued to a piece of scrap iron, I'd love to have one of those for my front room. But it's pretty expensive, and I don't have a lot of extra money right now.\"\n\nIn either case, the outcome is the same: You *don't* go out looking for capital, even if capital's really cheap and readily available. If nobody's going to buy your widget, there's no point starting your business.\n\nIn that case, the right move is to *stimulate demand for capital*, by encouraging people to spend money buying things. What things? *All sorts* of things. Just stuff in general. The stuff you want, but currently don't buy because you're on a budget, or because you're concerned about your future cash flow and are saving up.\n\nSo in that case, yes, one option would be to just give everybody some money out of the treasury. Here, here's ten bucks, go get yourself something nice. But remember what I said before: It can be the case that people aren't spending money like they otherwise would not because they don't *have* money, but because they're concerned about their *future cash flow*. \"Sure, I've got a good job now, but who knows how long that will last? I better build my nest egg, just in case things go south.\"\n\nIn that case, handing out a bunch of checks *exacerbates* the problem you're trying to *solve*. The supply of capital is already high; the problem is the demand for capital. By giving checks to a bunch of people who are spending conservatively right now, you *increase* the supply of capital in a market that's already capital-saturated.\n\nThat's why \"give out a lot of money\" is rarely a good economic stimulus strategy. If you're in a situation where capital-demand stimulus is called for, people are already spending conservatively, because it's in their own rational best interest to do so: If you don't know where your next bit of income is coming from, you make your *last* bit of income last as long as possible. That's good sense. By giving people a bunch of money, you're expecting them to act *against their own interest* by blowing it all on luxuries, thus stimulating the demand for capital overall. And while we can all agree that people on the aggregate are pretty stupid — one person in two is below average, after all — it's still rarely wise to bet that people will make the *objectively wrong choice* in large enough numbers for such a plan to be effective."
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6gj45n | why can congress create government agencies like the fda or the epa? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gj45n/eli5_why_can_congress_create_government_agencies/ | {
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"As explained on this site:\n\n > Administrative agencies are lawmaking bodies with limited powers delegated by Congress. Administrative agencies specialize in specific issues that require expertise. Administrative agencies are established by Article 1 Section1 of the federal constitution which reads: “[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” **The “necessary-and-proper” clause in the eighth section of the Article 1 states that the Congress shall have power “[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers … in any Department or Officer thereof.** \n\n--_URL_0_\n\nBasically, it was recognized early on that one of the ways that Congress might choose to have a law work in practice would be to create an organization charged with enforcing it. \n"
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5dy14b | how do we know that pianos were out of tune in pubs in the old west? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dy14b/eli5how_do_we_know_that_pianos_were_out_of_tune/ | {
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"A piano is a wood structure with wires strung up. The wires will loosen up over time and the wood will change to the temperature and humidity. So pianos need to be tuned every once in a while to stay in tune. Especially in changing conditions. Tuning a piano is a skill. Depending on the area it might have been hard to find someone to tune the piano. It might be that a piano player might be able to tune the piano reasonably but not as good as a professional. A lot of the towns you would consider old west would be able to get a piano tuned if they could get a piano but some of the more shoddy places or cheap bars might not have had such a luxury."
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8yuuma | how is driving while making a phone call different from driving while talking to a person? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yuuma/eli5_how_is_driving_while_making_a_phone_call/ | {
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"The problem is in how the conversation is conducted, because of course with modern technology you can speak in the phone, just like youre speaking to the person next to you. The illegal way of speaking in the form while driving, is if the phone is handheld, as you suddenly only have 1 hand to react to anything, if things should go bad",
"Do you mean to ask how are hands-free phone conversations different from talking with people in the car? \n\nOr are you asking how it's different to use a cell phone to call someone vs talking to someone in the car?\n\nThe former, there isn't really much difference which is why it's legal in most places.",
"The Beckman Institute found that talking while driving is safest when the person you are talking to can see what you see...the road conditions, other drivers, the environment in your car, etc. So if you have a passenger who is chatting away and not paying attention, that's bad. But if you have a passenger who is looking around and not talking when, for example, you're merging, it shouldn't be too dangerous. \n\nBut yeah, talking to anyone, especially about complex topics, is distracting, whether on the phone or in person. ",
"When you are talking with a person you are distracted about the same, but the person in the car is also watching the road. This means that they can pause when the driving situation requires you to pay more attention, and they can even point out a danger that they notice but you do not. ",
"When you're talking with someone in the car with you, you know they'll make allowances when they can see you need to concentrate on the traffic. When it's someone on the phone you feel more pressured to keep up the conversation at all times."
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1kocba | rsa algorithm and public/private keys | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kocba/eli5_rsa_algorithm_and_publicprivate_keys/ | {
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"Asymmetric encryption inludes two keys rather than the more simple single key system. In a single key system data is obfuscated and again made plain by working with the same key, and thus the key must be kept secret to keep the data secret.\n\nIn asymmetric encrytion there are two keys, each of them act as the decryption key to the other and each act as the encryption key to the other.\n\nWhat this means is that if I keep one key private to myself I can release the public key publically. The public key per se is useless if you want to read my encrypted data - it can only decrypt something encrypted by my private key, and the only time I'll encrypt something with my private key is to give a 'digital signature'. (If I give you a file encrypted in such a way that my public key decrypts it you have a reasonable assurance that I am who I say I am becuase I'd need to have access of the private key to do so.)\n\nSo if I want to send encrypted data to someone I need only encrypt it with their public key and send it - only said person's private key can decrypt it so I don't need to worry about it being intercepted or anybody else knowing the public key of that person.",
"Another way of looking at it is the familiar box analogy. Imagine you want to send a briefcase of information to your friend across the US but need it to be locked so that thieves can't see it. Obviously you can't just put your own lock on there and send it because your friend doesn't have your key to that lock.\n\nThe box analogy offers a solution. You put your own lock on the bag and send it to your friend. There, your friend also puts HIS own lock and sends it back. You then unlock your own lock with your key, meaning that the only lock left is your friend's lock. Send it back, and they can easily unlock it and take a look at the information. This is foolproof because a thief would need to know both lock's keys to open the briefcase.\n\nComputing uses a similar model but rather than locks and keys it uses one master lock that can be opened with combinations of three keys, one public key and two private ones that you and your friend each know. Also it takes into account the properties of prime numbers and modular arithmetic. When studying CS, I found that [this video](_URL_0_) helps a lot in understanding how the numberized process of locking and unlocking works.",
"check out this video, does a pretty good job of explaining it simply\n\n_URL_0_\n\ni think its closer to something you'd show to a 5 year old then an answer that starts out with \"Asymmetric encryption inludes...\""
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exsv24 | why does playing video games make people feel motion sick sometimes? | Whenever I play mobile games or even hand held switch games (DS too back in the day) I feel dizzy and motion sick afterwards. It even happens on PC action games sometimes! I asked some friends and they said it happens to them too on occasion. How come? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/exsv24/eli5_why_does_playing_video_games_make_people/ | {
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"Anytime your eyes and senses are experiencing simulated motion that is out of your control or doesnt match up with what motion your body is actually feeling it causes your equilibrium to got off balance.\n\nYour ears and eyes work together pretty well if you are in control and experiencing actual motion but if its simulated and your eyes convince your brain you're moving and your ears give your brain a signal that you are not moving - your brain has an evolutionary response *(sickness) simular to what you would feel if you ate poison. The more you experience it/the more severe it is - the more messed up your brain will be. If it gets bad enough you will feel queasy and maybe even vomit to expel the poison *(your brain thinks it has ingested since your ears and eyes are all messed up and not functioning together you brain feels the same symptoms it would get from eating poisonous food.)"
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29q2x0 | why can't passengers drink alcohol in cars? | It seems like if the driver isn't drinking it shouldn't matter. I can't think of a better time to crack open a beer than when I'm going to be in a car for a few hours. If I'm not driving why can't I do that?
Bonus question: My friend got charged with an open container (GA) because he had an empty beer in his back seat. If he wasn't drunk at all and wasn't drinking why does it matter? It just seems that if the driver passes the breathalyzer it shouldn't matter. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29q2x0/eli5_why_cant_passengers_drink_alcohol_in_cars/ | {
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"I think the main reason for these types of laws are to make the job of law enforcement easier. If it was legal to have open containers of alcohol in the car, then a ton of people would do things that resulted in having open containers of alcohol in the car. So now, every time a cop pulls someone over, they would pretty much have to give some sort of sobriety test to find out if the driver had been drinking (many times it's very hard to tell just from a 2 minute conversation with a stranger).\n\nThe way things are now, most people don't get a sobriety test when they get pulled over, which makes the job of law enforcement much easier. Those dudes aren't trying to find excuses to give sobriety tests, but they can't ignore probable cause. If the law allowed empty open containers or passengers to drink, they would still represent probable cause that police would have to act on.",
"Not here in Missouri my friend. ",
"Most states have what is called an \"open container law\" which means that there will be no open/opened containers inside the passenger compartment of the vehicle. This even applies to larger bottles of spirits or wine that have been opened and are now closed. (seals have been broken) these must be transported in the trunk of the vehicle to comply with the law. \n\n\nMost states there is no drinking in a vehicle period unless there is a divider between the driver and passenger compartments like in a **limo**. And then all alcohol must take place in the passenger compartment.",
"Weird that you guys have that law, here in the UK the only place we cant drink is in designated Controlled Drinking Zones (of which there isn't many) and on busses and trains owned by Transport For London. Even then its not illegal, just forbidden.",
"In NZ drivers can drink alcohol (as long as they aren't over the limit)!"
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4i3mwf | ; why do people often look more muscular in mirrors than in real life? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i3mwf/eli5_why_do_people_often_look_more_muscular_in/ | {
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"Where is the light source when you're looking in the mirror? Pretty close to right above you, right? Among other things, that is going to make any definition you've got cast shadows, which enhances the appearance of that definition. It's all about the lighting."
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4v0has | how do sensors work? different sensors use different materials to capture the desired information? | I want to know about sensors in general: presence, heat, light, sound.
Are they just layers that capture the right particule/movement?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v0has/eli5how_do_sensors_work_different_sensors_use/ | {
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"There are many different types of sensor and basically none of them can reasonably be summed up as \"a layer that captures the right particular movement\". That is a gross oversimplification on the level of describing various types of internal combustion engines as \"chunks that make things turn\".\n\nOne way to sense pressure would be to make two sheets of thin metal and put a dimple in one of them. Stack them up, then make the two sheets into separate sides of a circuit so if they touch they complete the connection. Isolate everything but the dimpled section which is left poking out. When someone or something puts pressure on the thin dimple it will collapse and make contact with the other sheet, completing the circuit. It is now a detector.\n\nSound detectors (microphones for example) might operate by watching a diaphragm with a magnet and coil set up, waiting for the magnet to move and make a current in the coil.\n\nA heat detector might be a complex heat-sensitive solid state chip, or something like a pop up turkey thermometer which is just a piece that melts at 180-185 degrees F."
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3jteph | how come public toilets in usa are so "open"? the side walls start high and end low so often tall peoples' heads will show and every little sound from the toilet action will transmit cheerfully throughout the toilet. in europe (where i am from) this kind of toilet layout would be unthinkable. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jteph/eli5_how_come_public_toilets_in_usa_are_so_open/ | {
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"I see Europeans call this out frequently. My guess is that it's a security thing. A totally closed off space creates the opportunity to do all kinds of questionable activities (we're paranoid in the US). That said I love European toilets, but I hate paying for them. That's smart, but weird.",
"What are you Europeans trying to hide? Just shit and leave. ",
"The gap is a design feature to allow the door to continue to function as it gradually falls out of alignment from abuse or heavy wear. Many places add a panel to the inside of the swinging edge to close the gap. But this isn't universal. \n\nAmerican design is also oriented toward preventing unnecessary queuing. This is why there are gaps to make feet visible and doors are hung so that they swing open when not secured from the inside. ",
"It may be interesting to note that in ancient Rome, there were no cubicles; everyone sat side by side. \n",
"I always assumed it was so you could run a mop underneath.\n\nFriends grandfather mentioned when he was in the army during WWII they pulled into the train station in Paris and he went to the bathroom. No stalls, no toilets, just holes in the floor for the old squat and drop. And there were middle aged ladies walking around inside selling toilet paper.\n",
"There are a number of Americans who abuse the life out of public facilities of all kinds. Water fountains, park benches, public transportation vehicles, everything. In some places it's hard to find a public area that hasn't been intentionally abused. \n \nBathrooms are the worst. Virtually zero chance of being caught leads to vandalism on a fairly epic scale. Walls will be flat out destroyed, people will \"shit blast\" the walls, toilets might as well not have a flush mechanism because people just don't use it, it goes on like this. \n \nThese walls are the absolute cheapest because locks and hinges need replaced constantly, walls need to occasionally be removed to clean particularly nasty problems, and often need to be replaced completely."
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7lh4bn | if we had a surplus of money during ww1, how did we become trillions of dollars in debt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7lh4bn/eli5_if_we_had_a_surplus_of_money_during_ww1_how/ | {
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"By \"we\" do you mean the USA? Over the next 100 years our government spent a lot of money, more than it collected in taxes.\n\nIt's not considered a terribly large debt, because it's less than one year of our country's economic production."
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3a802o | nasa says the world is "running out of water." where is it going? | It's not like it's floating out to space. Isn't the planet's atmosphere a closed system?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a802o/eli5nasa_says_the_world_is_running_out_of_water/ | {
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"The world isn't running out of water in general. However, *people* in *some* places will struggle to find fresh, clean, safe drinkable water.",
"The world isn't running out of water; the world is running out of **ground**water. \n\nMany places rely on groundwater in aquifers - basically fresh water trapped underground between impermeable rocks - to supply their local water system. Groundwater can theoretically be replaced by rain - but it might take millions of years to do so. We really don't want to run out of freshwater. That would be very bad. (And, as other threads have been pointing out, desalinating ocean water is time-consuming and expensive.)",
"Into the ocean, Downstream, it's getting contaminated, people are using wells at a higher capacity than they can refill. As the demand for water increases, people drain aquifers faster than they can be refilled. Aquifers get refilled through rain and snow melt mostly, so with climate change becoming more and more apparent, places that used to get tons of rain often now get less and the aquifers do not refill like they once did.\n\nWater is a weird thing, there is a lot of it but most of it isn't drinkable.",
"You are correct, it is a closed system. \n\nWhat they mean, is the world is running out clean safe water. Oceans are full of water, we can't use it, it's too salty to cheaply convert into water to drink, irrigate farms, or use in factories. \n\nMany rivers around the world are polluted, and unsafe to drink, especially in 3rd world countries where the poor can't afford treated water, and municipal treated water is often insufficiently treated. \n\nOther rivers, like the Colorado river, in many years all of the water gets used up by cities and farms, and none of it actually make it to the ocean anymore.\n\nGround water is being sucked out of aquifers faster then nature can replenish it. Some of the aquifers that we are drawing water from have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to fill up. \n\nThis will give you an idea: \n_URL_0_"
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29yfq3 | why are movies all 1.5~2 hours long? | Who decided all movies (excluding short films) would be generally the same length? Why this length in particular? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29yfq3/eli5_why_are_movies_all_152_hours_long/ | {
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"People don't generally spend more than two hours sitting paying attention to anything. That's why you'll see intermission breaks at plays and shows, and classes that are over two hours.",
"It's an average at which a compromise occurs between holding the audience's interest and attention and the feeling of getting value for money paid. Any longer and the brain starts thinking about doing other things; any shorter and the brain starts thinking it's been ripped off because it paid for a certain \"duration\" of entertainment. A half-hour flick isn't interesting enough to invest in a trip to the movie theater. \n\nKids movies are usually shorter than adult drama features because younger audiences have less of an attention span and have a much greater sense of the passing of time (which is why rainy afternoons lasted forever and killed us with boredom as toddlers but we barely remember them passing as adults). \n\nAll of this can be overridden if you are really into something that immerses you like a videogame, and it's more about averages than about individual watchers. ",
"I remember Quentin Tarantino saying that Harvey Weinstein (co-owner of the production company called Weinstein Company) said that he prefers movies to be 1.5 to 2.5 hours and will stretch it to 3 hours if needed because research shows that 1.5 to 2.5 hours is the average time a person will spend on one task before they get bored or lose interest. That is why Kill Bill is two parts because together they are 4 hours long.",
"There are much longer movies out there, and unless they are exceptionally good, they are usually heavily criticized for being overlong.\n\nThe longer a movie gets, the harder it is to retain an audience's attention. Either you stretch the plot so thinly that it gets boring and nothing happens for extended periods (the main criticism of the recent *Hobbit* movies), or you make the plot so complicated with so many twists and associated subplots, that audiences get confused and literally \"lose the plot\".\n\nYou then have some practical problems to deal with. Audiences are human beings, and they have to eat and drink from time to time, and they have to use the bathroom as well. They get tired, especially if they have to concentrate very hard, and they have lives to lead. They want to leave the cinema in time to wine and dine their dates, or get home before the babysitter's parents start getting worried.\n\nIf a movie is too short, there isn't enough time to develop either the plot or the characters. You need time to establish who the characters are, what their current situation is, and then you have to create a situation to drop your characters into where they have to make some kind of decision, and at the end of it at least the main character has to emerge changed in some way. You can probably do all that in an hour, but it would feel rushed. Most importantly, the audience have to actually care about the characters, they have to like them or at least understand their motives. You can't just introduce audiences to Jane Doe and then, after five minutes, have her caught in a love triangle and having to choose between Harry Hunk and Barry Boring. Nobody would care. You also can't make audiences care about whether or not Sergeant Ruthless lives or die if they have no idea who he is or how good a cop he really is. Why does he have such a disregard for the rules -- is it because he is the only cop with any kind of integrity in the whole department, constantly frustrated by his corrupt superiors and bean-counting bureaucrats, or is he just a crazy guy who should never have been given a badge in the first place?\n\nAnd cinema audiences have bought tickets for the privilege of watching the movie in the first place, so they're going to feel cheated if the movie suddenly ends just as they were beginning to warm to the characters.",
"According to the documentary \"The Battle of Brazil\" Its harder for the movie theater to have enough viewings a day to be profitable when the movie is longer. ",
"In no order of importance:\n\n1. Audience attention - The average movie-goer can sit still in his seat and pay attention to the movie for no more than 2-3 hours at the very most. Any longer than that and your narrative will lose its weight simply because people will start to think about the time. As a side note, this is why many arthouse films also ironically like to experiment with overly lengthy films, for whatever reason. Take [this](_URL_0_) for example.\n\n2. Budget - Principle photography (the actual shoot) of a 90 to 120 minute long film could take anywhere from 20 days to [400 days](_URL_1_). Point is, time is money, and few directors/producers are willing to spend time shooting a film longer than 2-3 hours, especially since (point 1) the audience isn't likely to appreciate extended lengths anyway.\n\n3. Narrative - this isn't necessarily true, since scriptwriting formula isn't concrete, but most film narratives can start an end within a couple of hours. Any longer, and the story is either too long, or too convoluted, or simply isn't economic with its delivery. Again, arthouse films like to be super long simply because they don't care about the narrative alone, and like to play with things like sound and cinematography, but that's why they're arthouse and not mainstream.",
"There are films that go on for things like ten hours or five days or whatever, too.\n\n_URL_0_"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_Wide_Shut"
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5bjyh4 | what's the difference between a psychologist, psychiatrist, and counselor? | I know psychiatrists can prescribe meds and counselors cant, but is there a difference otherwise? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bjyh4/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_psychologist/ | {
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"Psychiatrist: Has a medical degree, like a doctor but has specialized in diagnosing and treating mental illness, emotional disorders and behavioural issues. They often handle prescribing medication. \n\nPsychologist: Has a bachelors degree, continued to graduate training in psychology and specialize in treatment and diagnosis of mental illness, emotional disorders and behavioural issues. They work with a patient on treatments but do not prescribe medications. \n\nCounsellors: They come from all background and may have masters or doctoral degrees from counselling programs however they may not have specific training in assessing and treating mental illness. ",
"Briefly, in the U.S.:\n\nA psychologist often has a Ph.D. and is trained in human cognition and behavior.\n\nA psychiatrist has an M.D. and is also trained in human cognition and behavior. Frequently psychiatrists relate these functions to clinical presentation and treatments (i.e. medication).\n\nA counselor usually has a bachelor's and/or master's degree and is trained in a variety of disciplines ranging from mental health treatments to homeopathic pedagogy.",
"Typically psychiatrists can prescribe meds. That's changing last I knew 8 states allow for a psychologist to prescribe meds",
"Psychiatrists are doctors. They graduate from medical school, do a medical internship and then do a residency in psychiatric medicine. They diagnose and treat mental illness--depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, substance abuse, eating disorders, anxety disorders, etc. They primarily do so through medical means, meaning medication, electroconvulsive shock therapy, etc.\n\nPsychologists--what you are likely referring to is a clinical psychologist. Psychologists in general are people who study psychology--cognition, memory, behavior, etc. A clinical psychologist has a background in psychology but has pursued additional training in diagnosing and treating mental illness. They use non-medical means, such as cognitive behavioral therapy.\n\nOften, a psychiatrist and psychologist will work together to treat patients.",
"A lot of posts here touch on the correct answer, but don't really provide an entire picture. Keep in mind I am Australian so my information may not be universally true, but this is how it works down here:\n\nA clinical psychiatrist is a medical doctor whose specialisation is in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Psychiatrists have the ability to diagnose mental illness and treat patients using either cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT, otherwise known as talk therapy), psychopharmaceuticals or a combination of the two. A psychiatrist usually has to complete both a Bachelor's degree and a Medical Doctorate (M.D.) in order to qualify as a clinical practitioner. Psychiatry is a recognised medical science (although this idea remains contentious).\n\nA clinical psychologist is a certified practitioner of psychology - that is they have completed at least Bachelor's degree in psychology (usually accreditation requires post-graduate study as well). Psychologists also have the ability to diagnose mental illness, although the treatments they can offer are limited to CBT and other talk therapies. A psychologist will refer a patient to a psychiatrist if they believe that a patient needs psychopharmaceutical support in addition to CBT. Most practicing clinical psychologists have obtained a Philosophical Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Psychology and they are usually specialised in a certain sub-discipline of psychology (social, emotional, behavioural, neuropsychology etc.). Psychology is a recognised social science.\n\nA counsellor is a mental health practitioner that has studied the basics of clinical, social and emotional psychology. Counsellors are trained in basic mental illness diagnosis and talk therapies. While a counsellor may be able to diagnose and treat mental illness with talk therapy, they are not technically qualified to do so - more often than not a counsellor's role in treating mental illness is through referral to a clinical psychologist or clinical psychiatrist. A counsellor will maintain a client if they believe that they do not suffer from a CLINICAL mental illness (that is, if their mental illness does not preclude them from regular, everyday activity) but may be in a state of mental ill health that talk therapy can ease. Counselling is not a science.\n\nIt's useful to think of the three hierarchically although practitioners will most likely debate this point tooth-and-nail. In very general terms, a counsellor helps a person that is experiencing emotional or social difficulties, a psychologist treats a person suffering from clinical mental illness where CBT has been proven to alleviate that illness, and a psychiatrist treats mental illness that requires some form of medication.\n\nFrom my own experience: many psychiatrists (especially those that have not also studied psychology) tend to have a similar 'tick and flick' approach that other medical doctors do to treating mental illness where they diagnose and medicate accordingly. Most psychologists will diagnose and then set up a treatment plan for patients that will consist of CBT and/or other talk therapies. Most counsellors will help a person who doesn't feel 100% mentally or emotionally by giving them coping mechanisms or strategies, breathing exercises and the like.\n\nSource: just completed Bachelor's Degree in Psychology.",
"Some things I might add to this, based on my experience in the field of clinical psychology (studying doctoral student at the moment):\n\nPsychiatrists rarely seem to treat their clients through psychotherapy. From my experience, they diagnose and prescribe medicine and typically leave it at that.\n\nClinical psychologists also treat individuals who have sub-levels of clinical symptoms. Simply because an individual doesn't fully meet criteria for a clinical diagnosis, does not mean a clinical psychologist will not provide psychotherapy.\n\nA much more subtle distinction between clinical psychologists and counselors is the ways in which they approach psychotherapy. Having experience in both of these fields, I've found that, in general, counseling psychologists will take a much more client-centered approach to psychotherapy while clinical psychologists will be much more directive. This can vary depending on the therapists, however.\n\nI haven't seen anyone mention a Doctorate of Psychology (Psy.D) degree. This degree is the same level as a Ph.D without the research requirement. It's typically reserved for those individuals who want to spend their careers practicing psychology rather than conducting research at a university."
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2p6oa6 | how do people give rimjobs, and the like without getting sick ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p6oa6/eli5how_do_people_give_rimjobs_and_the_like/ | {
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"The same reason why you kiss loads of people and (usually and/or hopefully) don't get sick.\n\nProper hygiene. ",
"Licking asshole and wanting shit in your mouth are two totally different kettle of fish. A freshly washed asshole is delicious. Poop is for weird fetishists."
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1upkb1 | why do orbits tend to be on the same plane? is there some reason that perpendicular orbits do not exist? | As far as I know, planetary orbits around our solar system and other planetary systems all tend to be along a flat plane, and Pluto's odd, highly elliptical and slanted orbit is quite an anomaly. Given that space is in 3D, what makes the orbits stay in this coplanar configuration?
EDIT: Thanks for all the great answers, especially that video. Once I figured out that angular momentum essentially defines the plane, my question sounded really silly but I guess that's why ELI5 exists! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1upkb1/eli5_why_do_orbits_tend_to_be_on_the_same_plane/ | {
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"Planetary systems are believed to come about from big balls of dust/gas collapsing. The center forms the star, then rest forms the planet. If the original dust/gas ball has any spin at all, that angular momentum must be conserved as everything collapses, causing the whole mess to form a disk-shape before we managed to get any planets. Once you're in the disk shape everything is basically almost in one plane, so planets that form from there will all have very similar orbital planes unless something wierd happens.",
"As tdscanuck states, a lot of the reason is that they form this way due to the initial spin of the dust/gas the system was formed from. But, hypothetically, lets say a bunch of extra stellar comets and planets coming rushing in and form a bunch of orbits around the sun in all different angles. Over time, these masses will tug on each other and affect each other's orbits, until the angles of the orbits average out in a plane.",
"It is actually pretty complicated, but it is due to the same reasons that accretion disks are disks. Take a spinning ball of dust (spinning here means there is some net angular momentum in one direction since all the dust cannot be spinning like a solid object) and consider the collisions of all the dust particles. The dust closer to the center of the ball will be traveling faster (orbits are faster when the orbital radius is smaller) than dust slightly further out. This creates an effective shearing force due to dust essentially rubbing against other dust. The result of this is the further out dust being pushed further out, and the closer-in dust moving closer in. Since this happens only in the plane of rotation of the ball, the ball gets smeared out radially in a plane. Once you have a disk of dust from this smearing, the dust can form clumps that eventually form planets. A planet will remain in this plane unless there is some other large collision that pushes it out of the plane.",
"There's actually a great video that models gravity and explains how a dominant direction of rotation is naturally found in a system. Let's see if I can find it...\n\nAh! Here it is. So I timestamp linked the part that answers this question but I highly recommend watching the whole thing.\n_URL_0_"
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bw30nj | why do scabs disintegrate after prolonged exposure to water? | I just got some gnarly road rash, and it had crusted over pretty nicely. A solid, bumpy scab. Hopped in the shower and within minutes it had completely turned to goop, and my wounds, now raw again, started to hurt like a sonofabitch. What about water renders them completely useless? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bw30nj/eli5_why_do_scabs_disintegrate_after_prolonged/ | {
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"Scabs are principally clumps of clotted platelets (one type of cell in blood) the air-exposed part of which dries out and hardens. Rehydration can restore the \"wet\" version of scab in part and make it less structurally stable. Add movement (such as the flow of water in a shower) and the sloughing away of the clot is relatively easy under wet conditions."
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3mx52s | how is distance/area measured in video games? | for example i heard that the world of gtav is 100 square miles. what exactly does that mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mx52s/eli5_how_is_distancearea_measured_in_video_games/ | {
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"Most games use the real world as reference. That means you know the size of a house, car or a human in the game. And with those things as a reference you can just start measuring all the other parts of the virtual world. Let's say the first thing they model in a game is a ruler and at that point they model everything in the game relative to the ruler. That's very important to make everything look right. Or you'd end up with tiny cars and huge humans and nothing would really fit together. \n\n\nSo instead of having real distances, you have something like \" the world is 200 average humans long\" which would be about 10 miles in the real world!\n\n\nMost of the time the game engine handles all those things, you just have to type in a real world height and it will show up in game the right height. This first \"virtual ruler\" is a very important part inside the game engine to make sure all the physics works just as expected and everything looks just right. \n\n\nI guess the most basic comparison would be to drawing a picture of you next to the Eiffel tower. The important thing isn't how big the eiffel tower is on your picture, the important thing is that it's about 160 times as big as you. And because you know how big you are, you can tell people that this \"virtual\" eiffel tower is about 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall.\n\n\nThat doesn't mean your picture has this size. It could be very tiny and the eiffel tower would just be a few inches high. But for the small you in the \"virtual world\" it would always look like the tower is 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall. "
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dzkss7 | why do mirrors fog up for longer if the washroom door is open vs. closed during a hot shower? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dzkss7/eli5_why_do_mirrors_fog_up_for_longer_if_the/ | {
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"If the door is closed the humidity doesn't escape the room as quickly. If it's open unhumid air is circulating into the room."
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1rty63 | time taken for fat storage and muscle growth. | How long does it take the body to store extra fat?
E.g. if I eat a bunch of candy, how long will it take until a gain fat?
And same question for muscles: if I eat appropriately, how long will it take after a training session until my body starts gaining muscle? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rty63/eli5time_taken_for_fat_storage_and_muscle_growth/ | {
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"For fat, this was posted a while back here on Reddit. The consensus was about 24 hours max."
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g02g4v | why some who marry british royalty have different titles than others. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g02g4v/eli5_why_some_who_marry_british_royalty_have/ | {
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"A king is higher placed then a queen... for old times sake. =p hence why prince philip cannot be a king, because he marries the queen and getting the title king will outrank her.",
"Generally speaking, women get their titles from their husbands but not the other way round. Prince William is the Duke of Cambridge, so his wife is the Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nKing is the male equivalent of Queen, but as Prince Phillip is a man he doesn't get that title from being married to the Queen. He is a Prince and a Duke because the Queen specifically granted him those titles.\n\nThe Queen's mother was Queen because she did get the title via her husband. There's a distinction between a Queen Regnant, a woman who inherited the throne and is the monarch, and a Queen Consort, a woman who is married to the king."
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84ko5q | how does basic bar soap made with lye clean your hands? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/84ko5q/eli5_how_does_basic_bar_soap_made_with_lye_clean/ | {
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"It's a surfactant. Basically it allows oils and other dirt, that are ordinarily imisible in water and thus difficult to get off, to break into smaller drops and which can dissolve in water and be rinsed away. Lye is the chemical used to turn oils and or fat molecules into soap molecules, any base will do this to some degree, but lye does it well because it is very strongly basic."
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jpfx0 | why don't herd animals fight off attackers? why don't giant buffalo just gang up and kill lions? | I've NEVER UNDERSTOOD THIS. I've watched so many nature shows, and it's never been explained. Countless scenes of 5 lions sitting in a field, hunting and ravaging ENORMOUS herds of buffalo twice their size. The stupid buffalo just scatter like idiots, panicking, and lions capitalize on this.
But...WHY. Seriously, why don't the buffalo all turn, in one collective fashion, and literally charge the fuck out of the lions. They could stampede there asses into total oblivion.
Assuming evolution would weed out the weakest and stupidest, why would these massive animals ever evolve to "run away" and not turn and attack such a puny threat en masse? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jpfx0/why_dont_herd_animals_fight_off_attackers_why/ | {
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"I know it's not what you're looking for but...\n\n_URL_0_\n\ntl;dr: They do.",
"You give animals too many human characteristics. They aren't human and they don't think like we do. Sure they could gang up, but they can't talk to each other and organize an attack. They can't think of a plan. They can't have organized forms of society like we do.",
"I know it's not what you're looking for but...\n\n_URL_0_\n\ntl;dr: They do.",
"You give animals too many human characteristics. They aren't human and they don't think like we do. Sure they could gang up, but they can't talk to each other and organize an attack. They can't think of a plan. They can't have organized forms of society like we do."
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frf2hp | why do surgeries always take so long? it seems so simple in explanation or in movies, so why does it take so long? is it the cutting and the stitching? it takes over an hour to take out an appendix so why is that? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/frf2hp/eli5_why_do_surgeries_always_take_so_long_it/ | {
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"Surgeon here. There are two reasons why a surgery can take a long time. An appendectomy (taking out an appendix) is actually a good example of a fairly simple surgery taking longer than it seems it should need. That is due to the time it takes to put you under anesthesia and make sure your skin is sterile before starting, an then to wake you up and get you to the recovery room. The actual surgery itself can take as little as 10 minutes. If there is a bad infection, it can take longer to get through stuck together tissues (usually everything is pretty easy to move aside). The other reason surgeries can take much longer is that you must be very precise to avoid injuring other structures that are very nearby such as nerves, blood vessels, or other organs. Other surgeries require putting things back together after cutting something out, such as blood vessels or intestines. And by longer, I mean a lot longer. Taking out part of the pancreas can easily take 6 hours of actual surgery. A liver transplant can take 10 hours or more.",
"There's a reason why you hear the phrase \"surgical precision.\" Yanking out the appendix is simple. It also leaves you very badly injured and possibly dead. Surgery has to cause as little damage as possible, and that means very slow, very careful, very precise work. Makin the tiniest nick in the wrong place could kill you. You can't rush that.",
"As I understand it there are a few things. For something like the appendix you first need to wait for the anesthetics to fully kick in. \n\n\nAfter that they need to cut through multiple layers. You cut through the skin and fold it back and then go through the muscle in the area. As you go into further layers the cuts need to be a little slower and more precise because you don't want to accidentally cut too deep and nick an organ or bowel for example. \n\n\nAfter that some of your organs need to be physically pushed to the side for the surgery. The actual removal of the appendix and then they probably cauterize some of the are where it was. (Burn it to stop bleeding. Like a light saber would in star wars) \n\n\nThen they begin to get the organs back into place and stitch up all the layers. \n\n\nAlso this whole time the head surgeon is probably saying what he is doing and seeing. Some of this is so they can get an idea of any other health problems which could be in there. They are also talking about what they are doing because some of the surgeons are residents and/or med students so they may be pointing out something to them to help them learn. They may even be having the residents or med students stepping in to take lead on some of the steps. \n\n\n\\*\\*It should be noted I'm not in any sort of medical field. My ex is an OBGYN resident and this knowledge is almost entirely based on what I remember from her stories from residency and med school\\*\\*",
"Doctors have to be very very careful doing every single little thing that happens. Every movement of their fingers needs to be so precisely thought out and executed so that they don't nic a blood vessel or nerve, or just generally don't do unnecessary tissue damage, and that adds up to a lot of time.",
"Since your LI5, imagine you've built a Lego person, with layers for organs and muscles and bones and skin. Now, take it apart in a way you can not only get into the middle to remove something, but also put it back together. While you take it apart, you need to keep as much of the bits together as possible. If anything unintended breaks, your Lego person risks injury, infection, or death.\n\nNow imagine all of that with stringy bits instead of blocks. Cutting the wrong stringy bits leads to injury, infection, or death. Add in body fluids that make it hard to see, that shouldn't mix, and if wrongly interacted with can lead to injury, infection, or death. Finally, unlike the Legos, any cuts you're making need to be attended, or you risk... You get it.\n\nAdd to that any anesthesia or sterilizing that needs to happen, time for people to do the careful moving and cleaning and cutting and sewing. Maybe people need to rotate in for different parts of a thing...\n\nIn movies and television, everything is simplified, exaggerated, and compressed for time."
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3p9zou | why is the honey mustard i eat at restaurants and sandwich places so much better than anything i buy at a store? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p9zou/eli5_why_is_the_honey_mustard_i_eat_at/ | {
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"Most higher end chain restaurants on up tend to make their own. Usually its cut with about 40-50% mayonnaise too. ",
"Buy a honey mustard DRESSING (I recommend Ken's) opposed to honey mustard dipping sauce. The dressing is going to have the flavor you might be looking for and not that yellow goup that should be thrown into the sewer. Let me know how it goes! "
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d3ryc4 | how does a single usb port handle the multiple signals from a usb hub? | If you have a hub plugged into your usb port, and several peripherals plugged into the hub, how does the computer use so many devices on one port? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d3ryc4/eli5_how_does_a_single_usb_port_handle_the/ | {
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"The port itself has a chip build in that says: I'm an usb hub, to which device do you want to speak?\n\nOf course the pc can still only talk to one of these devices at a time, but most of them dont need its full attention anyways.",
"Effectively works the same as an Ethernet switch. Each transaction has a send and receive address and the hub/switch knows where to route the traffic.",
"Data is typically sent in packets.\n\nPackets are a lot like envelopes. They have an address telling chipsets and software where they are supposed to go.\n\nSerial data protocols like USB only have a single wire in each cable where data is sent. The others are for power and sometimes a reference clock (not important).\n\nData is sent over the wire with a theoretical max speed near the speed of light. It never reaches near this in cheapo copper wire, and for many other reasons, lower speeds are used to save money or increase reliability. But it’s sufficient to say, the information can travel very fast.\n\nSo, since it travels fast, you can send a lot of information one little packet at a time, and no human would be able to see the switching happen. So what you perceive as happening concurrently, is actually a bunch of devices spending a bunch of cycles splitting up messages, taking turns and negotiating who gets to send messages when, and sometimes waiting.\n\nNow, what might blow your mind is that when you talk on the phone, modern systems have so much bandwidth that the exact same thing is occurring with your speech. \n\nEvery word you say gets split up into dozens of pieces and they’re all sent individually, sometimes in the wrong order, and sometimes with gaps in between, and re-arranged and queued for playback with probably little or no perceivable delay."
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7qzsy0 | why are pc hardware prices rising so fast? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qzsy0/eli5_why_are_pc_hardware_prices_rising_so_fast/ | {
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"If you look around /r/buildapc, you'll be able to keep up on some of this stuff. Nothing really exciting is going on with *most* PC hardware but two major things stand out:\n\nFirst off, the *absolutely fucking insanity* in the cryptocurency (Bitcoin, etc) has created a lot of demand for mid/high-end video cards. When this demand outstrips the supply, it pushes the prices of video cards up.\n\nSecondly, RAM prices are also seeing a rise in price over what we saw a year ago. A year ago, prices were low because there was too much supply, now the supply has dried up as manufacturers cut back production of low-margin products, pushing prices higher.\n\nCPUs, storage & motherboards are still behaving pretty typically. We're at the start of a new generation of CPUs & motherboard chipsets so those are going to be a bit more expensive than what they're replacing but it's a pretty standard thing."
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2b3mgc | why do isps want to throttle netflix? | I know coporations are greedy and will milk you for every penny they can but this type of blatant disregard for their customers can't be good for them.
What would happen if we all canceled our service for a month? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b3mgc/eli5_why_do_isps_want_to_throttle_netflix/ | {
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" > What would happen if we all canceled our service for a month?\n\n_URL_0_\n\nedit: actually they either have their own Netflix-like service and want to force you to use it or they want some money from Netflix.",
"The Internet is an interesting case because it has essentially reached the same state as utilities like water or telephone service in their necessity to normal functioning in society, yet, for reasons that have been often repeated here on Reddit and everywhere else on the Internet, is not regulated like these other services. So the reason they can get away with it is because it's essentially necessary for a sufficiently large portion of the population that it wouldn't affect providers if a few people went dark for a month.\n\nSimilarly, you wouldn't shut off your water for a month to protest excessive hydro bills.",
"Flawed analogy time!\n\nImagine the internet is a bunch of roads, built and maintained by ISPs. Also imagine Netflix is a company that sells awesome noodles.\n\nA bunch of people want noodles, which they buy from Netflix. Netflix noodle trucks are chugging up and down the roads, business is booming, Netflix profits soaring.\n\nBut there are so many Netflix noodle trucks on the roads that the ISPs need to resurface some, and widen others, just to keep all the other traffic flowing. This costs them a lot of cash, which impacts *their* profits.\n\nSo they say to Netflix: \"Give us some money for each of your trucks, 'cos we're spending a bunch on maintaining these roads, plus also your profits = huge! xxx\"\n\nNetflix replies: \"Get fucked, lol\"\n\nMore and more people want some of those sweet Netflix noodles. So Netflix is out buying more trucks, while doing that thing everyone who gets a bunch of cash in films does, where they throw it up in the air while lying on the bed laughing.\n\nSo the ISPs say: \"Well if you won't give us some of your noodle profit moneys, we'll put a bunch of guys out, one on every road, who'll pull your trucks over and delay them, so your noodles are always cold and shitty by the time they get to your customers. Yeah. How do you like us now?\"\n\nAnd Netflix are all: \"Road neutrality! There must be laws to say that no traffic gets pulled over and griefed, because reasons (and profit, shhhhh).\"\n\nAnd all the noodle customers are all: \"Bad ISPs want us to eat cold noodles! Road neutrality!\"\n\nAnd Netflix are all like: \"We're not corporate bad guys, looking to make so much money we ge to do that thing everyone who gets a bunch of cash in films does, where they throw it up in the air while lying on the bed laughing, honest. We're all about the principle!\"\n\n---\n\nBasically the whole thing is about who pays for the infrastructure of the internet, and who profits from the benefits of that infrastructure being improved.\n\nNetflix has a great service, but streaming is only possible if the network infrastructure has the bandwidth to carry all that data without constant pausing and buffering.\n\nNetflix happens to be lucky that the principle of net neutrality is one that most internet users are behind. But don't think that Netflix are the heroes here, and the ISPs the baddies. It's all about the $$$ for both.",
"Internet service is a very high margin product. If they throttle a less informed consumer's netflix, the consumer will see it as \"my internet is too slow to play netflix properly therefore I need to upgrade to a faster service.\" This allows the company to make “almost comical profit.” ",
" > What would happen if we all canceled our service for a month?\n\nIn some areas, they mail you \"special offers\" like \"free for 6 months\". Works very well to get people to switch back. It's also very targeted, like a sniper taking out people that don't cooperate. It's very effective. Then when they put all the local ISPs/small businesses/competitors out of business they stop giving out those special offers and go back to screwing everybody over in an area.\n\nIt's not a simple problem to fix and they already know how to deal with those people that cancel service.\n\nSmall businesses cannot afford to compete. They cannot give their service away free for 6 months, nor can they give heavily discounted service.. So people switch to the major providers and then after the small businesses die out, the major providers just go back to screwing people over. \n\nThen the only thing that's left is the major Internet providers.\n\nThis is one of the core problems of capitalism.. The big companies always win. Instead of allowing merges between Comcast/Timewarner. We should be looking at cutting them into a hundred pieces like what we did to AT & T with the Baby Bells...\n\nRemember, we've seen this exact same problem before. AT & T had control/monopoly over standard telephone service and screwed everybody over. The best solution is always to cut the company into little pieces and let the company compete with itself.\n",
"1. Who are you going to convince to cancel service for a month?\n\n2. The ISPs don't actually care about the bandwidth use or quality of service they provide. Their only purpose for throttling netflix is to blackmail for more money.\n",
"It's not ao much that they want to throttle netflix as they want netflix to pay them not to. For that to happen they need to show they have the right to do it.\n\nCable companies overcharge us for service that we don't generally get the full measure. When you engage is business in that fashion you quickly find a wall stopping growth because customers who are being screwed don't want ti be told the cost is going up. \n\nThe solution is, get the other end of that data transfer to pay. Netflix/hulu/etc... would have to settle for slower speeds or charge us more for their service. \n\nThat is why you see content providers so actively fighting this. Their profit margins would shrink and their customer base would probably get smaller as people turned more heavily towards illegal downloading and other options.\n\n",
"John Oliver on Net Neutrality\n\n_URL_0_",
"Since Netflix can take up a lot of data when streaming, isps want Netflix to pay them a fee for providing the same the speed that they offer to other sites who don't use as much data.\n\n And yes, some of these providers also have their own streaming source in mind, and if Netflix is too slow, people will switch. Also, If Netflix has to pay a fee to keep their speed the same they will have to raise their subscription fee, and people will switch anyway. "
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aqfnuq | how could cheap paper towels (or anything, really) rip in the middle of the sheet when pulled and not always on the perforation line? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqfnuq/eli5_how_could_cheap_paper_towels_or_anything/ | {
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"Poor job of perforations. ",
"If you have enough force to create tension at a point that's not on the line, it will tear from there if that force is more than the force on the perforation line.\n\nA good example is trying to break a stick in half, if the stick has cuts but you still apply pressure next to or in a different place from the cut, a new cut will form or the stick will break at a different point from the cut."
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4m1c7a | how can crunchyroll and hbo make global releases but netflix or viacom can't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4m1c7a/eli5_how_can_crunchyroll_and_hbo_make_global/ | {
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"HBO is a special case. It's a self contained system where they own exclusive rights to all of their content because they pay to have most of it made. Game of Thrones is made exclusively for HBO so all HBO has to do to get full international rights is simply not sell them, since HBO owns those rights by default. \n\nCrunchyroll is going after a very niche genre of content. The vast majority of that content is not something the major distributors are interested in going after. So that makes it easier for them to snap up all the digital distribution rights.\n\nWhat crunchyroll was doing in the early days, airing content days after it was on TV in Japan, that was basiclly illegal. So since what you are doing is baseline illegal, you might as well do it in all countries at the same time because, fuck it, why not. \n\nThe old, legacy media companies and broadcast networks (NBC, CBS, ABC) as well as the cable channles like AMC, Nick and whatnot. They all have a big problem in this area.\n\nThose media companies might be large, but they basiclly only exist in America. For decades there are media companies in other countries that have been purchasing the rights to that content and airing it on their own networks. This causes problems because the \"web\" rights to those shows are often also sold at the same time as broadcast rights.\n\nFor example, the major Canadian networks (CTV and Global) do produce soem orginal content, but the vast majority of what they air is purchased American Content. Person of interest is a show on CBS in the US. There is no CBS in Canada, but CTV buys the rights to that show and airs it as a CTV show on the exact same night as it airs on CBS. CTV owns it's own online distribution platform (CraveTV) so Person of Interest is also shown there.\n\nThese relationships between the American Networks and the Canadian ones are very valuable to the American Networks. They don't need to deal with funky international broadcast laws, they just sell the content to local broadcasters. While doing 1 deal for international online release would be very easy, it would endanger all of those smaller broadcast deals. Collectively, the broadcast deals are worth SIGNIFICANTLY more than 1 large online deal would be, so CBS has an incentive to keep doing it as they have been. ",
"It's not about how big they are, it depends on who has owns the streaming rights for every country. Crunchyroll does not actually have international streaming rights for all of their shows. A bit of Googling yielded threads of people complaining that shows were not available in their country.\n\nNetflix only has complete rights to the shows they produce. For any other show, they have to buy the streaming rights in each country. Sometimes the content producer doesn't want to sell streaming rights if they think they'll make more money another way, like DVD sales."
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1ubcf4 | when a bank is robbed, who loses the money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ubcf4/eli5_when_a_bank_is_robbed_who_loses_the_money/ | {
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"The insurance company. It's the same way with grocery stores as well. You have to have your business insured/covered. ;-) Sorry for possible typos.\r\rEdit (2): Forgot obligatory source: I work in a bank.\rEdit(1):\rI figured I should clarify this a bit. There is plenty of good answers below as well, be sure to check them out!\rSo my original answer only covered for the short sighted loss. Obviously both banks and insurance companys are businesses, and the main point in a business is to make money, not to lose it. Basically you could make or do everything a company offers for yourself. It just requires a starting capital which most of us don't have = you have to buy it from someone for a bigger price = they make profit. Insurance companys differ from this a bit, since some insurances are obligatory. But the main point is the same: You pay them for their services, which mainly is to secure ur financial situation in case of a accident or theft etc. To keep their business alive they have to negotiate a good price for it, so that their total income > total losses at all times. Otherwise it isn't a good business, now is it? This is most disadvantageous (I hope I typed that right) for average people, like you and me. Why you ask? Because we don't have the leverage to negotiate the prices as well as bigger companys who bring more money to the table. And also the fact that you really have to have some kind of insurance. No choice here (atleast for driving and your appartment where I live). This means that to start with you cannot expect to get benefit from it (in pure cash), but I think we all agree that its worth having when the shit hits the fan. So, all insurances that a bank has is very carefully negotiated and is not a bundle offer like you and I have. This is for 2 reasons, 1. They have the leverage and 2. They require a much more specific contract, so that neither part gets screwed over. One of the main things in the insurance to negotiate is the amount of coverage. You might have your car insured for accidents that cause damage for 500$, but every smaller amount you have to cover yourself. The same goes with banks, but the amount covered by frauds is naturally a bit larger. So if the amount isn't significant enough they will simply count it as a \"loss\", same as a store will do if you steal a small object, like a doll or a keyboard. This is already counted in their budget for the coming year, so every bank has a X amount stashed away for these losses, the losses will be added together in the end of the year to help make next years budget. Now bigger frauds will be covered by the insurance companys. This will then again be counted as a loss in their end. At this point we have reached the point where this affects us. It is easier to increase the payments on a big amount of bundled insurances (once again I'm talking about the ones you and me pay) than to re-negotiate big contracts. so if a insurance company or a bank lose a lot of money as losses you will notice it as araise in your own bill. Hopefully this helps. PS. Wrote this on my phone ao might be some typos and I do not live nor work in the US, so it might be a bit different there, I doubt it tho, usually it's quite alike (in a nutshell).",
"The premium payed to insurance co. by banks are at least equal to, or greater than the expected annual loss due to robberies. The bank does this because they are risk averse. However, this does not change who bares the burden of a robbery's cost, which is spread among those saving money with the bank, and the bank itself. The insurance co. does not loose when a robbery takes place. The bank has in fact already covered the long run average cost of robberies by paying the insurance co. in the first place, which is, as mentioned already born by both the bank and it's patrons. I guess the cost to you, as a saver is lowered interest rates being offered by the bank, and with fewer savings accounts, the opportunity for the bank to invest your savings into the private sector is diminished. ie. less is borrowed, regardless of prevailing interest rates, at least from this bank in question. ",
"Tax payers and the customers.\n\n1. Bank pays for insurance, charges customers appropriate fees/interest limits to pay for it.\n2. Bank gets robbed, makes insurance claim\n3. If claim is valid, insurance is paid, premium goes up for that bank and all other banks (due to asset risk increase)\n4. Extra cost gets amortized by that bank and other banks over X years through fees, lower interest rates etc.\n5. If claim is invalid and no insurance is paid (e.g. faulty bank security or what have you), bank temporarily eats it, and then see steps 1 & 4.\n\nShocks to a financial system almost always get absorbed by the end user.\n\nThis is why you can tax corporations all you want. In the end, their prices will go up and those taxes will get passed on to consumers.\n\nEDIT: Thanks for the gold!\nAnother edit: tax payers may pay the burden if the bank or insurance agency is allowed to write off the loss, but I am not sure about that.",
"generally it is the bank. And therefore the investors, not the depositors. Insurance companies might cover it but the deductibles would make the premiums unbearable, plus if the loss were large, at the end of the day the insurance company probably would end up suing the bank for negligence in the really big loss.\n\nA tiny fee hike will recover the loss anyway.",
"Please avoid speculation! If you have any doubt about your answer, please say so.\n\nAlso, citing *reliable* sources is a great way to verify your argument.",
"The bank will lose a certain amount called a deductible. The insurance company pays for the rest. The insurance company has an insurance companies and the reinsurance companies also have reinsurance. The claim is just considered the cost of doing business, when you sum it all up. If there are too many claims, premiums go up. No one loses anything and insurance is typically very profitable. \n\nSource: My dad owns and runs a reinsurance company and I used to work for a home and car insurance company. ",
"\"We want to hurt no one! We're here for the bank's money, not your money. Your money is insured by the federal government, you're not gonna lose a dime! Think of your families, don't risk your life. Don't try and be a hero!\" - Neil McCauley",
"As someone who actually worked at a financial institute, let me shed some light.\n\nFor a physical robbery, financial institutions reduce the potential losses by keeping very little physical money on site. Banks will also have insurance against theft/fraud, and if the theft/fraud is bigger than the cost of the insurance deductible, insurance company pays. If the theft was smaller than the deductible then the bank pays. \n\nMost banks set money aside to cover the inevitable and expected losses due to theft, fraud and bad debt. \n\nIf we start talking about theft from online banking it gets a little more complicated. For personal (retail) banking, most places will have regulations that limit individuals losses to some fixed amount (probably $50) with financial institutions obliged to cover any losses bigger that. Not all places have that. If there isn't a regulation, then the financial institution might cover the loss, or the individual might be out however much the criminals stole. It is up to the financial institution.\n\nIf a business loses money due to criminals accessing the businesses’ online banking account, the business is probably going to eat that loss. The business can sue the bank to try and get the bank to cover the loss, but that can be a time consuming ordeal. There is a good chance of winning against the bank though.\n",
"In theory, it's the people who insured the money last who lose it. So if you're hiding money under your couch, you lose it because you were \"insuring yourself\" against robbery and you are the only one to blame for its loss. If you leave it in a bank, they're now insuring its protection because either you're paying them fees or they're investing your money. If the bank has an insurance company, then that company pays because they were insuring the bank against the loss of your money. And it could go on and on if the insurance company itself is insured. (Insurance companies make money by charging fees).",
"And if you need it explained like you're sixty-five, here's Alec Guinness to do it for you: _URL_0_ (from the 1955 Ealing Comedy film, \"The Ladykillers\")",
"I feel a [Heat quote](_URL_0_) will properly suffice.",
"[Relevant Mitchell and Webb Sketch](_URL_0_)",
"Well, I can give you a very short answer: insurance companies lose the money (not the FDIC). \n\nAnd I can give you a more in-depth answer:\n\nIn the bank I work at, tellers have two drawers: one with bundles of cash and the one with loose cash that is for deposits/withdrawals. The drawer with this loose cash is insured up to $2,500. So, tellers have to make sure they aren't over on cash in this drawer because if they are robbed, they are only insured $2,500 from this drawer (which includes \"bait\" money). Obviously, policy varies by bank.\n\nThe FDIC on the other hand, is an agency that insures $250,000 worth of deposits (put simply) because of bank-runs. Bank-runs are where depositors rush to the bank to collect money from their account and, of course, the banks don't ACTUALLY carry all of the money that's been deposited because that money is being used for investment activities (loans, money markets, etc.) \n\nTL;DR: Insurance companies cover tellers' small sums of cash. Don't rob a bank, because you generally won't get away with more than ~$10,000 (just an educated guess from being a teller). The FDIC has nothing to do with insuring robberies. ",
"As someone with a close family member who with the security team for a large bank there are a few things that should be noted about bank robberies. One is that they happen often - for a large bank with lots of branches it would not be unusual for one of their banks to get robbed nearly daily. Second is that the robbers get caught something like 90% of the time - usually not long after the robbery occurs. Things like dye packs and silent alarms help, along with the fact that your face is being recorded by dozens of cameras. Third is that relatively little money is stolen - in the range of a few hundred dollars usually. The safes do not open immediately, there is a delay (enough of one that would allow the police to arrive). That said, this is all about typically robberies - not a full-on action movie bank heist (which don't actually happen).",
"I'm sure this has nothing to do with the comment explaining how to successfully get away with a bank robbery.",
"If any one says here that the FDIC covers it, they are wrong. \n\nThe FDIC does not cover banks losses in the event of theft, fire, natural disaster, etc. The FDIC is solely there for the situations that the bank fails monetarily.\n\nFor these aforementioned events, the bank will have private insurance on your assets. So, essentially, the insurance company that the bank is using to insure their funds is the one that must pay for the amount of money lost.",
"nobody, everybody, the bank, the insurance company, the customers of the bank...\n\nit all depends on how you look at it.\n\nafter the robbery the bank recovers the money from the insurance company... so the insurance company\n\nbut the bank has been paying the insurance the whole time so the insurance company probably didn't loose anything... if they did the math right they are still ahead... so nobody.\n\nbut the bank will probably see it's insurance rates increase because it made a claim... so the bank.\n\nbut the bank will just raise fees to cover the increased loss... so the customer.\n\nall in all the bank, the insurance company, and the customers all take something of a loss... so everyone.\n\nagain, it depends on how you look at it.",
"Bank robberies are hits to shareholder capital. A bank may have insurance against theft, bad debt, or embezzlement, but ultimately it's a hit to bank equity. \n\nThe FDIC does not cover theft. It covers bank runs. This is under Fractional Reserve Banking, but the bank loans out most of the money that is deposited with it. If enough people ask for the money back, the bank could run out of cash and be forced to close, the FDIC is a way to placate fears by depositors from pulling their cash out at the first sign of trouble.",
"Owner of a small community bank: most of the time, the banks take the hit. Theft is only covered by insurance starting at a certain amount. Most bank robberies are less than $5k. Tellers keep limited amounts in their drawers to limit losses. ",
"So many wrong answers in this thread. \n\nWhen you have money on deposit at a bank, you don't legally own that money. You have a claim against the bank for an account equal to the amount you deposited called a \"chose in action\". If this didn't happen, banks couldn't invest, lend etc in the manner they do. Banks typically hold less than 10pc of what they have on deposit in readily available funds. This is why a run on a bank is such a deal. \n\nIt is never your money getting stolen. It is the bank's money. The extent the bank then backs out that risk with insurance and pays deductibles only is another issue. The extent that insurance company reinsures the risk and spreads it is another, and so on. \n\nELI5 when you put money in a bank, you don't own it, you \"give it\" to the bank in return for a claim you can redeem against that bank equal to the same amount. \n\nEdit: tldr; if you deposit money in a bank, you don't legally own that money, the bank does",
"If it is cheaper for the bank to take the loss compared to filing an insurance claim(due to a higher deductible compared to the 2 grand the moron just ran off with) they have a budget specifically for loses. I would assume its written off as an unexpected loss or theft and the financial hit spread over a longer time period. Most any business would do the same thing, not just bankers. ",
"The insurance company.",
"A \"bank account\" is actually just a debt that the bank owes you, the account holder. When you deposit money, you are actually loaning them money that you can make them repay on demand. You don't have any actual money there, so it's not the customer who loses the money.",
"FYI, I worked for a bank, a Circle K store and an armored car company in the 90's. We were told just to hand the cash over and not be a hero. The really good reason why is, it's just ink and paper. Money just has an implied value created by the Federal Government and the market. Nobody's like is worth sacrificing for a bag of ink and paper.\nThe insurance will cover the loss, but not for your funeral because you tried to be a hero.",
"It depends on what the thieves take. If they break into a branch and take the vault cash (bank inventory), the bank will generally take the loss unless the amount exceeds the bank insurance deductible.\n\nHowever, if they take the safety deposit boxes it may get more interesting. I would expect the safety deposit box customers would lose it.",
"In Capitalist America; Bank robs you!",
"Former bank robber here. \n\nI actually got a request letter from the FDIC demanding payment after I got out of federal prison. ",
"Short answer. Immediately it's the specific branch (i.e. bank of america branch is a bank but bank of america is a global banking institution that owns it); (you're thinking duh but I mention this because the insurance comment is most upvoted one - they don't really lose anything as they are equally if not more so insured, just think of them as another banking institution that gave the robbed bank institution the money it 'lost'). When all is said and done, 95%-99% of the time it's the community (if a local banking institution, then local community, national institution, national community, global institution.. you get the picture.. albeit this is pretty simplified as everything overlaps).\n\nSome explanation (I'll keep it to FDIC banks). First of all, the immediate entity to lose money is the branch, as mentioned. But, they are covered by the institution that owns them (if a bank of america branch is robbed blind in small city, kansas, then they'll just let the BoA institution know and get this back the next day. The institution then tells the insurance company, hey, we lost X amount of dollars, and they get reimbursed. So far so good.\n\nHere is where it gets mildly interesting and kind of complicated.\n\nIn the past 20 years (I'm including 1993), about 600 FDIC institutions have failed. Again, keep in mind I said institutions. Currently, for example, there are over 6,000 institutions with over 80,000 branches, so most of the failed FDIC institutions are the local ones I had mentioned that may have 2-5 branches (if that) in small town, kansas community. Virtually all of the institution failures occurred not because a branch was robbed but because the institution itself fucked something up and couldn't pay back all of its loans: For example, in 2005 and 2006 exactly 0 FDIC institutions failed, while in 2009 and 2010 it's 140 and 154, respectively (Similar failures occurred during the 80s and early 90s). \n\nOkay, now let's look at insurance companies. There are actually far fewer insurance companies (couple of thousand major ones) than there are banking institutions (but as with banking institutions, there are different insurers, varied by state and institution, and type of insurance (life, home, auto)). However, they conduct trillions of dollars of business each year. It is incredibly rare for an insurance company to fail, and if it fails, it may lead to a domino effect that contributes to everything else that it supported or that supported it to fail. \n\nInsurance companies do not fail, however, because they are a little different from banks and are far more regulated. The only way for an insurer to completely fail is for there to be, let's say a 100 million lawsuit that it loses26583. It will still have enough assets from all of its investments/accounts/etc. to pay out each claim but it will go belly up after it does. This really pretty much never happens and if it does, they make a movie about it.\n\nThe banking institutions, on the other hand, fail because they are less regulated, and more importantly, they are allowed a 1:10 dollar ratio. For each dollar you deposit, they can lend, invest, spend, whatever 10. This kind of turns into a funny cycle. You give a bank 1 dollar. It lends your friend 10. Your friend deposits this 10 in another bank. That bank loans a 100 to me, which I deposit into my bank, which then invests 1000 into maybe some property or maybe puts it into another bank or even worse, gives it to an investment firm. Unlike banks, firms are even less regulated and can treat each dollar at up to 1:35. Your 1 dollar has now turned into 35,000, that will then be deposited into another bank, turning it into 350k and so on it goes. This is overly simplified but this is part of the reason (there were many other reasons) that so many banks suddenly failed. Without a 1:1 ratio (this is somewhat ironically enforced upon the casinos), when people couldn't pay off their houses, the bank, with your foreclosed mortgage of 200k (which it valued as 2 mill), was now sitting 1.8 mill less than it actually had, so that if another bank now wanted the 2 mill returned, it could only pay back 200k (it's also why you can often call up your credit card and they will take a lump size payment of 5k on a 10k loan and call it even, that 5k is a ton of money for them - it's often worth even less than that depending on how many hands it's been through (this is where the really complicated stuff like buying or selling bad loans (or even more complicated - derivatives - something even my CFO and most of Wall St. cannot understand) comes in and why in 2008 everything went haywire)). \n\nOne other minor note, I say it is minor because even banking institutions have fees and such, but when it comes to insurance companies - they work the same way with banks as they do with you. A bank wants to be insured, its risk is assessed, and it then pays the premiums to cover the risk plus a little extra for the insurance company to make some profit. It's these premiums that cover the bank should something happen to it, and just like with your car insurance, should something happen to the bank, its premiums will increase to both cover the fact that it had just caused the insurance company to 'lose' money and because it is now a bit more risky to insure (so even if the previous premiums did not fully cover the losses the insurance company has incurred, the future premiums will - and this applies all across the board, i.e. it doesn't matter if the bank switches insurance companies, if the losses were substantial enough, everyone's premiums increase).\n\nAgain, this is highly dummied down, but when you come down to it, the original question results in this interesting dilemma - who actually loses the 5,000 dollars the robber stole? Well, let's do a quick recap, the 5,000 he stole was first lost by the branch, immediately repaid by its primary institution, which then sent an invoice to the insurer (the bigger the bank, the more insurers it will have, by the way, so everything is kind of spread out), the insurer pays the 5,000 back from some account it had set aside (in another bank most likely, but it could also be in an investment firm or in an asset, which it then would need to sell, or it could have even been in another insurer), and the institution is reimbursed. The insurer now increases its premiums. The institution will then assess how much it lost in comparison to how much it needs to be fiscally healthy and adjusts its lending rates/practices/etc. accordingly (i.e. jacks up the interest rates and/or stops lending money - think 2008+).\n\nThe institution's customers now see all this happen and they either can or cannot cover the damages the bank incurred. On a local level, maybe your small business loan was denied, maybe your loan's interest was increased, maybe you couldn't afford the new mortgage.. this is sort of the most immediate effect. In essence, whatever the branch lost was both insured and already paid for by the banking institution's premiums and by the premiums of all the other customers of that insurer (you); the insurer jacks up its premiums directly or indirectly depending on the loss, thereby further increasing how much your own insurance is paid; the bank, to make up for this, does the same with its business practices to recoup the both the previous loss and the future loss (increased premiums). \n\nIf the loss was small enough, i.e. 5,000 bucks, nobody lost anything (a loss that small was included in the premiums) and maybe some premiums or/and interests may be adjusted by some incredibly tiny amount like 0.0001% to gain back the loss, maybe these would only affect the bank, maybe it goes across the board and affect the community but it will not really be noticed by anyone on small-medium scale. \n\nThis is why you do not see robbers bankrupting banks or insurance companies. This is also why, when one of the major ones does go belly up, it creates a chain reaction.\n\nBank of America is not insured by a local mom and pop insurer, it has its fingers in a few gigantic ones and if it goes \"sorry I cannot pay you guys your premiums\" they in turn cannot repay theirs, and chances are, because it's such a huge bank, it held hundreds of accounts owned by other banks and other insurers and other investment firms, and so on down the chain to your local branch and your local insurer. It's kind of cool how the whole thing works (I have purposefully avoided the magical ingredient in the soup - derivatives) and how unregulated it all actually still is (there was some famous economist whose name I forget who predicted 2008 and believes that due to the lack of any changes among other things, we are headed towards another big one).\n\nIn the end, whether the bank was robbed by some guy with a gun of 5,000 or by the invisible hand of the market of 500 billion, the actual loss is incurred by the customer of the bank and of the insurance company or/and by the customer of all similar financial entities with which the bank and/or the insurer is affiliated. The worst case scenario is the bank institution collapses (remember how often I mentioned that happened) or the insurance company collapses by paying off all of its claims (essentially breaking even), the latter is even less likely than the former. And so they both stay in business, adjust their rates to become profitable again, and make up the losses from their customers.\n\nMinor note about FDIC: Someone mentioned FDIC will pay back your money if the bank fails. This is a horrible misconception. FDIC is incredibly limited in what it will pay back. From fdic site: \"The FDIC does not insure money invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance policies, annuities or municipal securities, even if these investments are purchased at an insured bank.\" Essentially, it does not insure anything you should have if you have 250,000 worth of liquid lying around. If you only have let's say 10k in cash in a savings account, yes it's protected, but if BoA fails (virtually impossible), the fact that you have 10k will probably not matter at that point. It would result in such incredible economic meltdown that the chances of USD not losing its global value are infinitesimal. At that point, your 10k will probably buy you a loaf of bread from the only store that might still be open in your area. ",
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enwo91 | why do doctors always check the eyes of a patient with a light when they are unconscious? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/enwo91/eli5_why_do_doctors_always_check_the_eyes_of_a/ | {
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"To see how the pupils change in response to light stimulus. They should shrink, and both eyes should do so equally.\n\nFailure to respond, delay in responding, or asymmetry in response are all signs of potential neurological issues, like drugs, bleeding or damage.",
"the belief is that if the pupil constricts due to light, then the brain is okay. if it doesn't then there's likely brain damage. so it's one simple test to check for a very serious condition."
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2alqm2 | why do people say you don't have to wash jeans, just put them in the freezer or whatever, but i still supposedly have to wash all my other pants and clothes? | Something about this doesn't smell right. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2alqm2/eli5_why_do_people_say_you_dont_have_to_wash/ | {
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"this is something that comes up when people are talking about selvedge denim. theoretically, you want to hold off on washing them so that they can get more wear before you rinse off the dye for the first time. this initial rinse will show the wear (AKA sick fades) The idea with freezing them is that this (allegedly) will kill off the bacteria that are on the jeans that causes them to smell bad \n**EDIT:** I do not believe that freezing jeans will kill the bacteria. I am just answering OP's question of why some people think that freezing their jeans is a solution.",
"People say don't wash jeans because they want [maximum contrast fades](_URL_0_). When you wash jeans they lose some dye and become a bit lighter, so the faded lines don't look as clear. You can only really get this effect with raw denim jeans, so with most jeans washing them is not a big deal.\n\nAlso washing clothes tends to damage them, so if you have a nice pair of jeans, you would do less damage to it the less you wash it.",
"Jeans don't show dirt as easily as many other types of fabric so people feel they don't need to wash them. They do.",
"Because those people believe (correctly) that washing denim changes its qualities and (incorrectly) that freezing them will do something to help with the inevitable odors that anything you wrap around your crotch and wear outside is going to develop.\n\nMany people will probably come to this thread to talk about how *their* jeans don't ever get washed and don't smell. These people are wrong.",
"Just don't dry them in a dryer. It ruins them over time.",
"That's for raw denim ",
"You do have to wash jeans if you prioritise hygiene over superficiality.",
"The CEO of Levi's said not to wash your jeans. _URL_0_\n\nIt still doesn't say why, I just wanted to point out that it isn't just random crazy people spouting nonsense. It is also rich people who should know better spouting nonsense.",
"Check out /r/rawdenim\n\nAll I want to say about this, I have a pair of unbranded 201 and I've had them since January. I've worn them seven months, and moderately, so about 3-5 times a week. \n\nIf you are a dirty person, then your clothes will be dirty. I'm relatively clean, and my jeans don't smell. I've asked my family to smell my jeans and they say there isn't a smell. \n\nI plan on washing them in a month or two. Raw denim doesn't get washed because the dye will bleed out and the color will fade. If you don't wash it, the Indigo dye will bleed out, but not all at once like if you were to soak it. \n\nSome people enjoy denim, me included. ",
"I don't really know what's actually correct, but I only wash my jeans when I've definitely sweated in them or I spill something on them that won't just come out with handwashing. I definitely don't wash them after every wear because I feel like they wouldn't last as long.",
"I dunno, depending on the time of year I can wear jeans maybe 3-7 times before I feel they smell bad, way more than any other item of clothing I have. But I definitely still need to wash them.",
"Washing will fade the dyes. Hand wash in a tub of cool water with vinegar and hang dry instead of machine washing with detergent.",
"This thread is ridiculous. People are posting actual proof and getting downvoted, and all the top comments are just people spouting how clothes smell after every use and if you don't wash them you might as well be a hobo.\n\nAll clothes will develop a smell after a long time. The reason most people don't like washing their clothes is because it deteriorates the material. If you're wearing shitty band shirts, then who gives a fuck? Wash away.\n\nBut when you've spent $300 on a pair of raw denim jeans, you want them to last as long as possible.\n\nThe CEO of Levi's has stated that you should not machine wash your jeans.\n\nAnd according to [this](_URL_1_) article, so did Tommy Hilfiger and Anderson Cooper.\n\nRather, spot wash the spots that get dirty with a sponge and let them air dry.\n\nI've always been told that you should wash your underwear/socks after each use, shirts every 2-4 uses, and pants every 5-8 uses. But a lot of people argue that pants shouldn't even be washed that often.\n\nI've also seen people argue that you should wash your jackets and suits often, which is actually fucking ridiculous. These are the same people who have to buy new clothes every couple months because the old clothes are riddled with holes, and it's obvious why.\n\ntl;dr - Wash your clothes as often as you want, but they'll fall apart faster, and unless you're [this](_URL_0_) guy, probably don't smell as bad as you think.",
"I worked at Levis for 2 years a learned a LOT about their products. This \"not washing\" is said for a couple of reasons. 1st reason washing ruins the color very fast. I MEAN VERY FAST. (This is why most employees know if you have washed your jeans even once because we deal with unwashed jeans all DAY. AND there is a difference in dye even after one wash.) 2nd reason is that Levis sells jeans that have not been touched by water called shrink to fit. People can buy these larger then their actual size and wash them hoping that they shrink to their actual size or we say buy them your exact size if you like the feeling of raw denim and just DON'T wash them or they will never fit. AS FOR THE FREEZER ISSUE. We would suggest that to people who want the S2F true size but need them cleaned. The idea behind that being if you put them into a bag and freeze them it can eliminate odor kill bacteria and make them feel fresher. But obviously if you have a stain it doesn't do anything to remove the stain. \n\nI apologize for any format/spelling issues I am on mobile",
"Because the kind of person that can afford the luxury of raw denim is the kind of person that:\n\n1. Has a cushy job where minimal walking and stress is given to the jeans\n\n2. Lives in an incredibly controlled environment, where the temperature never goes above 72 degrees.\n\n3. Cares enough about how he looks that any smell they might generate won't bother them anyways.\n\nRaw denim is cool. Fades look amazing. While I try to look as sharp as I can, I don't have any of those listed things. So I wear standard denim and wash like the FASHION PLEBE I AM.",
"Even before ever owning a pair of raw denim I would wear jeans 3 or 4 times before washing. Jeans just don't start to smell as easily as other articles of clothing in my experience. I've had the problem with t-shirts, shorts, and slacks, but never jeans. As for raw denim, I always know when my clothes start to smell. So far the pair I have hasn't smelled, and I've owned them for about 2 months now. Then again, I use a light misting of febreeze to help keep them smelling fresh. So taht may play a factor.",
"It's bullshit. Freezing jeans does not kill bacteria, it only suspends them. Even if the bacteria did die, you aren't eliminating any of the skin cells, oils, or dirt from the jeans. \n\nYou don't have to wash them every time you wear them but you have to wash them sometimes. Just smell them after a few wearing sessions. ",
"I would just like to point out that freezing your jeans in a regular at home freezer will not kill the bacteria, or at least not enough of it. They will merely hibernate and reawaken when they've warmed up.",
"Op doesn't wash his fedora. ",
"I wash my jeans - my husband's jeans and when our sons were young and lived at home. I washed their jeans. Never considered or heard of freezing them or not washing them",
"The only people who say not to wash your jeans are the people who have a thing for denim. To us the logic kind of goes like, would you wash a leather jacket? No, you wouldn't, because you would ruin it. You'd use a specialised cleaner, and look after it. If you have no care for denim and wipe your greasy food stained hands all over them, they will start to reek and you will have to wash them. \n\nMy personal method is inside out steam iron, and a wipe with anti bacterial baby wipes. This does as good a job as any laundry detergent and my jeans last for years. Wash them once a week with normal detergent, I'd be surprised if you got a year out of 10 oz 99/1 denim.\n\n",
"I'm approaching elder status, and can't believe I have to say this to the kids growing up. Wash your god-damn pants you morons.",
"Everyone in this thread clearly overlooked the time-proven practice of boiling denim.",
"I must be a very stinky person. If I go without washing my jeans, I might be ok with it, but people around me wouldn't be. For all those people who say \"I don't stink\" .... I hate to inform you, yes you do. ",
"I want to know who these people are that can get away with 2-4 wears of a shirt before washing. If I wear a shirt twice it smells like the ape house at the zoo.\n\nand what's this junk about \"if you wash jeans too much they fall apart\" I buy cheap jeans when i buy jeans, and, well lets see... I have a 8 yr pair and a 5 yr pair, and cargo shorts pushing 10. . . and I wash them after 2 wears otherwise they smell like sweaty farts.",
"The only people that say you don't have to wash jeans are people that can't smell their own unwashed ass. That's the best I can explain it. ",
"Not all of the bacteria are \"put to sleep.\" The smell is a byproduct of their respiration, cease respiration, cease smell. \n\nSource: I's a Scieontist"
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207v7a | why do airplanes have a on/off transponder switch? | What possible benefit is there to having an on/off transponder switch? It just seems like it's a hijacker button built into the plane. Could it be controlled remotely or by some other means? Why not transmit black box information remotely as well? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/207v7a/eli5why_do_airplanes_have_a_onoff_transponder/ | {
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"Turning a transponder off will save some energy if there is no one to receive it; also, if the transponder is not working properly, it may be better to turn it off completely rather than have it send incorrect data.\n\nA transponder that is turned off is actually bound to detect hijackings earlier, because ATC will radio the aircraft to inquire.\n\nAnd transmitting all black box information is most probably a bandwidth and memory problem. Saving hundreds of aircrafts' data is a huge amount of data, it's complicated to manage, usually not necessary, and may impede other ATC systems' operations.",
"There are several reasons why we might turn the transponder off. For example:\n\n- It's faulty, and posing a fire hazard\n\n- It's faulty, and providing incorrect information to air traffic control (in which case we'd probably turn off just the part that's giving the wrong information - most commonly, this would be the aircraft's height, which the transponder gets from an external data source)\n\n- We usually turn it off on the ground (although modern transponders have a specific \"ground\" mode that we use instead) to prevent setting off traffic collision avoidance systems in airborne aircraft that are making an approach\n\n- In the event of electrical problems, we might turn it off to save electrical power for more vital services\n\nTransponders have a \"standby\" setting which we normally use when we don't want the transponder on. This means the unit is still receiving power, warmed up, and ready to go as soon as we switch it on. It's rare that we'd actually use the \"off\" switch to remove power completely."
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1lu4rn | why we have plenty of money to use for sending the military to syria, but not for funding schools. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lu4rn/eli5_why_we_have_plenty_of_money_to_use_for/ | {
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"In the US, a budget is made out each year for funding allocation for the next. For the year of 2013, the US Department of Defense has a whopping 672.9 billion dollars at it's disposal, while the Department of Education has 72.9 billion dollars at its disposal. \n_URL_0_",
"Because our government is controlled by oil companies and the military industrial complex, not the voters. Your opinion on what the country should do is irrelevant when war profiteers have our leaders on the take. \n\nOh, somebody disagrees? Please explain to me how [Obama's biggest campaign contributor was allowed to destroy an entire ecosystem with almost no repercussions.](_URL_0_) ",
"Orders of magnitude and different levels of government being responsible.\n\nFirst, bombing Syria is likely to have a net cost in the couple of billion dollar range, or less. Depends on what exactly they do, and what you want to count as being 'spent' an aircraft carrier that has been around for 40 years exists in part to be prepared for just this sort of thing, but it's not going to be expensed in the cost of the war unless one is sunk. Education in the US, in total spends about 934 Billion USD, defence about 850. \n\n(_URL_0_)\n\n\n\nSecondly schools in the US are a state issue for some of it, and local for most it, that's a stupid idea, but that's the way it is. Defence is federal. So the apparent problem of schools needing money is really the responsibility of the states and cities to sort out, and in many cases population growth in the 0-18 demographic has been flat or negative, so you don't actually need more schools. ",
"Imagine you start a career as a filmmaker. To be a filmmaker you need to spend money on things like cameras and film and all sorts of expensive whatnots. You also have to eat to stay alive because I assume you're a human being. So early on in your career, you might spend 2000 dollars on your job as a filmmaker and a paltry 30 dollars for food. You end up eating a lot of junk food as a result because it's cheap and available. \n\nFast forward a bit to where you're a bigger, more renowned filmmaker. You're making some money and you spend upwards of a million dollars on your equipment and locations and actors and so on to make better and better movies. You also spend like 300 dollars on your food and you end up eating fresh baked cookies, and racks of lamb. \n\nNow, in this fictional world, you start worrying about how your diet has made you unhealthy. So you decide \"gee, if I only spent more money towards my food budget, I would be healthier\". \n\nNow, let's analyze this.\n \n* historically, we see that adding money to your food doesn't correlate to being healthier. You just eat more expensive crap. \n* There's no logic tying the increased money to improved health. You cannot become healthier by having someone throw wads of cash at you. \n* Your health/diet decisions do not impact your spending on your filmmaking. Being healthy or unhealthy doesn't increase or reduce your needs or decisions on what equipment to buy, where to shoot, or what actors to cast. \n\nParallel to this.\n \n* Historically, increased spending per student doesn't appear to necessarily correlate to improved education. the PISA, widely parroted as stats detailing our educational shortfall, seems to imply no correlation at all in fact. \n* No one has made a sufficiently convincing use case for money to improve education. Could you use money to eat healthier? Obviously. You could hire a personal nutritionist to cook all your meals for example. That's a solid plan. It's convincing and makes sense. It's reasonable to assume that it would work. With education, most proposals on actually improving the quality of education are contested and debated. They're not universally convincing enough to warrant full funding. Many proposals DO warrant pilot programs and research which we in fact do fund, but they may or may not provide convincing results. \n* In spite of all that, none of this really substantially impacts our perceived need/want for military spending one way or another. You could just as easily ask the question \"Why do we have plenty of money to spend on education but not for getting rid of the drug problem in this country (DEA funding is about 2B, DOE is closer to 80B). At the end of the day, the state of the war on drugs really doesn't lessen or change our motivation to drive our educational system on its course.",
"Public schools are mostly paid for through property taxes in the schools district. In order to fund more in school property taxes would usually have to increase.\n\nThe government has some money earmarked for education, but one of Federal Government vs Local Government is the scope. Federal Government is supposed to protect America against enemies, so more money goes towards that. Local Government makes sure the town is taken care of and the kids grow up educated.",
"Because our government misprioritizes.",
" > Why we have plenty of money to use for sending the military to Syria, but not for funding schools.\n\nThe money could be put to either use, so we DO have money to fund schools with. Your question should be \"Why are we so badly misallocating our resources\"?"
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1cam0h | why being flat-footed was considered a bad thing in the military. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cam0h/elif_why_being_flatfooted_was_considered_a_bad/ | {
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"Having flat feet can cause painful ankle and knee problems, creating difficulty with running etc. Nowadays it's mostly solved with orthotic insoles. \nAs far as I know, flat-feet can still hinder your application though, according to a RN recruitment guy I asked a couple years ago.\n\nSource: Have flat-feet.",
"They don't care about people with naturally flat feet. They care about people who have fallen arches. the former may lead to some small problems with the brutal regime that some services put their recruits through. The latter is a sign of a serious problem that will keep the recruit from performing. ",
"Flat feet is caused by over stretched ligaments in the feet that leads to the small bones in the middle of the foot dropping further than they are supposed to. This leads to an inability of the body to absorb the pressure of the body weight on initial impact of the foot contacting the ground when walking and sends the extra stresses up to the ankle, knee, hip, and lower back. These stresses can potentially lead to a number of different injuries. During basic training and throughout military duty, the body is put through much stress with running and other training activities. Placing an individual who they know has flat feet in a position where the potential for injury is high (and thus unable to perform) is a liability. Orthotics do work well (if properly made and utilized), but they are not standard issue and provided footwear is not customized for each recruit to correct issues they may have as this would be very expensive. \n\nSource: Physical Therapist for > 10 years who specializes in treatment of foot conditions and casts custom orthotics",
"Thanks for the answers, everyone. My grandfather had been denied from the USAF for his feet (though they wouldn't stop trying to recruit him) and the topic had always confused me.",
"Because you'll have lower Armor Class and that will increase the chances of an enemy bugbear landing an attack on you.*\n\n & nbsp;\n\n^^^\\* ^^^This ^^^is ^^^not ^^^a ^^^serious ^^^answer.",
"It hurts your feet and they didn't give out boots that would help. ",
"I was in a research program during high school and one fellow student was a track team member who researched running. He actually did an excellent explanation of the fact that our feet don't distribute force properly if they don't strike the ground in sort of an arc pattern (i.e. flat feet), and it translates up as far as the knees and makes running injuries much more likely."
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1j3ear | why is it queen elizabeth and not empress elizabeth | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j3ear/eli5_why_is_it_queen_elizabeth_and_not_empress/ | {
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"Because she isn't an Empress. Her father was an Emperor (of India), but India became independent before the current Queen took over. \n\nShe is the Queen of various different legally separate monarchies though. For example, her role as the Queen of Canada or Australia is an entirely separate position from her role as Queen of the UK. This is called a personal union, and was historically a pretty common thing back when nearly everyone lived under a monarch. At one time or another, Spain and Portugal had one, England/Scotland/Ireland/the Netherlands all had one, as did Denmark/Sweden, etc.\n\nSo she isn't an Empress because all the countries she reigns over are not legally bound together in any way. "
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2jbf7b | how are crowds counted (at non-ticketed events, like protests and riots)? how do they figure 20 or 50 thousand people showed up for a non-organized event? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jbf7b/eli5_how_are_crowds_counted_at_nonticketed_events/ | {
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"They probably estiguess. Like when you see a jar of jelly beans at a carnival or fair. ",
"They divide the total area occupied by people into small parts. They count the number of people in a few parts, average that, and multiply by the number of parts they made. The more small parts you add to your average, the more accurate your number will be.",
"You take a small, well represented, sample and multiple it by a larger estimate or known size. A good example is blades of grass in a american football field. The field is 360ft x 160ft. You count the blades of grass in a 1 square inch section, and then multiple it by 144 (to go to square feet) and then multiply it by 57600 (160x360 ), and then you have a good estimate of how many blades of grass there are. \nYou can apply the same principles to crowds.\n\n",
"My guess is you would use a probabilistic method. That's why the ranges are so wild. The oil and gas industry uses similar methods to guess at he range of possibly reserve sizes of potential oil fields before drilling or developing them, as opposed to deterministic guesses, which are scaling up of known qualities over a small area, to the larger area. This method has caused many oil companies to go broke. Deterministic guesses involve in taking reasonably estimated quantities, and extrapolating to the full extend. Use something like this to determine the densities (_URL_0_) then you multiply the area. Of course to get a realistic or perfect model you would have to be integrating across a wide a range of densities, and use a mathematical model to determine the density distribution across the crowds area.\n\nOr, if you've been trained how to \"guess\", I think you would want to use a probabilistic method. Basically, you have to make wild guesses at the end members of the distribution of how many people COULD be here. Say you're at a rager of a house party, and you're trying to guess how many people are there. You would start with the outside chances. If you walk in the door, and immediately have to push away 3-4 people just to clear a path to get your shoes off, you may say \"Well, i can literally see 20 people, there may be more people here, but it's a statistical likelihood that these are the only 20 people here, standing right at the door\". Then you guess at that chance. Say, 5% chance. Then you figure \"well, this house looks to be about 2500 sq ft, two floors and a basement. I suppose it's possibly that this density persists throughout the house, but again - unlikely\" so, perhaps in the 250 sq ft you see at the door, there are 20 people. You could guess that the max number of people here could possibly be that density, times the area of the whole house. Again, this is unlikely, but possible. Then you again guess at the chance of that occurring, now you have your end members of a cumulative probability distribution. \n\nIn the oil and gas world, as opposed to the mathematics world we flip the scales. So a p95 means a high chance of occurance, and a p5 is a low chance of occurrence (percent chance). So you first guess, 20 people is your p95. Not that there is a 95 chance that there is 20 people here, but there is a 95% chance that there is AT LEAST 20 people here. There is only a 5% chance of there being your max guess, or more, people here. \n\nYou now have a log normal distribution of \"guesses\", if you take your p50 (50% chance that there is a less, or more, people here) that will likely be very close to the real number, or the pMEAN, which is usually less than the p50. For log normal distributions, the average and the mean are not the same, unlike normal or Gaussian distributions (bell curves). However, you need to look at what the distribution tells you about your p1 and your p99 values. If you're p1 comes back and the distribution you've modeled says that the p1 is 10,000 people, you've guessed wrong. There is no way on earth, that there is 10,000 people inside your house. So you re guess at the end members you've picked until the range falls into something that is earthly possible.\n\nThis works with jars of M & M's. While an individual's guess is wrong, precisely wrong, the distribution of their guesses is log normal. If you were to graph 1000 kids guesses, find the pmean of their guesses, and guess that you'll probably use your newfound statistics knowledge to make a bunch of toddlers cry. Of course someone could have literally guessed that pmean, and you'd lose, but statistically if you were guessing at 100 jars, you'd win a lot. This is how oil and gas exploration goes from gambling, to investing. \n",
"The number of mobile phones the local cellular network sees minus the number they normally see in this area (which belong to people living there)",
"All these comments about estimation and extrapolation and correct. I would add as an interesting example (I'm on mobile so the exact numbers may be a bit off) the \"Million Man March\". In order to truly estimate how many protesters attended the march, the organizers simply calculated the approximate area one person would take up and extrapolated from there, coming up with about 800,000 attendees. The police also did this, and came up with only about 600,000 attendees. The reason for the difference being the estimated space one person would take up. The organizers estimated less space per person, meaning more people, and the police did the opposite.\n\nTLDR: Numbers don't lie, but crowd estimations can have large margins or error based on the figures used in estimations.",
"The methods listed in this thread are outdated. Nowadays it's quite easy to get a good estimation by counting the number of mobile phones in the corresponding cell and subtructing the usual number of phones. ",
"You know how they have those things where you have to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar, and things like that? The guys who get closest end up getting hired to be the guys who get those numbers.",
"Woo, something I know a bit about (events research)\r\n\r\nIt's estimated first of all, the main issue is how much inaccuracy you are willing to put up with. We know from extremely crowded environments (concerts, mosh pits) what the density is and therefore there's theoretical maximum would be for a given area. At least there's an upper bound to work with.\r\n\r\nI agree with others that the emergency services generally provide the 'best' estimates as they arguably have the most to lose if they are wrong, understaffed and cannot respond to an emergency in time. A precise measure (to within 10, 100, 1000?) may not ultimately be that necessary for them to 'do what they need to do'. Generally if they have local knowledge of their own operations (an event repeated for numerous years) this would be more useful than a precise figure. \r\n\r\nObviously in many other cases, some people stand to gain a lot by misrepresenting the numbers one way or the other. (higher or lower). Not just health & safety but tourism-focused events, economic impact and so on. That 5% difference could equate to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of extra £ on the end of a particular claim.\r\n\r\nEstimates are perhaps less useful on their own as supposedly concrete figures than they are in comparison to other types and scales of events. At least you can say in comparison 'it was bigger than X or smaller than Y' \r\n\r\nAerial photos, clever software and automated head-counting look to be the solution: _URL_0_\r\nThis is an area I've personally investigated but the safety (and privacy) issues with drones is probably the biggest issue - but it's starting to happen here and there whether the legislation is there or not.",
"They calculate it by comparing the size of the area the protest covers subtract the area of obstacles and then compared to the size of the average person.\n\nOr\n\nThey pull a number out of their asses for political purposes or sloth. Certain news organizations and political groups who shall remain nameless are infamous for purposely inflating numbers.\n\nOr\n\nThey don't bother calculating and guess based on other peoples calculations for other events. \n\nThese three reasons are why the numbers given vary considerably. \n\nTo recap: Math, lying or using numbers for other events \"to save time\" are how they do it. Can you guess which two are the most common?",
"Same way they count things like your T-Cells. They do not count all the T-Cells in your body. The group, average, and multiply.",
"They can also calculate an average density for an area- for example- if an area is X by Y and a person takes up A by B space, then you can calculate how many people it takes to fill up the area on average, adjusting for personal space increases (in less populated) or decreases (in more dense populated events) and you have a good rough estimate of the number of people at an event. In riots or protests where there are police calls, they can sometimes use the police reports and other known averages to extrapolate a number as well. If X amount of looting occurs in an area and is reported X+Y is the number of unreported cases, and on average Z people are needed to loot each store.\n\nEither way these numbers are usually expressed in the thousands or tens of thousands because they're very well educated guestimates, but someone isn't sitting there with a picture counting people.",
"Ever seen a microscope slide that has the gridlines marked out on it? Same thing.\n",
"we talked about this in one of my stat classes. You hand out an arbitrary amount of hats or something so that we can distinguish from those people. Let's say 50 hats are handed out. you then take another random sample of people and see how many people have hats. So, let's say of the 100 people sampled, 2 people have hats. Then we could assume that there would be (100/2)*(50) people there, so there would be 2,500 people at the organization. \n\nbut, let's be honest, no one really goes out and does this. But that would be cool if they did. ",
"- Amateur organisers : Area and people per square meter\n\n- Police : Go on a roof, and count the number of lines of people moving in and out.\n\n- Corporations : Various computer vision tech to analyse crowd behaviour.\n\n- Services : Most people have a smartphone in their pocket. They know who was there and where they were located in the crowd.",
"Once saw an interview were they said they actually started measuring by cellular activity in the area and how many phones connect to the antennas. ",
"Serial protester here. I've gone to just about every single one that's happened in my city for the last few years, plus a few in other cities. I just so happen to be quite good at quickly counting people. So it's generally my job to do that.\n\nThe basic process is I make a vague guess at how many there are, based on that I might count heads by 1s, 2s, 4s or 8s. If it's more than a thousand or so, I'll find a group of 50 in an average density and count how many groups of that size there are. As happens occasionally there's a particularly large one and it gets more problematic. Media that goes to report on these things also sends along a counter usually, they're ok at it but once it goes over a certain size they just make wild guesses that are way too low/high. I've had a fair few arguments with them over numbers, generally when they're trying to understate the significance of a demonstration. Luckily most of them happen in the same place in my city and based on this experience you know roughly how many there are based on how much space they take up. Oh and there are usually three counts throughout its duration, partly to ensure I didn't massively fuck up one of the counts, and partly to see the rate at which people arrive/disperse.\n\nTL;DR - I count heads, or groups of heads, or guess. The media sucks at this. ",
"i've read some of this below, but want to mention that they also sometimes don't report it correctly; \n\nwhen the unions were being destroyed in wisconsin 4 years ago i worked downtown madison and litterally there were thousands and thousands; some reports would say 100,000 and some would say 20,000 for the same amount of people over the week it was really intense... and i was there every day in my office, watching them; it was always the same amount of people, just whomever was reporting the news just said whatever\n",
"A BBC reporter had this to say about crowd size estimates at an Indian religious festival:\n\nSix years ago on the opening day of the Ardh Kumbh festival - an Ardh (or half) Kumbh is held every six years - in Allahabad I had asked the senior-most police officer for his estimate of the gathering.\n\nHe had thrown back the question casually: \"How many do you think are here?\"\n\nTaken aback, I had mumbled that it could be three million or so.\n\n\"That's good, I'll go with it,\" he had said.\n\nThe figure came back to me through reports. \n\nArticle: _URL_0_",
"I think the standard system is to count the number of people inside a square of a known size, and to find the density per unit area of that crowd. Then you multiply that by the area of the crowd.\n\nIn biology a similar technique can be used to count cells.",
"take photos of the crowds on the streets, put a grid on the photos, count the people in some random areas on the grid, multiply by the number of squares in the grid.",
"I work at major music venues and I oversee security this is bassicaly how we do things over in Poland. For non-ticked music venus, we take the total of space avialble, for example 30.000 square meters, divade that by sectors (first two in front of the stage 8.000 + 8000 = 1600 square meters) and than keep on adding untill we reach the total of the audiance accesible area. The law says 1 square meter for one person, so once we fill the first two sectors, we know that we have 16.000 people inside. Ok but how do we know how many have accesed the sector? There are two ways of assesing it - 1. Fill the space, it's the easiest way to count, but not very accurate. 2. Security team counts the walk-in's. How exactly do they do this? Well it's kind of simple really. There is an entrance and one security officer counts singles, once he reaches decimals, he taps the second guy, once he reaches houndreds he taps the next one, and the last guy counts thousnds. Usually we tend to mix up the two methods, beacuse it's virtually impossible to get the exact number as crowd moves. As I have learnd both of this methods has 95% accuarcy. ",
"Birds eye view photograph, split into grid, count number of people in each sector of the grid, multiple by number of occupied sectors.",
"They look at the crowd of people and say \"eh that looks like about 20,000 people. Yea that sounds good. "
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660yl0 | what has to happen starting now in order to have ubiquitous self-driving cars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/660yl0/eli5_what_has_to_happen_starting_now_in_order_to/ | {
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"One single thing is necessary. Self driving cars have to have consistently and provably less accidents than regular human driver. At that point it will be cheaper for transportation companies to buy self driving truck instead of hire a driver that needs rest. Transportation companies will push legislation to let them do that and invest into more reliable self driving systems. Everything else is secondary. They dont have to be 100% secure, they don't have to solve all kinds of issues, they just have to be slightly better than a human.",
"Ubiquitous? As in everyone has them? \n\n1) **TONS of cash.** LOTS of specialized cars made. Self-driving cars either need a ton of sensors with cameras everywhere, or an $80,000 LIDAR system like the Google car uses. \n\n2) **Time**. Cars from the 80's are still clunking around. And not nice collectible cars. These will never be self-driving. They will die before then. Self-driving cars exist and are functional RIGHT NOW, but this is like retooling an entire nation's method of transport. It's going to take a lot of time and money before it's \"ubiquitous\". There will certainly be a transition phase. ...And we're currently in it. \n\n3) **Engineering.** Telsa's self-driving cars are really only good for highway. For ubiquity, they need to handle city-driving like Google's car. I think they're doing it city by city to figure out the kinks and quirks of the system. It's not easy. Oh, and to develop REALLY good maps, hence the restricted locations. \n\n4) /u/kouhotek is right. **Liability** needs to get resolved. Right now you're responsible if the autonomous car crashes. That really isn't stopping a lot of people, but if you want everyone to be on board that has to get sorted out. \n\nI was going to mention culture, but I don't think there are enough hold-outs who like manually driven cars to hold up ubiquity. I thought about mentioning other legal issues, like needing a license holder in the car, but while it would be nice if that changed, it won't hold anything up. "
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an9q1h | if living in a low gravity environment for extended periods of time tends to make us weaker, would living in a slightly stronger gravity environment have the opposite effect and make us stronger? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/an9q1h/eli5_if_living_in_a_low_gravity_environment_for/ | {
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"Physically it could. However, just as likely to happen, is muscles getting too dense and blocking arteries (people who lose a arm, or use of one, can over develop muscles blocking arteries. A family friend had to have some ribs cut up because of this) or for muscles like our heart to overwork, becoming enlarged from pumping blood in higher g, and failing.\n\n",
"A slightly higher gravity would make for stronger muscles, but any gains in bone strength would be minimal except in people under 25 when bones are growing their fastest. The gravity should have no effect on our immune systems, though people with air borne allergies might see some benefit since hair, spores and pollen would be able to drift nearly as far on the breeze. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nHowever, being made stronger would likely be counter balanced by not living as long overall. Moderate exercise extends life and makes more of that extended life a happy, healthy and active one. But prolonged heavy labour shortens life and makes the senior years less pleasant. The extra weight of even 20% higher gravity is more burden on the joins, bones and circulatory system. Virtually every soldier comes out of the military with bad knees (or at least, worst knees than their non-Service peers) because of all that running and jumping while carrying full packs. Waling around in a gravity field 20% higher than Earth's would be like carrying a full pack around 24/7. Overall life span on average would also be reduced because simple mundane accidents become more dangerous. Higher gravity means you hit the ground harder when you fall. So more people would die as the result of accidents, which reduces the average life expectancy for the whole. "
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2iv3d9 | how can the new iphones compete(run as smooth as) with other flagship devices like htc one m8 and the s5 while having much lower hardware specs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2iv3d9/eli5how_can_the_new_iphones_competerun_as_smooth/ | {
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"Apple maintains tighter control over the entire platform when compared to Android devices. For basic tasks, particularly apps that are part of the baselines OS, they can ensure everything is optimized well. And at some point everything is fast enough that the user experience is fine regardless of what benchmarks might say. For example, if a top of the line Android can display an email message in 3mS, and an iPhone takes 10mS the user probably won't notice. It will take three times longer, but nobody will really notice.",
"Two things... Better software design and less features. Because of their controlled environment there is less bloat in their software which translates to being able to run on lower specs. Additionally, for every cool feature you see on an android phone that Apple doesn't have (and there are many of them) this represents a need for more processing power or memory. That is why Android needs such higher specs."
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3f6uvw | why is cereal attracted to one another / the edge of the bowl when you're down to a handful left? | Like the cereal pieces are attracted to one another and just like stick to each other on the edges. As well as the bowl, they stick to the bowl on the edges while still submerged halfway in milk.
Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f6uvw/eli5_why_is_cereal_attracted_to_one_another_the/ | {
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"It's mostly the surface tension of the milk (i.e. the water). Water likes acquiring the least surface area as possible. When two cereal pieces join or one touches the edge of the bowl, the total surface area of the liquid in the bowl decreases by the contact area times two. So surface tension keeps the pieces stuck together to keep this lower surface area state."
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akjfen | if talking is just pushing air forward then how can i hear someone through a wall? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/akjfen/eli5_if_talking_is_just_pushing_air_forward_then/ | {
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"The sound waves are actually making the wall vibrate a tiny bit, and the wall is making the air vibrate on the other side a tiny bit.\n\nThat's why thin wall transmit sound better and why heavy dense walls, like concrete block walls, don't transmit sound well at all.",
"Talking isn’t “pushing air forward”. It’s vibrating the air molecules to produce a wave of sound. And those vibrations can also vibrate the molecules of the wall to pass sound through it, but not as well which is why sound tends to be muffled when passing through solid matter. ",
"You're producing sound waves still the same. Those waves can (and do) pass through walls and if they are loud enough to begin with, can be heard on the other side. The wall acts like a \"low pass filter\" which means it strips off all the high frequencies from the sound waves, so on the other side all you hear are the lower ones, making it sound very muffled.",
"Talking is not pushing air forward, it's making air wiggle.\nWhen you talk to me, your vocal cords vibrate the air, and those vibrations cascade out into the air around you. The air molecules don't actually travel from your mouth to my ear, it's the vibrations that travel. And when they reach my eardrum, it vibrates, too.\n\nJust like my eardrum, walls will vibrate a little bit. The wall vibrating makes the air on the other side vibrate a little, so vibrations in the air can actually travel through a wall and reach someone's eardrum on the other side. "
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85c9si | that outside smell a person gets when being outside for a time. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/85c9si/eli5_that_outside_smell_a_person_gets_when_being/ | {
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"Outside smells different than inside. Person was outside and goes inside. Person smells like outside.",
"Say you’re cooking food in a house. You now smell like said food. If you go outside however, that food smell isn’t out there, so you will begin to smell like whatever outside smells like. So when you go back in, bing bang bam widdly dang damn you don’t smell like food anymore",
"Next time you're driving on the highway, think about how much stronger the \"outside\" smells in your car when you allow outside air flow (the button with an arrow whooshing into a little car) compared to just using the air in the car (the button with the cycling arrow inside a little car). That's an open vs. closed system. Most buildings are closed ventilation systems so the odors outside are impenetrable unless carried in. People inside closed systems get used to the cleaned environment, and their odor reception is based on newness of a smell more than anything else. \n\nNow consider the actual aromatic molecules wafting around outdoors. They land on whatever is in their way. The longer someone is outdoors, the more opportunity for these scents to land on her and soak into her clothes and hair. \n\nDifferent environments will have a different composition of odors. Introduce odors to a different environment and it'll be noticed. Introduce odors to an environment with a purified air system, like most buildings, and it's especially obvious. "
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mkhav | what makes green vegetables better for me than non-green vegetables or fruits? | I understand they're better, but nobody's been able to tell me 'this is why.' I understand fiber is important, and green vegetables tend to have more of that, but I don't understand WHY fiber's important, either. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mkhav/eli5_what_makes_green_vegetables_better_for_me/ | {
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"Bacteria in your colon digest fiber, releasing butyrate. The cells in the lining of your colon basically eat butyrate for sustenance. Too little fiber = starving colon.\n\nBut green vegetables have other benefits - they tend to have higher concentrations of important vitamins. However you can be entirely healthy and never eat green vegetables.",
"From what I understand, green is not better than other colors. In fact, you should [\"eat a rainbow\"](_URL_0_) every day - that is, eat vegetables of as many different colors as possible each day. The more variation in colors you have, the different kinds of vitamins and nutrients you will consume ~~(as the different vitamins present in each vegetable are part of what give the vegetable its color).~~\n\nEdit: I'm wrong on that last bit. Their color is due to pigmentation, not vitamins. Still, different groups of vegetables will provide different sets of nutrients and antioxidants and whatnot, so variety is still good for you!",
"Just adding to the great information already here:\n\n > Red foods – like tomatoes and watermelon contain lycopene, which is thought to be important for fighting prostate cancer and heart disease.\n\n > Green vegetables – like spinach and kale contain lutein and zeaxanthin, which may help protect against age-related eye disease.\n\n > Blue and purple foods – like blueberries and eggplant contain anthocyanins, which may help protect the body from cancer.\n\n > White foods – like cauliflower contain sulforaphane, which may also help protect against some cancers.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"As far as I can tell, *dark* green vegetables are pushed because on the whole they contain iron and calcium more than other non-green vegetables. I presume this is especially important if someone is avoiding meat or dairy, so it might be a case of if you're going to eat healthy, do it right and eat what you need.\n\nI found this, which might be of use: \"Fruit and vegetables of differing colours contain diverse mixtures of phytonutrients (protective plant compounds). These can act as powerful antioxidants, protecting the body from harmful free radicals and helping to protect against certain chronic diseases such as cancer. Some fruit and vegetables are labelled as 'superfoods' because they contain high concentrations of some phytonutrients, particularly antioxidants, which appear to be beneficial to health.\" From: _URL_0_ \n\nSo it's not a case that they're 'better' in general, they're just better at delivering those particular properties/nutrients.\n\nFibre helps with digestion, changing how the nutrients and chemicals are absorbed by your gastrointestinal tract. \n\nHere: _URL_1_ this also helps explain what the health benefits are (vegetarian or otherwise), it's an easy read and covers the basics. Hope it helps.",
"You need fiber because fiber binds your poo. Fats and sugars are easier to bond with fiber making your poop a more solid yet easily passable consistency. \n\nIf you eat too much fatty and sugary foods you'll get diarrhea. Yes diarrhea is caused by illness but honestly more people have small bouts of diarrhea because of their eating habits, rather than having food poisoning. Just think about it. Eat all your Halloween candy, you poop is going to be loose. The beer shits also live in this world.\n\nWell fiber binds all the of this to helps your body pass everything. This is also why it lowers cholesterol. It binds with fat that you eat so you body can't absorb all of it.\n\nAnd everyone else is right that you should always eat a rainbow of colors. Fiber comes in all colors and you always want to mix what you eat.",
"Bacteria in your colon digest fiber, releasing butyrate. The cells in the lining of your colon basically eat butyrate for sustenance. Too little fiber = starving colon.\n\nBut green vegetables have other benefits - they tend to have higher concentrations of important vitamins. However you can be entirely healthy and never eat green vegetables.",
"From what I understand, green is not better than other colors. In fact, you should [\"eat a rainbow\"](_URL_0_) every day - that is, eat vegetables of as many different colors as possible each day. The more variation in colors you have, the different kinds of vitamins and nutrients you will consume ~~(as the different vitamins present in each vegetable are part of what give the vegetable its color).~~\n\nEdit: I'm wrong on that last bit. Their color is due to pigmentation, not vitamins. Still, different groups of vegetables will provide different sets of nutrients and antioxidants and whatnot, so variety is still good for you!",
"Just adding to the great information already here:\n\n > Red foods – like tomatoes and watermelon contain lycopene, which is thought to be important for fighting prostate cancer and heart disease.\n\n > Green vegetables – like spinach and kale contain lutein and zeaxanthin, which may help protect against age-related eye disease.\n\n > Blue and purple foods – like blueberries and eggplant contain anthocyanins, which may help protect the body from cancer.\n\n > White foods – like cauliflower contain sulforaphane, which may also help protect against some cancers.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"As far as I can tell, *dark* green vegetables are pushed because on the whole they contain iron and calcium more than other non-green vegetables. I presume this is especially important if someone is avoiding meat or dairy, so it might be a case of if you're going to eat healthy, do it right and eat what you need.\n\nI found this, which might be of use: \"Fruit and vegetables of differing colours contain diverse mixtures of phytonutrients (protective plant compounds). These can act as powerful antioxidants, protecting the body from harmful free radicals and helping to protect against certain chronic diseases such as cancer. Some fruit and vegetables are labelled as 'superfoods' because they contain high concentrations of some phytonutrients, particularly antioxidants, which appear to be beneficial to health.\" From: _URL_0_ \n\nSo it's not a case that they're 'better' in general, they're just better at delivering those particular properties/nutrients.\n\nFibre helps with digestion, changing how the nutrients and chemicals are absorbed by your gastrointestinal tract. \n\nHere: _URL_1_ this also helps explain what the health benefits are (vegetarian or otherwise), it's an easy read and covers the basics. Hope it helps.",
"You need fiber because fiber binds your poo. Fats and sugars are easier to bond with fiber making your poop a more solid yet easily passable consistency. \n\nIf you eat too much fatty and sugary foods you'll get diarrhea. Yes diarrhea is caused by illness but honestly more people have small bouts of diarrhea because of their eating habits, rather than having food poisoning. Just think about it. Eat all your Halloween candy, you poop is going to be loose. The beer shits also live in this world.\n\nWell fiber binds all the of this to helps your body pass everything. This is also why it lowers cholesterol. It binds with fat that you eat so you body can't absorb all of it.\n\nAnd everyone else is right that you should always eat a rainbow of colors. Fiber comes in all colors and you always want to mix what you eat."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/fn595w.htm"
],
[
"http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Fruit_and_vegetable_types"
],
[
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/nutrition/healthy_fruitveg.shtml",
"http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/vegetarianhealth/pages/vegetarianhealthqanda.aspx"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/fn595w.htm"
],
[
"http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Fruit_and_vegetable_types"
],
[
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/nutrition/healthy_fruitveg.shtml",
"http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/vegetarianhealth/pages/vegetarianhealthqanda.aspx"
],
[]
] |
|
9qczbs | in sports gambling, why would someone choose the spread on the winner instead of the money line? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qczbs/eli5_in_sports_gambling_why_would_someone_choose/ | {
"a_id": [
"e88a8hy"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"In a game between two teams, often one team is more likely to win than the other so the price for the favourite team is often very low. The spread attempts to even up the teams which means the price for the favourite team is higher."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1hpzik | german sentence cases. | I understand Nomitive and Genitive cases, but I get tripped up on Accusative and Dative. I've read about how to tell them apart, but they're not explaining it in a way I can understand. Explain like I'm five. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hpzik/german_sentence_cases/ | {
"a_id": [
"cawtpg1",
"cawygcl"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Let's use this random sentence as an example: \n\n\"I gave the man a dog/Ich habe dem Mann einen Hund gegeben.\"\n\n* The man/dem Mann = dative, indirect object\n* a dog/einen Hund = accusative, direct object\n\nExplanation: \n\nThe accusative case is that of the direct object; to find a direct object, identify your subject and verb, and take them as an extremely simple sentence. In this case, \"I gave.\" Now, ask yourself \"Whom or what did I give?\" The answer to this question is the direct object, and in German, a direct object is expressed in the accusative case. The truly important thing you need to keep in mind is that masculine nouns articles will get an -en suffix (der - > den, ein - > einen)\n\nNow, the dative case is the case of the indirect object, which is easy to find once you find a direct object. The indirect object answers the question \"to/for whom or what?\" In the case of the example sentence, the gift was given to the man; therefore, the man is the indirect object. Articles change big time here\n\n* der/ein - > dem/einem\n* die/eine - > der/einer (yes, der)\n* das - > dem/einem \n* plural: den/einen*\n\nTo sum it up: \n\n* Accusative (direct object): ID subject verb; ask \"who or what is being *verbed*,\" and the answer is the direct object. \n* Dative (indirect object): Ask \"to/for whom is the direct object being *verbed*,\" and the answer is the indirect object.\n\nAnd don't forget the article changes. Hope this helps! \n\nEdit: formatting",
"So if I understand correctly, whole sentences don't have the case so much as subjects and indirect objects do. So a sentence like this could contain both cases, one for the subject and one for the indirect object. \n\nSo this sentence as a whole has Accusative case and Dative case. That is much clearer! Now I just have to memorize how they change and I'll be set! Thanks! "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
2oieah | why do people hold joints and cigarettes differently? | In pictures or movies they always hold cigarettes between the pointer and middle finger like a peace sign, but with a joint or blunt (I don't know the difference...) they hold them between the thumb and pointer finger like making an OK sign. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oieah/eli5_why_do_people_hold_joints_and_cigarettes/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmne4x7",
"cmne5pa",
"cmne9dn",
"cmneb9x"
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"score": [
8,
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"text": [
"One reason is that you smoke a joint as close to the end as you can (to avoid wasting its contents). To do this you have to use your fingertips, which are narrower and more precise than the thicker part of your fingers. Cigarettes have a filter so you have an inch or so of extra room to work with.",
"Most of the time because joints are less than perfectly rolled, the pinch of the \"OK\" sign keeps the tip that your inhaling from together and tight, so the bud doesn't fall out or paper start to come unraveled. All together joints are much more fragile. ",
"Size and stability, a joint is thinner and less solidly crafted than a cigarette which makes it more difficult to handle in the same fashion.\n\n\nAlso the filter on a cigarette insulates your fingers from being burned whereas a joint or blunt doesn't so its held not between the tender part of your fingers where you hold a cigarette but the sold meaty part that can withstand the heat better.",
"Joints use less than a gram of marijuana to fill, blunts are hollowed out cigars.\n\nYou hold a cigarette between your index and middle finger while pinching the filter, to prevent tobacco spillage.\n\nYou hold a joint between your index and thumb because there is usually no filter and the marijuana extends from tip to tip, requiring more precise pressure."
]
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[],
[],
[],
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|
3gp8q8 | why trench coats are associated with detectives and pis? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gp8q8/eli5_why_trench_coats_are_associated_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"cu06ymx",
"cu0757k"
],
"score": [
4,
5
],
"text": [
"If i see somebody in a trench coat i dont associate it with a detective at all, i associate it with somebody whos going to be in a dark alley way with their dick out to unsuspecting people",
"It has to do with the fact that unlike standard police officers who wear uniforms, detectives wear suits. Since they wear suits they use overcoats in winter or when it rains to protect the suit. One common style of overcoat is the durable trench coat which got its name from WWI where it was issued to soldiers who fought in the Trenches that typified that war. \n\nThe connection to PIs is due to the fictional character \"Dick Tracy\" who was a PI that wore a signature yellow trench coat. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
4c6463 | how am i able to calculate how high/far my jump will be? | It may be a clear answer, but I just can't wrap my head around it. How can we bring all of the factors like gravity, our muscles, the force needed, etc. and achieve a jump or hop to a desired spot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c6463/eli5_how_am_i_able_to_calculate_how_highfar_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1fcfae",
"d1fcqmf"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"You've done it before, so you know how much energy is needed, or how much extra/less is needed. If I want to touch an 8ft ceiling (being 5ft 11.5in), I won't go all out, though I would if it were a 10ft ceiling.",
"Practice. You've done it before, lots and lots of time. Gravity doesn't change so that's a no issue. Leg strength changes slowly.\n\nAnd people do fail jumping over shit all the time. YouTube it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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] |
|
4thn0t | if the winning lottery numbers are just a combination of 6 random numbers, why is it rarer to have 6 consecutive numbers compared to random numbers. | Just simplifying the question: from a mathematics standpoint, if the first number drawn was a 7, why isn't there the same 1-out-of-n chance that the next number will be a 6 or 8 vs any other number? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4thn0t/eli5_if_the_winning_lottery_numbers_are_just_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"d5hd4te",
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"text": [
"There is that same chance for any one number to follow one number.. But for them to be consecutive (I will assume the standard German lottery, which is six out of 49), there is a 2 in 48 chance, unless the number is 1 or 49, when there is only a 1 in 48 chance that the next number will be that number's neighbor. On the other hand, there is a 46 in 48 (or 47 in 48 if it is a number at the ends) chance that the second number is not the immediate neighbor of the first number, so that outcome is much more likely simply because there are a lot more numbers for which it happens.",
"The set of consecutive numbers is much smaller than the set of non-consecutive numbers.\n\nFor example, let's say the winning ticket will be exactly 6 numbers, with an equal chance for every number. (Lottery rules do vary, of course.) This means there are 10^6 = 1,000,000 possible combinations. Of those million, there are only *10* options for strictly consecutive numbers: 000000, 111111, 222222 and so on.\n\nIf you're picking the lottery numbers, it doesn't matter what you pick, since all of them have the same probability. (But if two people can get the same number, it's better to pick random numbers, since you'll less likely have to share if you win.) But any drawing is much more likely to result in a winning non-consecutive number than a consecutive number.",
"Imagine your lottery is 3 numbers between 0 and 9, with no replacement.\n\nThere are, naturally, 720 possible outcomes, because the order matters. 10x9x8 outcomes.\n\nThe number of outcomes that are sequential is much, much smaller. If you're only looking at the set of sequential numbers (012, 123, 234, etc) there are only 10 such sets. So you have a 10/720 or a 1.4% chance that the result will be three sequential digits. Even if you don't care about the order (saying that 012, 021, 102, 120, 201, and 210 are all the same,) now you have 60 sets of 3 \"nearby\" numbers, which gives you an 8% chance that they'll be drawn. And, more importantly, a 92% chance that they won't be. \n\nAs you get to more numbers, like the 649 style lottery (6 numbers between 0 and 49,) your chances of sequential numbers become very, very low compared to the overall set of numbers ",
"All combinations of numbers have the same probability. Consecutive numbers are not any more \"rare\" than any other set of numbers.",
"1-2-3-4-5-6 is just as likely as any other sequence you choose.\n\nThat's kinda why playing isn't smart. You know it's not gonna be that specific sequence, but somehow we miss the fact that this sequence is just as rare as any other sequence you choose.\n\nTo give you an idea of how unlikely you are to win, if you played every sequential number combination for the entire history of lottery, you wouldn't have had a single jackpot by this point. And that's just because, no matter what numbers you chose, your winning would still be just as unlikely."
]
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[],
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|
2cb5g2 | how can a reddit account that has nothing but negative downvotes have positive net karma? (for example, unidan's new account has 6000something comment karma but every single one of his comments is downvoted into the negatives) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cb5g2/eli5_how_can_a_reddit_account_that_has_nothing/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjdpt5u",
"cjdq02u",
"cjdsftb",
"cje27rt"
],
"score": [
9,
10,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"Whos unidan? I keep seeing this name...",
"There is a downvote resistance level built into the code.\n\nIf you have one comment, ever.. And you have a total of 600 upvotes on it and 500 downvotes, you will still see a total of about 300-500+ on your username/account page, Even though the comment will display 100~ .\n\n\nIt's just a thing, but they can over-weigh upvotes eventually if surpassed.",
"Why are people even downvoting him? Most of his comments are pretty innocent and he says he feels bad about what he did. Give him a break people, jeez",
"What did he do? Last I checked everyone loved the guy?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3vj0w4 | do dogs tails get tired from wagging? or are they like our tongues? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vj0w4/eli5_do_dogs_tails_get_tired_from_wagging_or_are/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxny6mn",
"cxo2tbn"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Both tongues and dogs tails can get tired from over use, however these items are generally used to quite sustained levels of use.",
"I have no idea about wagging, but it is possible for a dog to sprain their tail muscles while swimming, particularly if they don't swim often, because they naturally use their tail to help steer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
2zagi8 | march madness ncaa basketball tournament: why are some teams competing for an 11 "starting" seed, while others are competing for a 16 "starting" seed? | I understand very little about the NCAA basketball tournament, but if a team isn't good enough to get their own seed, why do they suddenly get an 11 seed by beating a similarly bad team. Or, to put it another way, if the teams are both 11-seed quality, why not just make them 11 and 12 to begin with? And why do this for only half the brackets and have the other brackets with teams competing for the #16 seed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zagi8/eli5_march_madness_ncaa_basketball_tournament_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"cph4czb"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"There are two ways to get into the tournament - win your conference championship, or be considered one of the best teams who didn't. There's a big disparity in the quality of teams from the best and worst conferences, so the conference winners from the smallest conferences are going to be considerably weaker than the worst ranked teams who didn't win their conferences, but still got an invitation.\n\nInstead of putting the worst 8 teams into those play-in games - who will all be small conference winners - the NCAA decided to split it up so that the 4 worst conference champions have play-in games, and the 4 worst non-conference champions have play-in games. But like I said, those four non-conference winners are going to be better than a lot of conference champions, so that they'd rank somewhere around an 11 seed."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2riqqz | why do cars with a low gear ratio have faster acceleration and how would a lower geared car handle different at highway speed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2riqqz/eli5_why_do_cars_with_a_low_gear_ratio_have/ | {
"a_id": [
"cng80a2",
"cng8o95"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Internal combustion engines generate more power at higher RPM. The Transmission turns the very high RPM of the engine into the relatively low RPM of the wheels.\n\nThe lower your gearing is, it means less wheel RPM per engine RPM, which in turn means more power at lower speed, and thus more accelleration.\n\nThe drawback is that IC engines have an ideal RPM for efficiency, which is generally fairly low compared to the maximum design RPM (redline). This means that on top of a lower maximum speed for lower gearing, the engine is also less fuel efficient at higher speeds.",
"Think back to riding a mountain bike when you were young. Did you ever try starting out in different gears? Do you remember how it effected your effort? \n\nThe gear ratio will shift between prioritizing torque to horsepower. A high ratio means the engine will spin many times greater than the wheels. Just like a pulley or your mountain bike it makes it very easy to transfer your motion and the car will begin to accelerate easily.\n\nA lower ratio means that the engine rpg speed and the tires are moving at closer to a 1 to 1 ratio or possibly even lower, where the wheels are moving faster than the engine rpm. Just like the mountain bike, if you try to start in a low gear it will take massive amounts of effort and could damage the engine if it does not stall first. But when you are already moving it allows you to slow down the engine and transfer the power to increasing your speed.\n\n3 speed Trans means accelleration (high ratio), cruising (middle ratio), and highway gears (low ratio). 6 speed Trans mission means more precise acceleration, multiple cruising gears, and a highway gear that's faster and easier on the engine.\n\nHope this helps."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
8z8fdh | why does cologne sting after shaving? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8z8fdh/eli5_why_does_cologne_sting_after_shaving/ | {
"a_id": [
"e2guwrj"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Cologne has a high alcohol content to carry the fragrance and then evaporate leaving just the fragrance behind. Shaving can cause tinny cuts or abrasions in the skin. Alcohol plus cuts equals burn. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4y48xo | why is pet food not suitable for human consumption? is it the quality of meat? or something else? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y48xo/eli5_why_is_pet_food_not_suitable_for_human/ | {
"a_id": [
"d6lctrl"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It mainly has to do with the government oversight. The USDA and FDA have very specific quality control procedures that are required for human food that are not required for animal foods. There's often not much difference in quality (although the lower-end pet-food brands have some pretty questionable stuff), it's just a matter of what is required by regulators."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4az34v | why are neanderthals always drawn with huge noses? | I don't really know about genetics or reconstruction, so I was wondering why Neanderthals always have humongous noses. I thought that all we could gather from the skeletons would be a bit of facial structure, but the nose is made of cartridge, so they wouldn't know what it looked like would they? (I could be completely wrong.)
So how do they end up always drawing massive noses on the diagrams? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4az34v/eli5_why_are_neanderthals_always_drawn_with_huge/ | {
"a_id": [
"d14p1x8"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because the size of the nasal opening is large, so it is inferred that the nose itself would be large as well."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
50kce4 | why are we grossed out by the thought of our family members having sex or masturbating? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50kce4/eli5_why_are_we_grossed_out_by_the_thought_of_our/ | {
"a_id": [
"d74qvd0",
"d74qx5f"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"For sexually reproducing species, incest is often problematic because closely related family members are likely to share genetic problems with you that are then exacerbated in the children of incestuous couples. For this reason, many species have some sort of control against incest, typically behavioral. In humans, that control is revulsion at the idea of having sex or even thinking about sex with people who we had close contact with growing up. If we were not disgusted by envisioning family members engaged in sexual acts we might instead be aroused. This would create an evolutionary pressure against the aroused group because their children and their children's children wouldn't be able to breed as well and the family arousal trait would be out-competed by the the family disgust trait.",
"Reproducing with close relatives is associated with a high frequency of birth defects and other genetic issues. This led to the evolution of human sexual behavior that generally excludes attraction to close relatives. Otherwise this type of reproduction would be very common, considering how much time we spend around close relatives."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
9ru5gv | how do electron guns in tvs work? | Won't it just become a lightining gun? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ru5gv/eli5_how_do_electron_guns_in_tvs_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"e8jouti"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"In older cathode ray tube (CRT) screens there is an electron gun and a phosphor screen inside a vacuum tube. The simplest electron gun is the hot cathode type, which is essentially a filament (usually tungsten) that current is passed through (like a light bulb). When the filament gets hot enough, electrons gain enough thermal energy to escape the filament in a process known as thermionic emission. Tungsten has a high melting point and is relatively cheap so it is the most common filament material. Once the electrons are free, they are swept through the vacuum tube by an electric field towards the phosphor screen (attracted by a positive voltage). The tube need to be evacuated so that electrons do not collide with gas molecules before reaching the phosphor screen, and also the tungsten does not oxidize and burn out (like when you break a light bulb). The electrons strike a phosphor screen and in doing so excite electrons bound to the phosphor material. When the excited electrons relax, the excess energy that they received by being bombarded with the free electrons gets released as a photon, which you see as the picture."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
5oeizw | why do we still use the word 'girlfriend' for both so's and female friends? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5oeizw/eli5_why_do_we_still_use_the_word_girlfriend_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcipj3b",
"dcipqpg"
],
"score": [
11,
2
],
"text": [
"Dont know if this is going to be removed, but at least in Spanish we have 2 different words: \"novia\" for SO and \"amiga\" for female friend",
"It makes it very irritating when you're not heterosexual and use the term \"girlfriend\" for a close female friend."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
3de3td | how do small villages in really cold, rural places survive (economically) when they have no production or industry? | ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3de3td/eli5_how_do_small_villages_in_really_cold_rural/ | {
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"I mean, strictly speaking all a community needs to do to survive is to be able to feed itself and stave off death. If this town is able to feed itself it isn't *entirely* dependent on outside support to keep it going. However, in any case, yeah, these types of places are hugely dependent (if not entirely dependent) on outside support.",
"_URL_0_\n\nI don't know if this is the exact same place, but it looks like Vuollerim is basically all about tourism. Whether it's the families that open their homes up to tourists on what looks like a weekly basis, working at the hotel, etc.",
"Resident of such place checking in!\n\nI currently live in a small community called 'Old Crow' in the Yukon Territory. There's about 200-ish people and it's a self-sustained village. We get our water from the river, electricity from a gigantic diesel generator, food from either the land or by airplane. No economy. It's a Self-governed First Nations community who just do their own thing. They run their own businesses, take care of their own people, and outsource when necessary. There's no roads to the outside world, so everything is done by air or by water. \n\nThe town only exists because it's where they settled 90 years ago (they were in Rampart House prior, which no longer exists) and they choose to stay there. Because of today's society and lifestyle, I've noticed that the population will start to dwindle relatively soon. The age demographic is getting older, and the younger generations are leaving town to live in civilization. Families are small (1 kid rather than 6-7) and the school is pretty much empty. \n\nI wouldn't be surprised if Old Crow becomes a ghost town in the next 30 years. It's really sad. ",
"We have tons of villages like this in Alaska. Residents rely on subsistence, they hunt, fish, and grow food. Water comes from a local source (typically a stream or lake). Lots of different techniques are used to maximize the use of any resources used. For example fish are smoked to help preserve them, using every possible part of an animal they kill, etc. Alaska residents do get an annual dividend from the State of Alaska, and members of some Native groups also get dividends from their corporations, but this typically doesn't amount to a whole lot of money on an annual basis. Maybe 1-5k a year. If necessary they can do other things to supplement their income like selling furs, or ivory carving, or acting as guides, to name just a few. \n\nI think one thing that really makes this lifestyle possible is the sense of community these villages often have. When, for example, the village catches a whale, everybody comes to the beach and works together to harvest it. "
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