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4t6jwr | why does it sometimes feel like time slows down and and i have enhanced reflexes? | I have had this happen a few times,it feels like everything around me is in slow-motion and I feel empowered.This has happened on seemingly harmless occassions, such as walking home. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4t6jwr/eli5_why_does_it_sometimes_feel_like_time_slows/ | {
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"This usually happens when your brain senses that you are in danger (even if it might not seen dangerous to you) and to assess the situation better it 'slows down time' and enhances your senses",
"This is a result of something that your body produces known as \"adrenaline\". When your body has more adrenaline, such as your body producing it during periods of danger (wherein something called the sympathetic nervous system activates the \"fight or flight\" reaction), you will experience higher awareness (slowed time), faster reflexes, and reduced pain (thus allowing more forceful movements). \n\nYou do not actually have to be in danger for this to occur, your body just has to \"think\" it's in danger. ",
"Assuming you aren't a superhero of some sort, the likely cause is adrenaline. It is a bit unusual for adrenaline to be released just simply walking home down the street, but it's not impossible. Even just thinking about certain situations, real or imaginary, can be enough to drip some of that go-juice that makes you feel invincible. \n\n\nAdrenaline is a hormone that helps put the body into a state of alertness/readiness by raising heart rate, dilating pupils, opening airways, slowing digestion, and allowing muscles to contract more (makes you stronger and faster!)",
"Everybody here is correct, apart from the Witcher guy, and the bug dude, but nobody has explained why time seems to slow down.\n\nOur bodies measure how time passes by the amount of information it processes. The more information the brain is processing, the slower time goes, and the less information the brain is processing, the faster time goes. This is also why time passes quicker when you are not zoned out: because you are not focusing on your environment and are thus processing minimal information.\n\nAdrenaline kicks all of your senses into overdrive, and the amount of environmental stimulus you are capable of processing increases dramatically, hence the illusion that time has actually slowed. This enables you to respond in a seemingly impossible time frame. This is called hyperarousal (note that in psychology, arousal simply means that a physical response is caused; it is not necessarily sexual arousal). I can remember being hit by a car seven years ago with photographic accuracy, because in the instant before impact, adrenaline was erupted into my bloodstream, causing all of my senses to sharpen and allowing my brain to process all information as it was being received, and it created a response that saved my life. Everything that happened in that moment is permanently etched into my mind, and some people have difficulty revisioning such situations. I just find it funny that my last thoughts could have been \"bugger\". \n\nYou should see a doctor if this happens frequently for no reason: adrenaline induces the physical responses that other people have commented on, and these can be stressful on the body if they occur to frequently."
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7h7i7r | why is the water that comes from a natural spring so cold? | If it's coming from the ground shouldn't it be hot like a geyser? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7h7i7r/eli5_why_is_the_water_that_comes_from_a_natural/ | {
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"Natural springs don't usually run that deep.\n\nWhen you're only a few dozen feet down the ground temperature is just above the average annual temp, which is usually only in the 40s or 50s (F) in the higher latitudes.\n\nGeysers are powered by subsurface magma chambers that are much deeper and far hotter."
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2deu02 | how do humans know how to say a word before its context is read? | For example: I just read "live link". Anybody should know that "live" is pronounced like alive, not like living. The question is: why/how can we know how to pronounce it before reading the context, "link"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2deu02/eli5_how_do_humans_know_how_to_say_a_word_before/ | {
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"We don't. I think I know what you mean though. Most of it is just assumption and good writing will actually guide you along with the context of whatever it is you are reading.\n\nHaha I'm sure many people have mistakenly referred to it as live (as in living) link. ",
"The answer is that your eyes are not just looking at the word you are reading. Subconsciously, you read ahead to find the context so that you know how to pronounce the word.",
"When you read the word \"live\" your eyes also saw the word \"link\" next to it, and your brain decoded the context before you consciously read the work \"link\"",
"As I read the example I pronounced it like the verb, not the adjective, until I encountered \"link\", realized I knew of the website and what it does and therefore what they mean by it and therefore the pronunciation, and finally I reanalyzed the sentence with the correct pronunciation.\n\nNormally this happens quite fast, and it's irrelevant that you did it so your brain immediately forgets about it. I noticed and retained that experience due to the context of the question."
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tzlyq | why does vlc work when divx and quicktime don't? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tzlyq/eli5_why_does_vlc_work_when_divx_and_quicktime/ | {
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"VLC has a large number of codecs built-in to the program itself. It doesn't rely on your operating system being set up correctly. So, when a codec is missing or misregistered, other players simply fail but VLC uses its own internal copy of the codec.",
"Explaining this to a 5 year old: \n\nYou could maybe say that all videos have to be written in a specific language. DivX and QuickTime speak lots of languages, but sometimes they don't speak the language of a video you want to watch, so they can't play them. VLC speaks basically all the languages, just not always perfectly.\n\nThe more technical answer:\n\nOthers have basically covered it, but the answer is that VLC does not use the VFW / DirectShow / QuickTime frameworks, all of which are designed to be modular, and rely on third party codecs to be installed and configured properly in order to properly decode video for the aforementioned media players.\n\nVLC natively uses a library of codecs called libavcodec, which is also a part of ffmpeg/libav, and many other tools. The advantage here is that there are no outside dependencies. You can build a static version of VLC that can do its own decoding of almost anything.\n\nIt's not the perfect media player. I would argue that DirectShow based solutions (like Media Player Classic - Home Cinema augmented with MadVR) provide better image quality, especially if you're concerned with color accuracy and tearing / judder. \n\nNevertheless, VLC almost always just plays whatever you throw at it, and has a few uncommon features to boot - like Closed Caption decoding, which is handy for broadcast folks like me!"
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3y5zmd | why the world has to work as much as they did 20-30+ years ago, but our technology has advanced leaps and bounds. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y5zmd/eli5_why_the_world_has_to_work_as_much_as_they/ | {
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"Because instead of being happy with the volume of work that was done back then and granting more free time to people, everyone is expected to meet the higher levels of output produced with the aid of modern tech. ",
"there was less greed and less advertising 40 years ago also things did last longer you could buy spare parts for everything people fixed their own things there were next to no products that needed updating every year to be compatible with the next have to have thing.there working week was 40 hrs but most worked 44hrs or more \nhaving said that. the young people I know seem to own two houses both partners each have new cars all the latest stuff usually 2 holidays a year work around 38 hrs week and these are people with ordinary jobs. and so to sum up I don't think people work harder today",
"Because one big aspect of capitalism is the idea of infinite growth and appeasing shareholders (although not all companies are public). Profiting the same year by year, or doing x amount each year isn't good enough. You can ALWAYS do better. Thus always seeking to maximize. If it takes people working so many hours, then so be it. There's no real altruism. People do buy goods, so you need people, but overall people are not the focus of work. Most work is done in order to accumulate money. Business can and do let go of people if they can make more money without them. And other times, people are kept on but paid less to achieve the same until some other thing, like robotics/AI can replace them. Salary pay is a great way to make people work more hours for less usually (depends but it's a strategy some companies do). But overall, you need to make more profit than before. The tech increase can be for the general benefit of people and the end product sometimes is, but the push of it is profit motivated (not so people work less or are more free). Also, tech may diminish the specifics of some work but it shifts people to work on something else.\nI guess my point is, overall, for most companies/corporations, it's not about people, it's about money, so you not needing to work as much (but do) is not the main point, just a side benefit, if ever. "
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4x1uzz | what people mean when they say a car has lb-ft of torque. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4x1uzz/eli5_what_people_mean_when_they_say_a_car_has/ | {
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"Imagine you have a wrench that is one foot long. If you put that wrench on a sideways mounted bolt and hang a one pound weight off the end of it, you're putting one pound-foot of force on that bolt. \n\nA typical car engine could put the same amount of force on that bolt as hanging a 200 pound weight would.",
"Torque is a measure of twisting force. \n\nIf I have a wrench that's a foot long and use 10 lbs of force at the end, I'm applying 10 ft lbs of torque. If the wrench is 3 feet long I'm applying 30 ft lbs of torque. \n\nIt's the measure of the peak twisting force that can be applied by the engine. \n\nThis is different from power, usually expressed as horsepower. Power is the rate at which you can apply that force. Give me a 6 foot bar and I can apply 2000 ft lbs of torque, which is more than the motors in most racecars and semi trucks. I can't crank a dumptruck down the road because I can't do it very fast - I can apply a lot of torque but I can't make much power. "
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xe3rj | millions of pounds/dollars are donated to charity every year, yet we see very little progress, why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xe3rj/millions_of_poundsdollars_are_donated_to_charity/ | {
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"progress cant happen with money alone. time is the most important factor. it takes years to build some of the science stuff that they use these days. even with infinity money, it will still take lots of people and lots of time. money is only the first step. time is the second. progress is the third",
"A good part of it are just maintenance costs. These costs are not making the situation progress, they just prevent it from regressing. For example if you use charity money to feed people one day, the next day you still need as much money to feed them again. You can pay to feed them every day and see no change at all in the situation.",
"First of all are there any examples you're thinking of? There are a lot of charities that do a lot of work for a lot of people, why do you think there has been little progress?\n\nSecondly millions of pounds/dollars is relatively little money, for example pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline's revenue in 2011 was £27 billion with a profit of £5.458 billion, while Cancer Research UK's total revenue that year was just £483 million. ",
"This question is really vague, OP. I'm sure there are charities that have almost reached their goals completely or ended the problem they sought to end. However it is easy to think that nothing ever happens as I feel we are exposed to tragedies and suffering in the news rather than stories that are uplifting or successful. \n\nIn what field specifically do you hope to see progress?",
"Let's say you donate $100 to your local Habitat for Humanity. Chances are, as you go about your day, between where you live and where you work/go to school, you won't ever see the house that's being built with your help. That doesn't mean you didn't help. Same goes for all charity. In general, the people who can afford to donate, don't often see the places where their money is helping. But there is still progress, you just don't see it.",
"Good question, OP, but mind doing an edit to narrow in on what you're thinking of? Cancer relief vs. helping victims of genocide for example are two very different things and will give you different answers. \n\nTo throw in my 2cents though and having worked in non-profits for years, I will say that *some* of the reason IMHO is because these charities operate on a not-for-profit basis. This means that they're not consistently trying to make a profit and therefore not being held accountable to how they use/spend their money. Yes, there are \"checks\" in place done by donors, but for the most part, these checks are a joke.\n\nThis isn't to say that for-profit is a good way to go. Quite the opposite. All I mean is that many charities, because of their basic structure, lack the ability to manage their money as responsibly as possible. \n\nApologies, that's not very ELI5.",
"There's an old saying that if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he'll never go hungry again.\n\nSome types of charity simply \"give a man a fish\" ... they help him (or her) out for an immediate need but they don't do anything to address the situation that made that need arise in the first place. After the \"fish\" is used up, the person must come back for another charitable gift. They become somewhat dependent on the charity for their everyday life.\n\nOther charities work to address the situation itself, rather than the immediate need. They might literally teach a (wo)man to fish, but usually it's something like digging a well so that the (wo)man can have clean water for drinking and cooking, which means that (s)he won't be under the constant threat of debilitating waterborne disease and can use that improved living condition to take steps to better themselves. Another charity will provide low-interest loans to someone who wants to invest in, say, a piece of farm machinery so that they can get more food out of the land they farm.\n\nArguably, most government anti-poverty programs are of the \"give a man a fish\" type. They provide direct benefits, but often don't do anything to address the root causes of the poverty. This tends to create dependency. Arguably, anti-poverty agencies are not particularly focused on actually reducing poverty since this would put the agency's employees out of a job. Also, since government agencies don't really have to compete for donations against other charitable institutions (as private charities do), they have less incentive to maximize the effect of the money used. Private charities must convince their donors that the donors money is going to be well spent, otherwise those donors will give to another charity instead. Government-run anti-poverty agencies have much less of this type of incentive (their \"donors\" are taxpayers who *must* pay), so much more money tends to be wasted on administrative affairs rather than actual help to the needy.",
"What do you mean when you say we see very little progress?\n\nWhat do you imagine progress to look like?",
"CNN keeps pointing out that *some* of these charities are actually in chronic debt to for-profit organizations selling fund-raising services.",
"* Often charity addresses the symptoms rather than the cause...it is easier to do and sell to their donors...feeding starving children is sexier than building road infrastructure to grow the local economy\n* Areas that need charity are often in so much unrest addressing the symptoms is all that is possible...why teach someone to farm when some warload can come and take all of his crops?\n* A lot of charitable organizations rabidly oppose birth control...feeding hungry people just makes more hungry people to feed later\n* Similarly, a lot of charities have political or religious agendas, and solving the problem before their other goals are met would render the charity unnecessary ",
"Let's say you're homeless and I give you 100 bucks. You can make it till the next week with that money, can't you?\n\nBut what happens the next week? You need money in order to buy the food you need... every single week! Now imagine you have to pay not only for food, but for water, electricity and clothes. Pretty hard to afford all that stuff, huh?\n\nAlso, there's a lot of complicated and political stuff that makes this progress slower, like bad dictator guys running poor countries and getting lots of monies at people's expenses... poverty, unemployment, etc.\n\n**TL;DR money solves the problem, but just temporarily.**",
"_URL_0_ This website looks at what charities have demonstrated their ability to do the most good worldwide. The look at things like how much money makes it to the cause, what the cause is, how transparent they are etc. It is one of my favorite non-profits, and I think you might like it if effective charity is important to you",
"When you give money to charity, a lot of the time it's like taking pain killers for a broken arm. It helps with the pain for a little bit, but then it's used up quickly, and more importantly, it doesn't even begin to heal the broken arm. The help only helps a side effect of the problem, but doesn't fix the cause of the problem. /5 \n\nLet's say money donated as aid to poor countries: a lot of countries are poor because (in part) the people in charge are either corrupt or inept, or a combination of the two. The money and supplies may make it to the country, and even into the hands of the poverty-stricken people who need help, but then are robbed of the supplies either by 'official' people who abuse their authority, or by local 'gangsters' who simply take it by brute force. To fix this problem, you have to get the government and its police forces in shape, and throwing money in the form of aid towards the citizenry will never be a long term solution. \n\nLet's say causes for homeless and poor in the cities of North America: most charities that operate for these people give the poor/homeless supplies: food banks, clothing, even temporary shelters. But what people on the street need is a long term (even if temporary) home, safety, stability, and most importantly, opportunity. They also need skills that can gain them employ. \n\nLet's say a young person ends up on the street because he ran away from an abusive home. Food and clothes is nice, but a young person on the street needs a real place to sleep, and a counselor to help them through the problems that are seated in the abuse, and a mentor to help move them forward. \n\nLet's say someone ends up on the street because mental illness has prevented her from being able to hold down a good job. She can't pay the bills, and she finds herself on the streets, and further unable to pay for meds. She gets worse over time. Food and temporary nightly housing is good for up to 7 or 8 hours at a time, but doesn't get her the medical help she needs. \n\nLet's say someone is on the street, regardless of reason. He wants to apply for a job. He has no phone and no address, because, well, he lives on the street. He can't even apply at McDonald's for a job because he can't put down an address. He can't get a call back for an interview because he doesn't have a phone. Let's say he uses the public library and says he prefers to be contacted via email, and manages to get an interview that way. Unlikely, but possible. How does he make himself presentable enough for an interview? Food banks and nightly shelters will not help him. \n\nDoes this mean you shouldn't give to charity? No, but it does mean you should really do your research and give to the charities that really do make a long-term difference. Those that make any real impact have a very targeted directive, and deal more with individuals and ideas. It doesn't have to be a long-term difference to an entire community, it could be a long-term difference to one person. \n\nThere is a local charity in my city that helps homeless and marginally housed by providing nursing care, social workers, showers and laundry facilities, resume/job seeking help, computer workshops, and a clothing room. They provide their clients with a mailing address (theirs) and a phone to use. Providing food is only one small part of what they do. \n\nDoes sponsoring a water-well really help a community? Yes, providing clean water will mean that women and children can spend their time doing more important things than fetching water. Clean water will mean that there will be less health problems overall, meaning a healthier community, and lower death rate. \n\nDo micro-loan programs really help an individual? Yes, because often those who are poor simply lack the initial investment they need to become self-sufficient. Just as entrepreneurs and business people in developed countries often need a loan to start up, so do the poor elsewhere. \n\nDoes International Justice Mission really help people? A resounding yes. They free people from bonded labour (slavery) and sex trafficking. They don't just buy people out from their situations, they compile the evidence and entire cases against the slave owners (who own their slaves illegally) and pimps, find the authorities who are willing to arrest and prosecute, and then have their lawyers help the prosecution. Do they stop slavery and sex trafficking on a global level? No, but they have freed many individuals in individual communities. ",
"The things that have huge charities are usually the things that require massive amounts of time and money to solve. If they didn't a company would come and solve the issue and make money off of it. ",
"There is much more progress than we think because humans think fast. Did you ever watch a tree grow? It doesn't seem to grow at all, right? Yet - if you measure it a year later, it has become bigger. It's the same here - the money is helping, but you can only see it by comparing numbers.",
"[This is why](_URL_0_)."
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7wttbx | why are some sticky things only sticky once and others can be restuck several times? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wttbx/eli5_why_are_some_sticky_things_only_sticky_once/ | {
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"Couple things going on here:\n\n1. Is the thing itself sticky, or is it coated in something sticky? Some things are inherently sticky (like certain kinds of rubber) whereas others are coated in sticky stuff (aka adhesive). If it's coated, then each time you stick it something, some of the adhesive is getting left behind on whatever you stuck it to, making it less sticky. \n2. In regards to that, different kinds of adhesives leave behind different amounts each time they stick to something. You can see this with sticky notes; cheap ones can only be stuck once, after which the adhesive portion feels almost smooth. Nice ones, however, maintain more of their adhesive and can be re-stuck several times. \n3. For things without adhesive. it's the microscopic shape of the object's surface that makes it sticky. If you stick and unstick these repeatedly, the surface can get damaged and become less sticky. "
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3o6g1r | if genetic diversity is a requirement for the propagation of a species then how did organisms propagate back when life first started? | nuff said. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o6g1r/eli5_if_genetic_diversity_is_a_requirement_for/ | {
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"While generic variation is ideal for the long term continuation of a species, it is not 100% required. A lack of genetic variation would make it more likely that a single disaster or illness could wipe out the species, but the species would continue reproducing until then. Now onto the main question. Life began as single cells much like very primitive versions of modern bacteria. These cells could reproduce quickly, making clones of themselves. They did not have very sophisticated generic copying systems like modern cells so mutations were more common. Add to that the speed of reproduction and several thousand generations could be made with the possibility of significant mutations likely to occur. Then take into account what could happen when cells came into contact with other cells. They could trade genetic material or even firm symbiotic relationships with each other. Back then life was more of a luck of the draw kind of situation than it is now. Long story short, there was no shortage of genetic variance in the early stages of life on earth. ",
"From a less complex, more finite bed of diversity, that grows in complexity over time, adapting to environmental challenges in a process known as evolution. \n\nAbiogenesis when early compounds form living things from no living things offers an explanation of life on earth and is not completely proven. A famous study on bio poises demonstrates some basic amino acid construction is possible from a primordial soup with a little electricity. Simulating the environment of early earth 3.8 to 4 billion years ago, lighting is the electrical source by the way. \n\nPlanetary seeding, a more practical solution still leaves the question of non living to living unanswered. It conceptualizes life, i.e. organic material most likely bacteria or extremophiles that hitched a ride to earth. \n\nCheck out trilobites there an early success story a little further up the chain. \n\nI think the deeper question is, is there ever a time where nothing exist? This maybe what you're asking. If that is the case you can't ever think of a time without life, without being the life (consciousness) making the observation. \nCause see you have been the source the whole time in a strange way. Being the one who occupies things calling them me. To ask the question where do \"I\" come from. "
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2fy0ao | how can cell phones have a front camera of only 2 megapixels, yet it still records in hd? | I see a lot of phones that have a front camera that only has around 2 megapixels but it says it can record in 720p. How does this work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fy0ao/eli5_how_can_cell_phones_have_a_front_camera_of/ | {
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"720p is 1280x720, which is 921,600 pixels. 1080p is 1920x1080, which is 2,073,600 pixels, or almost exactly 2 megapixels.",
"720p is less than 1 megapixel. 1280x720=921,600. If it's a 2 megapixel camera, it should have the resolution to do 1080p, since 1920x1080=2,073,600."
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3fjx47 | why are many cities built in seemingly efficient grids but newer suburban developments use the "leaf" style and such? | I'll explain better. Now obviously it's not all cities. Plenty of old city layouts like Boston look like they were drawn by a crazy drunk with a pen. But there are places like (parts of) New York City that are mainly in even, ordered grids. Even if the whole city isn't like that, you'll see many older cities have at least a partial "grid" layout.
Now think of the stereotypical suburban sprawl neighborhood. What's the layout? Think the Weeds intro or just google image it. What was the reason for using this type of layout instead? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fjx47/eli5_why_are_many_cities_built_in_seemingly/ | {
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"Traffic control, water runoff, and green space preservation are the primary reasons that subdivisions are built with organic curves rather than a grid structure. \n\nAside from the environmental factors, they are intentionally made to be slow and inefficient for through travel, if not a closed loop completely, to deter motorists like myself who will take side roads to avoid traffic lights.",
"Places that use sprawl type urban layouts are usually designed with cars in mind, not people.\n\nWhen you're in a car, intersections suck. Turning left sucks. Waiting at the light sucks. Gridlock sucks. If you design a neighborhood not to have any of these things, what you get is those \"leaf\" street layouts.\n\nAlso, in places with significant differences in altitude, gridded streets can be bad for cars. You have to build soft curves and switchbacks into hillsides instead of forcing a straight grid onto steep hills. ",
"Grid style cities were mostly laid out before world war ii, going all the way back to the Romans. It's the easiest way to navigate from point a to b, and provide efficient services.\n\nAfter world war ii, we got a little too drunk on modernism and the automobile and we took the collected wisdom of how to build awesome cities and we threw it in the garbage. The result is the sprawl layout you notice. As others have noted, it's designed for cars, not people.\n\nIssues:\n\n- at very low densities, property taxes may not actually be enough to pay for the infrastructure that residents think they deserve. This results in places like Ferguson trying to make up the gap with policing revenue. At higher densities (not 40 storey towers, just more than single houses on 1 acre lots) property tax revenue will pay for the infrastructure (streets, sewers, storm drains, fresh water, fire service, police service, street cleaning, clearing) and leave enough left over for community centres, libraries, etc. Basically you end up with people living at rural farm like densities, expecting rural farm like taxes, but city centre services. The math does not work.\n\n- the winding style layouts maximize car convenience but basically make it impossible to walk anywhere useful. Rather than allowing you to use the freedom an automobile gives you, you are locked into dependence. In a denser grid system, you could decide to walk/bike/bus/drive to any given task. In a winding suburban layout, your only possible choice is to drive.\n\n- the leaf network concentrates massive congestion on collectors and freeways, requiring yet more expensive infrastructure, and yet more land taken away from the tax base (businesses and homes pay property tax, roads do not)\n\n\nAt the end of the day, the \"cause\" is municipalities not doing the math and understanding what types of development pay the bills and which do not.\n\nThere is change on the horizon, check out _URL_1_ or _URL_0_"
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76c8t5 | if cancer is due to damages dna, how do children, with newer dna, get cancer so often? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76c8t5/eli5_if_cancer_is_due_to_damages_dna_how_do/ | {
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"How new the DNA is isn't an indicator of how undamaged it is.\n\nIf the DNA started damaged, it could result in cancer immediately.\n\nThe process of generating DNA for offspring is not perfect and mutation and other DNA-copying mechanism errors can cause problems in new DNA. ",
"Children can be created with damaged DNA from their parents, as gametes (sperm and egg) pull their DNA from the parent, which may have mutated locally.\n\nIn fact, such mutations causing the fetus to be non-viable can trigger the female's body to spontaneously abort the pretnancy, commonly known a miscarriage.",
"Each time a cell divides into two cells, there is a tiny chance of an error in the DNA copying. Since children are growing rapidly, cell division is happening billions and billions of times. \n\nIt usually works fine, but occasionally a terrible error occurs, leading to cancer.",
"1) Cancer is an accumulation of a series of random mutations, some of which can be passed down. So one child may need 5 mutations and another need 20.\n\n2) There is no set rate at which these mutations happen - one child may get all 20 by the age of five and another child may randomly not get 5 by the time they die of old age at age 80.\n\n3) Children don't get cancer so often. It's very rare compared to adults, and MOST 70 year olds have multiple tumors. But of course it's more heartbreaking when a kid dies so you see it in the news a lot more so you think it's more common than it is.",
"They don't, not really, you just hear about it more often.\n\nYou don't see tearful news stories and fundraising campaigns for 58-year-old men with prostate cancer. The [rate of cancer](_URL_0_) is far lower than that of adults.",
"They don't. Childhood cancer rate is 1 in 330. The population as a whole has a cancer rate of 1 in 220. "
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2gsr9l | how big is the difference from real life, to looking in a mirror? | Hey Reddit. I'm a teenage boy, so I care about my looks a lot. Especially since I have 'crazy' hair, meaning a unique hair style, which is basically spiky hair, moved to the side, and then I unfortunately have a (cow lick?) thingy. I can set my hair so I look great in the mirror, but when I take pictures of myself, not using the selfie mode thingy, because that's the same as the mirror (reversed) I find my hair looking horrible, and overall I look worse than in the mirror.
My question: How big is the difference from looking at yourself in the mirror, to how people truly see you? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gsr9l/eli5_how_big_is_the_difference_from_real_life_to/ | {
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"Because you look yourself in the mirror so often (probably every day for years) that your brain just begins to perfect the image you see. And because of that delusion, every time the lighting is different, you think you look different, but you don't really. Also, the image is reversed (mirrored) so there is a big difference right there."
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c31wpx | why sitting is more relaxing and comfortable than standing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c31wpx/eli5_why_sitting_is_more_relaxing_and_comfortable/ | {
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"Because your weight is more dispersed evenly while you are sitting than all of it just on your feet as if you were standing.",
"Standing requires balance, which is a constant sense requiring the shifting of muscles so we don't fall over. This is why leaning on something while standing is easier than standing. While we're good at maintaining balance, it's something that isn't necessary while sitting."
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3oxkvg | if your wife/girlfriend cheated on you with your identical twin brother and conceived, could you prove the child wasn't yours? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oxkvg/eli5_if_your_wifegirlfriend_cheated_on_you_with/ | {
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"There can be small single point mutation differences between identical twins. These don't show up on regular paternity tests but more specific laboratory testing can show these differerences.",
"The basic paternity test will show either twin as a father. More specific DNA testing would reveal one twin with a higher DNA match.",
"Yes, identical twins have small changes in DNA. Their DNA is not completely the same, but it the same for almost everything. IIRC they would have to check other genetic markers than usual in this case. If someone feels like googling cases I'm almost 100% this has happened before. ",
"There can be tiny genetic differences between twins which would require extremely detailed analysis to find. Standard paternity testing isn't anywhere near this detailed. In fact, sometimes the tests have problems differentiating between non-twin brothers and other close family relations (father/son, uncle/nephew, maybe first cousins). This isn't a problem most of the time because the list of potential fathers *usually* doesn't include \"all four Smith brothers and their cousin Carl.\"",
"As a biologist, it's completely impossible to know bc of meiosis and crossing over. Even if the baby were to be conceived with the husband twin, the brother twin could still have more DNA in common in with baby",
"Biology researcher here. There will definitely be point differences here and there in the genome. More significantly, in some regions in the genome, there will be differences in the copy number of a whole specific gene. For example, twin A has 2 copies of Gene X (which is usually the case) but twin B may have 4. Could be due to some random amplification processes.[Source](_URL_0_)",
"As others have stated, there will be small differences between each twin, similar to the differences that are exploited by DNA tests. However, because these differences will be specific to these two people, you will need to sequence the entire genomes of each twin and the kid to find these differences. When you see the full genome sequence, it will be obvious who's the parent. It has been hypothesized (and data is now coming out) that there are about 100 new DNA changes in each child that are not there from either parent. Depending on when these changes occur, it may be every cell in a twin has such a change, and if it occurs later in development only a fraction of the cells in a twins body will have that change. \n\nThe error rate is about 1 in 50 million bases, or letters, of DNA. Pretty amazingly accurate if you're writing a novel with 50 million letters and experience only one letter mis-typed...\n\n",
"Why would you want to?",
"I'm not messing around here, I am a male identical twin and I have always thought that my son looks like my twin brother.",
"[There was a case like this](_URL_1_) 8 years ago. At the time, standard DNA tests were not sufficient to tell who was the father.\n\nApparently, though, [within the past few years it's become possible](_URL_3_), albeit for a hefty (but not unfeasible) sum. I guess those forensic scientists from the first article didn't know what they were talking about.\n\nEDIT: [Another article](_URL_0_) (sorry it's Fox, that's just what Google turned up). As a matter of fact, all you have to do is google \"Identical twins paternity test\" and you'll get tons of relevant pages.\n\nEDIT2: [And a scientific paper about the process](_URL_2_)."
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"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1872497313002275",
"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/identical-twin-paternity-test"
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3xrne3 | how will planting a wall of trees across africa stop the spread of the sahara desert? | To me it seems like climate is the deciding factor. Will simply planting a wall of trees stop such a huge phenomenon? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xrne3/eli5_how_will_planting_a_wall_of_trees_across/ | {
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"One thing that can lead to desertification is the loss of plant roots that hold soil in place and make it better at retaining moisture. Part of the hope is that the trees will help hold and enrich the soil while also providing some measure of wind break to decrease the extent to which to soil is stripped away."
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5tflsl | what keeps antarctic penguins from having frostbitten feet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tflsl/eli5what_keeps_antarctic_penguins_from_having/ | {
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"Bunch of things.\n\nFor general heat conservation:\n\n* Huddling in groups with a constant rotation from outer towards inner and back [Youtube Link](_URL_0_)\n* Thick, tightly overlapping down feathers\n* Good general body design to minimize surface area exposed\n* Thick blubber\n\nFor feet specifically:\n\n* the ability to dilate vessels and control flow\n* very little, if any, muscle in the feet. Movement is controlled by tendons which attach to muscles located deeper in the warm areas of the body [Penguin skeleton](_URL_2_) - from u/Wolfy21_\n\n* keeping them tucked under their warmer skin\n\n* counter-current heat exchange: veins and arteries are organized closely together in a way that allows the blood leaving the warm heart to run near the colder blood from the feet before it actually reaches the feet. Benefit is that it warms the colder blood before it reaches the main body and the warm blood loses its initial heat to other blood instead of ice/air. [image](_URL_1_), credit to u/wildflower8872 from a similar thread years ago\n\n",
"[Counter current heat exchange](_URL_0_) is the primary factor for a lot of animals in arctic climates. Essentially, it allows them to retain their core body temperatures by \"allowing\" their extremities to be more cold than the rest of their body. \n \nFrostbite in general happens as a result of the body restricting vessels in very cold extremities to maintain its core temperature, instead of allowing the cold blood to recirculate. Penguins, arctic foxes, and others don't have this issue, because they have counter current exchange systems in place, in which the returning blood is re-warmed by the oxygenated blood. ",
"Surprised this hasn't been mentioned. In the cells of their feet, the phospholipid bilayer has a higher concentration of unsaturated fats than saturated. This causes the cells to have a lower freezing temperature. There are of course other factors, but they have already been mentioned so far in this thread",
"Been addressed already, but good to draw attention to it. Counter current multipliers! Veins and arteries are so close that the warm blood rushing to the feet warms the blood coming back through the veins!",
"Same Question / How Come Deer Feet Don't Freeze when the stand for days in the snow & ice ?",
" > A seagull does not freeze, even while standing on ice. How does this creature conserve its body heat? Part of the secret is in a fascinating design feature found in a number of animals that dwell in cold regions. It is called the countercurrent heat exchanger.\n\n > The countercurrent heat exchanger in a seagull’s legs enable it to stand on ice\nHeat transfers, remains in the body. Cold stays in the feet\nWhat is a countercurrent heat exchanger? To understand it, picture two water pipes strapped closely together. Hot water flows in one pipe, and cold, in the other. If both the hot water and the cold water flow down the pipes in the same direction, about half of the heat from the hot water will transfer to the cold. However, if the hot water and the cold water flow in opposite directions, nearly all the heat will transfer from the hot water to the cold.\n\n > When a seagull stands on ice, the heat exchangers in its legs warm the blood as it returns from the bird’s cold feet. The heat exchangers conserve heat in the bird’s body and prevent heat loss from its feet. Arthur P. Fraas, a mechanical and aeronautical engineer, described this design as “one of the world’s most effective regenerative heat exchangers.”13 This design is so ingenious that human engineers have copied it.\n\n_URL_0_[search_id]=e20a0380-1733-45e4-8b03-8141eb55d704 & insight[search_result_index]=0",
"For everyone saying counter-current heat exchange, that actually makes their feet colder than they otherwise would be. That is the mechanism to prevent hypothermia, not frostbite. Frostbite is prevented by simply having high-enough temperature blood to provide to their feet, and by their feet being made up of flesh that doesn't require being very warm, like dead skin, bones and tendons.",
"Your blood, other than the obvious, is used by warm blooded animals as a central heating system. Penguins are really good at using the thermostat to save energy. \n\nThey also have a system that warms up the cold blood coming from the feet, and also cooling the warmer blood going to the feet.\n\nBasically, penguins are good at keeping their feet *just* warm enough not to get frost bitten, but cold enough so they're not wasting energy through them. ",
"Countercurrent exchange of warm thoracic blood with returning cold venous blood. As the warm blood from the thorax moves towards the feet, it is in close proximity to the venous blood that is cold and returning to the body. The heat from the warm arteries flowing down heats up the venous blood so that the returning blood is now slightly warmer. ",
"The circulatory system of a penguin’s legs and feet has evolved to lose as little heat as possible, while keeping the penguin’s feet just above freezing. One way a penguin’s feet hold onto heat is by restricting the flow of blood in really cold weather. Actually, humans can do this too. That’s why your hands turn whiter in cold weather, there’s less blood in them.\n\nAlso, the tops of penguins’ legs work like a kind of natural heat-exchanger, cooling the blood from their bodies on the way to their feet, and heating the blood as it returns to their bodies. The arteries and veins here become very fine and interwoven. That way the feet only get pre-cooled blood, so there’s less heat to lose.\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"As far as withstanding colder temperatures:\n\nWhen ambient temperature declines, penguins release a solute into their bloodstream which will act like an antifreeze that buffers temperature changes by preventing ice crystal formation of the water molecules.\n\nThe compound is released from the liver and is glucose! Glucose is not a strong electrolyte and therefore doesn't cause generation of a large osmotic pressure that would cause shriveling of cells (crenation) but does effectively interact with the water molecules in the blood, preventing them from forming ice. \n\nTL;DR: Sugary blood acts like antifreeze. ",
"Let me tell you a little story that I learned in nursing school.\n\nI actually asked one of my nursing professors this question too, in a joking fashion because I told him I've always wondered about it since I was a kid, and why penguins didn't melt through the ice.\n\nHe went on to tell me an amazing explanation as to why a penguin's foot is like a human testicle. In human biology the testicles sit outside of the body so that sperm can be produced because at a internal temperature of 98.6 degrees they cannot produce sperm. However sitting outside the body exposure to colder air can also decrease the Bloods temperature enough that when entering back into the body it could cause a person to go into shock. So in the human testicle there exists a cross current system where the artery coming out of the body into the testicles passes by the vein that returns back in thus cooling the internal hot arterial blood when it comes out, and warming back up the cold venous blood when it goes back into the body.\n\nThe same exact cross-current system exists in a penguin's foot so that the arterial blpod can be cooled down to a temperature that the feet can not melt through the ice and then warmed back up on its way in so it doesn't cause Penguins to go into shock.\n\nAnd that my friends is why a penguin's foot is like a testicle. ",
"You might enjoy the book \"Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze?\" I bought it and thought it'd never come in handy, so here's my chance to shine!\n\nPart of the answer has a biochemical explantation.\nA binding of oxygen to haemoglobin is normally a strongly exothermic reaction: an amount of heat (DH) is released as the molecules attach. The same amount of heat is usually absorbed in the reverse reaction. However, as oxygenation and deoxygenation occur in different parts of the organism, changes in molecular environment (e.g.: acidity) can result in heat loss or heat gain in the process.\nWith regards to cold peripheral tissues like the feet, DH is much smaller than humans. This has 2 benefits. Heat is absorbed by the birds' haemoglobin when it's deoxygenated. The second is a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics. In any reversible reaction (e.g.: absorb/release of oxygen by haemoglobin) a low temperature encourages the reaction in the exothermic direction. So at low temps, oxygen is absorbed more strongly by most species' haemoglobin, and released less easily. A modest DH means that in cold tissue the oxygen affinity of haemoglobin doesn't become so high that the oxygen cannot disassociate.\n\n2 mechanisms are at work; penguins can control the rate of blood flow to the feet by varying the diameter of arterial vessels supplying the blood. They also have 'counter-current exchangers' at the top of the legs. Heat flows from warm to cold blood, so little of it is carried down to the feet.\nIn winter, their feet are held a degree or two above freezing - to minimise heat loss, whilst avoiding frostbite. (Ducks & geese are similar, but if held indoors for weeks in warm conditions and then released, their feet may freeze, because their physiology has adapted to warmth which causes blood flow to be virtually cut off and their foot temp falls below freezing)\n\nTldr; they've adapted to the cold and can lessen blood supply to the feet. They also hold their feet at a steady temp, a degree or two above freezing.\nLess heat is absorbed by the birds haemoglobin when it's deoxygenated. The low temperatures encourage an even more exothermic reaction.",
"The skin of animals that is in contact with the cold has a greater concentration of sphingolipids in the cell membranes. Sphingolipids maintain a fluid state at a colder temperature than phospholipids, which are common in the rest of the body. It is sort of the difference between vegetable oil and coconut oil. Since the vegetable oil stays fluid at a colder temperature, the cell membrane functions normally, and the cell does not die. "
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL7O5O7U4Gs&feature=youtu.be&t=159",
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5go27o | why are children age 10-14 more active in the morning than children age 15-18? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5go27o/eli5_why_are_children_age_1014_more_active_in_the/ | {
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"one hypothesis is that in our early days we always had to have someone looking out for predators or hostile tribes. someone had to take the night shift, but the adults had to be up early to get ready for the day's work, and kids who are still dependant on their parents would be up at the same time\n\nbut teens were less dependant, and not yet ready for much of the daily work, so they got to do night shift. and over time, they adapted to being up all night and sleeping late\n\nof course, that's just one possible reason"
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166kzc | what are the basic differences between the fbi and the cia | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/166kzc/eli5_what_are_the_basic_differences_between_the/ | {
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"The biggest difference is that the CIA is not allowed to operate in the USA.",
"The CIA is responsible for gathering intelligence on other countries. New dictator in power in the Middle East? The CIA are the ones rifling through his sock drawer looking for his secret plans for world domination. Unless they're the ones who put him in power. Sometimes that's how they roll.\n\nThe FBI is a domestic law enforcement agency. If you're selling crack to kids, the FBI are the ones who are going to lock you up.",
"The FBI is for domestic affairs, I believe they were actually created for the purpose of being able to cross state jurisdictions in the US but I might be totally wrong. \n\nThe CIA has the job of gather intelligence on things happening all across the globe, think NSA but for the whole world. ",
"The FBI is responsible for law enforcement of federal laws within the United States. They do not enforce local laws, that task is conducted by local authorities. \n\nThe CIA is not a law enforcement organization. Basically they are spies. They are an intelligence operation, and are responsible for all sorts of things from overseas that affect U.S. national security. They are prohibited by law from operating within the U.S..\n\nLets assume some bad guys oversea decide that they want to harm America.The CIA's informants will tell them about this. The CIA will then arrange to intercept all their communications, bug their homes and businesses, etc. Then they call up Obama, and he calls a drone down on their ass.\n\nIn doing this though, they learn that there are some people in the U.S. who were helping the plotters. So the CIA lets the FBI know, and the FBI then sets up a sting and capture the bad guys on U.S. soil. \n\nIt's far more complex than this, but that shows how their responsibilities are divided in that kind of a case. \n"
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2cba7d | i was browsing a certain famous redditors new account, and his karma is over 5000 (comment). all comments are in the negative, how can he have positive comment karma? | Here is the search for his top comments. _URL_0_
Thanks for any answers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cba7d/eli5i_was_browsing_a_certain_famous_redditors_new/ | {
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"I'm with yah dude. This karma thing is beyond me. I mean I post such good comments and I'm karmaless.",
"I don't think you get karma for a selfpotmst"
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40u25h | how two gases can become a liquid? | Please simply explain to me how/why H2O is a liquid. I can't seem to wrap my head around how two gases can bond together and become liquid. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40u25h/eli5how_two_gases_can_become_a_liquid/ | {
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"Its not two gasses its two elements. Hydrogen and Oxygen arent always gas. They can be solid and liquid too.\n\nThere is water gas and water solid. Just like there is Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.\n\nWhen the two combine though some properties change that just ~~lower~~ raises (nice catch /u/omega_molecule) the boiling point by a lot so that it happens to be liquid at room temperature.",
"H2O is not H2 and O2 mixed. Burning H2 in an oxygen atmosphere produces H2O, a chemical compound. The H2O chemical compound is a gas, a liquid or a solid depending only on it's temperature.",
"Compounds usually don't share the properties of their component elements.\n\nHere's a social analogy: suppose we've got a friend. Her name is Olive, and she's a really, really needy kind of person. She'll quickly attach herself to anyone who comes along while she's alone because she really, really wants to 'bond'. \n\nNow, suppose Olive meets someone who likes taking in and supporting such people - let's call her Maggie. Maggie and Olive fit together very well, and now Olive feels no need to run off and attach herself to others because she has a comfortable place to be. By the same token, Maggie isn't looking for someone to support and care for anymore. In other words, Maggie and Olive have *bonded*, and that bonding has changed their properties as far as how they interact with other people.\n\nIn this analogy, Olive is oxygen and Maggie is magnesium. By themselves, both are quite reactive elements: oxygen will burn most stuff and react even with things it won't outright burn, and magnesium is a metal used in firestarters! But once they combine into magnesium oxide (MgO), they result in a fluffy white powder that is neither reactive nor flammable.\n\nIn fact, this hits on an interesting pattern: compounds often have properties _actively opposite_ their component elements. Olive is so strongly attached to Maggie precisely *because* she's needy, for example. In chemical terms, the most reactive elements (like oxygen and fluorine) usually form extremely stable compounds (like water or Teflon)."
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2glpjs | what makes something an allergen, and other things impossible to be allergic to. | I read that you can't be allergic to cigarette smoke because it isn't an allergen, however some people do show allergy like symptoms to it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2glpjs/eli5_what_makes_something_an_allergen_and_other/ | {
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"An allergen is any foreign particle/molecule that induces a hypersensitivity, (allergic response is type 1). Basically what is happening is your body's adaptive immune system specifically the IgE antibodies are noticing the allergen and activating a special cell (mast cell) that holds histamine to release it's contents. This Histamine is a potent vasodilator which increases blood flow to the region thus bringing more IgE antibodies that activate more mast cells etc. TLDR, allergens can be anything that illicits a type 1 hypersensitivity. ",
"I was told by my allergist that cigarette smoke is an irritant, not an allergen"
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2z8fo4 | why i can go from extremely confident to a nervous wreck depending on the situation i'm in? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z8fo4/eli5_why_i_can_go_from_extremely_confident_to_a/ | {
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"Neurotransmitters. Different situations cause your brain (and endocrine system) to produce mood altering chemicals. These chemicals are well suited to inspiring us to life saving actions in the state of nature, but in the state of society, we are paralyzed by our social conditioning. Basically your body says \"Danger! Run!\" And your mind says \"No that would be weird.\""
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2r0udb | so i'm watching thunderball and bond whips out an underwater flare, what i'm asking is how the flare works underwater? | all in the title:)
EDIT: thanks everyone:) idk who's downvoting you all but it's not me:S | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r0udb/eli5_so_im_watching_thunderball_and_bond_whips/ | {
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"Combustion relies on having a fuel and an oxidising agent. Most fires simply draw oxygen from the atmosphere. However, you can also provide the oxidant in other chemical forms - a perfect example is rockets, which provide both the fuel and oxidiser for the rocket to fire (there's no way the atmosphere could supply enough oxygen quick enough). As a result, these rockets work consistently at any altitude. The same principal applies to underwater flares.",
"Flares have both fuel and an oxidizer in them. The fuel is pretty self explanatory but the oxidizer is a chemical (typically solid at room temperature for flares) where the molecular structure contains lots of oxygen atoms. When it's heated up the molecule breaks apart and the free oxygen atoms can be used to support a fire.\n\nFlares burn brilliantly in the air despite using something like charcoal for fuel because they have access to all this extra oxygen, and as a side effect they will frequently work quite well even under water. \n\nAs /u/OrbitalPete explained it's the same basic principle that allows a rocket to work as well."
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2fbsva | what's the difference between spanish accents/speech in different spanish-speaking countries? | English is really different depending on what region/country you're from, and has different accents, speech patterns, etc. Does Spanish have an equivalent, and how big of a difference is there between Spain and different Latin American countries? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fbsva/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_spanish/ | {
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"Native Spanish speaker here. Oh, yes it does. Probably more diverse than English. Not just the accent, but deep differences. In English, certain words are spelled differently in different countries, and some words have different meanings, you have regionalisms and slang, etc. In Spanish, sometimes the entire verbal structure changes. For example, in Argentina (where I live) and Uruguay, and to a lesser extent some parts of Bolivia and Paraguay, we use \"voceo\". For example, in Spain you would say \"Tu dices\", but in Argentina you say \"Vos decis\". And since in Spanish, verbal conjugation is enormously complex, that simple voice change modifies every single verb afterwards, and where the accent goes. Sometimes it's only pronounced, some other times also written. So, \"Tu debes\" becomes \"Vos debés\". If you introduce slang (which is extensively used in Spanish), it gets even weirder. In Spain, \"Esta mina tiene una concha enorme\" translates to \"This mine has an enormous seashell\", but in most parts of South America it translates to \"This woman has an enormous vagina (Or, trying to translate the slang, This gal has an enormous cunt). In Mexico, They say \"Chinga tu madre\", which means absolutely nothing in Argentina. In Argentina we use \"Che\" (Kinda like Hey) (That's where the nickname of Ernesto Guevara comes from), but it's hardly used outside Argentina or Uruguay. ",
"Even within Spain there is a huge variety of accents. I'm convinced nobody actually understands anyone from Murcia, we all just smile and nod."
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3q7epx | why are there health warning labels on cigarettes and not mcdonalds, soft-drinks, processed meat, or on the side of supercars and bikes? | Don't they all cause health problems such as death, depending on HOW much and how irresponsible you use them? Now that the WHO has said processed meat causes as much cancer as cigarettes and might consider health labels but it felt like our Earth had a king and we pissed him off so bad that he's picked only on cigarettes to bully for the past few decades.
Are we living in a hypocritical world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q7epx/eli5_why_are_there_health_warning_labels_on/ | {
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"McDonalds, soft-drinks, and processed meat provide calories, which humans need to survive. They make it easy to eat too much, but there are circumstances where they can help someone too. Cars and bikes can be used for dangerous things, but they also provide vital transportation for people. \n\nOn the other hand, there is no benefit to smoking cigarettes whatsoever. They deliver deadly molecules directly to the lungs, and offer no benefit unless you are already addicted to them. Then they only temporarily satisfy your addiction until the craving comes back even worse.",
"EVERYTHING CAUSES DEATH!\n\nThis is true, but only in the case of abusing things that were designed or needed for a purpose.\n\nCigarettes and smoking serves 0 purpose in our bodies other than to be ingested, but it comes with the added carcinogens and toxins that will only kill you.\n\nFood, drink, and other items that your bodies need to survive, may have adverse reactions based on content, amount consumed or manner in which they are used, but inherently, if used or consumed correctly do not pose a significant long term effect or risk, on your body.\n\nSmoking however, still does. Even drinking alcohol, which is one of the oldest \"vices\" on earth is better for you and has numerous health benefits than smoking, which has none.",
"Cigarettes are in a unique category because back in the 30s and 40s people actually thought they were good for you. There has been a back lash against them ever since we found out otherwise. Truth is that just about everything kills you. "
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3oz1ru | why do people still call it isis, even though they changed name to islamic state long time ago? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oz1ru/eli5_why_do_people_still_call_it_isis_even_though/ | {
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"Because they did not change the name. Islamic State is a shortening of the name just like ISIS is a acronym. ",
"ISIS stands for:\n\nIslamic\nState\nIraq\nSyria\n\nSo all together it's The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria",
"Earlier on it was ISIS as Iraq and Syria were the main countries it had control in. It then became ISIL (Iraq and thr Levant). Now they're trying to push IS, Islamic State, to make them like more of an actual state as opposed to just some controlled fragments of other countries. \n\nUse ISIS as much as possible, and not IS.\n\nSource: other eli5s",
"It's because people are reluctant to actually grant them the title The Islamic State, because that implies more legitimacy and more ties to mainstream Islam than actually is the case.\n\nNPR actually uses the phrase, \"the self-proclaimed Islamic State\" to get around this issue"
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nera0 | what is fuzzing and why does reddit use it to distort the upvote and downvote counter? | I've heard that the number of upvotes and downvotes on a post does not actually reflect the actual number of upvotes and downvotes. I've herard people call this fuzzing. What is it and why does reddit do it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nera0/eli5_what_is_fuzzing_and_why_does_reddit_use_it/ | {
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"Some people who want e-peen and attention will set up a few fake bot accounts, or sometimes a small army of bots, to automatically upvote their posts or downvote the posts of others. When reddit detects that this is happening (I'm not sure how they do this, but probably by keeping track of who upvotes who and noticing that account X has upvoted all of account Y's posts in the past month) they don't just delete the account, they remove it's ability to upvote.\n\nNow vote fuzzing is a process whereby the upvotes (or downvotes) on a post will fluctuate by a certain amount on each page refresh from the actual number of votes. The amount of possibly fluctuation is probably determined by a percentage of the actual votes, but I don't know what that percentage is. Let's assume it's 10% though. So if your post actually has 100 upvotes, you could refresh the page and see that is has 92, or 105, or 110, etc.\n\nNow the vote fuzzing is done so that people using alt accounts to vote on stuff won't actually know if their account is working or not, ideally wasting the time spent maintaining false accounts and upvoting stuff with them. If these accounts were just instantly banned instead, the dishonest individuals would know immediately and simply stop using that account, and perhaps make another. Basically it wastes the time of people using false accounts by disguising the banned status of the account.\n\nSteam (an online gaming service) does a similar thing with VAC (valve anti-cheat) bans, -they are exacted an arbitrary time after the in-game cheating/hacking actually occurs. This period can be as long as two weeks I believe. So basically when testing newly created hacks and scripts, hackers won't know if they slipped by the VAC hack detectors or not until some time after the testing. Basically this slows the progress of a hacker because they can't buy another copy of the game and test their (modified) hack again to see if it goes undetected this time. They have to wait ages in order to see if the account actually gets banned or the hack worked okay.\n\nBasically, in both cases it creates a massive hassle for those who break the rules because they don't know if they actually got away with it and thus their time is wasted trying to check.",
"Some people who want e-peen and attention will set up a few fake bot accounts, or sometimes a small army of bots, to automatically upvote their posts or downvote the posts of others. When reddit detects that this is happening (I'm not sure how they do this, but probably by keeping track of who upvotes who and noticing that account X has upvoted all of account Y's posts in the past month) they don't just delete the account, they remove it's ability to upvote.\n\nNow vote fuzzing is a process whereby the upvotes (or downvotes) on a post will fluctuate by a certain amount on each page refresh from the actual number of votes. The amount of possibly fluctuation is probably determined by a percentage of the actual votes, but I don't know what that percentage is. Let's assume it's 10% though. So if your post actually has 100 upvotes, you could refresh the page and see that is has 92, or 105, or 110, etc.\n\nNow the vote fuzzing is done so that people using alt accounts to vote on stuff won't actually know if their account is working or not, ideally wasting the time spent maintaining false accounts and upvoting stuff with them. If these accounts were just instantly banned instead, the dishonest individuals would know immediately and simply stop using that account, and perhaps make another. Basically it wastes the time of people using false accounts by disguising the banned status of the account.\n\nSteam (an online gaming service) does a similar thing with VAC (valve anti-cheat) bans, -they are exacted an arbitrary time after the in-game cheating/hacking actually occurs. This period can be as long as two weeks I believe. So basically when testing newly created hacks and scripts, hackers won't know if they slipped by the VAC hack detectors or not until some time after the testing. Basically this slows the progress of a hacker because they can't buy another copy of the game and test their (modified) hack again to see if it goes undetected this time. They have to wait ages in order to see if the account actually gets banned or the hack worked okay.\n\nBasically, in both cases it creates a massive hassle for those who break the rules because they don't know if they actually got away with it and thus their time is wasted trying to check."
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4t72ta | how is scientists or artists creating a new shade of color different than a computer putting out a color using red, green, and blue ratios? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4t72ta/eli5_how_is_scientists_or_artists_creating_a_new/ | {
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"I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from, here, but I'll take a stab.\n\nUltimately, no one is creating new shades of color, because \"color\" is just our perception of varying wavelengths of light. All of them already exist.\n\nOne thing that's been in the news somewhat lately is Apple's push to have monitors and supporting software in a new, broader \"color space\". The color space is the range of possible colors that the monitor is capable of displaying.\n\nWhile just about any monitor you use today uses a space called \"sRGB\", that space doesn't include every color your eyes are capable of seeing. This is partly because of technical constraints (how well the brightness at a specific point can be controlled, which shades are used for \"pure\" red/green/blue), and partly because the way we describe colors doesn't have perfect accuracy. A website might describe shades by using a scale of 0-255 for each component color, which leaves it incapable of describing the shade that would fall at 32.333 red, 24 green, and 123.456 blue on those scales.\n\nI believe Apple's solution is to move the endpoints of the color space further out, while leaving the *precision* the same. In other words, changing the colors they use as zeroes on the scales, but still using a scale of 256 steps for each. That would let them cover a broader range of colors, at the loss of some of the shades in between.",
"I think you might be talking about an announcement in the last few weeks that 'they' had created a new shade of blue. Is that correct?\n\nThey didn't.\n\nThey *did*, however, create a new advertisement for a particular shade of blue that they didn't have in their inventory before.\n\nNobody created anything new except an advertising agency. They created something new.",
"These scientists did not create a shade of blue. They simply found a dye material that reflects more wavelengths of blue towards your eyes. \n\nThe way that dyes and computer screens work is very similar. There's a lot to know but i'll try to break it down into easy-to-understand parts so you understand the basics. Let me explain.\n\nIf you combine all of the visible light spectrum what you see is white.\n\nObjects have color because they reflect certain wavelengths of color to your eyes (the color that you see) and absorb the remaining wavelengths of light.\n\nIf white light (from a lamp, the sun, etc) shines onto a red object, it will reflect the red wavelengths of light back to your eyes and absorb the rest of the wavelengths of light (e.g. blue, green). (digressing just a bit, the absorbed wavelengths get converted into heat, which is why it's bad to wear black on a hot sunny day).\n\nOn a computer screen it works very similar. Except the light source (called the backlight) is *behind* the screen. The computer screen is divided into a grid-like pattern of 'pixels' and each pixel is further divided into 3 'sub pixels', the sub pixels are light filters for the colors red, green and blue. Similar to if you had stage lights with red, green and blue filters on em. When all of the pixels are 'open' they are letting red, green and blue wavelengths go towards your eyes, but because the subpixels are so tiny and close together all those colors are blurred together and you see white on the screen (as white is all wavelengths of colors combined). When the red and green subpixels are 'off' (blocking light) but the blue one is 'on' (allowing blue light through) then you see blue, when the red and green ones are 'on' (allowing light through) and the blue is off, you see yellow (because yellow is a combination of red and green light), etc.\n\nNow, in order to represent a wide range of color (such as light blue, navy blue, turquoise, aquamarine, etc) the subpixels need to be able to close part way instead of being fully 'on' or 'off' and the computer software needs to be able to tell the computer screen exactly how much to open and close each subpixel. To do that the idea of 'color space' is invented. Color space is a software feature that's understood by both the computer screen and the graphics chip inside your computer. If the graphics chip tells the computer screen to display the color 255,255,128 for a given pixel then the computer screen also has to understand that this means to open up the red and green subpixels fully and close the blue one half ways (which results in the color bright yellow).\n\nComputer screens can't display every color that you can possibly see due to the limitations of how the subpixels filter out color (some of it is always destroyed such as the deepest perceptible levels of blues, greens and violets), and because 255 channels of red, green and blue respectively cannot represent the entire range of human color vision.\n\nTheres quite a bit more to how computer color works but hopefully that gives you a basic idea!"
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3o2kfm | why doesn't blood leave a mark like a tattoo. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o2kfm/eli5_why_doesnt_blood_leave_a_mark_like_a_tattoo/ | {
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"You mean like when you get a bruise? It's because tattoos are composed of large chunks of material that your body has a very difficult time chipping away at whereas blood pooled underneath your skin is composed of tons of tiny diffuse parts with lots of surface area exposed, so it can be broken down and carted away very quickly."
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28a7pc | why does putting people in a medically induced coma keep their brain from swelling? | How does brain activity cause swelling? I wondered after reading this about Michael Schumacher.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28a7pc/eli5_why_does_putting_people_in_a_medically/ | {
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"Brain activity comes with blood flow to the brain.\n\nComa = less bloodflow to the brain = less swelling. So the theory goes."
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1pbfsd | how does the new infiniti q50 detect a car accident two cars ahead of itself? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pbfsd/eli5_how_does_the_new_infiniti_q50_detect_a_car/ | {
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"The only real answer I was able to find on this tech, which Nissan calls PFWC, for Predictive Forward Warning Collision, is that it uses a small radar aimed underneath the car directly ahead - the radar then picking up the car ahead of that one. Beyond that, details are pretty hard to find. ",
"There is a radar sensor beneath the grill. It measures the distance between the grill and the back of the car in front of you, in the lane you are in.\n\nIf it detects that you are too close, it will first activate audio/visual warnings, then push up the accelerator pedal, so you can't go faster. If/when the driver releases their foot, the car will activate braking mechanisms. If not, the car will activate emergency brakes, and activate louder/more annoying audio/visual alerts.\n\nSource: _URL_0_ Page 5-89"
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1r43fi | what exactly is meant by "the math breaks down" when talking about general relativity and quantum mechanics? | I've heard many physicist say this. The math between the two starts to break down and not make any sense. What exactly is meant by this? What parts of GR specifically break down?
This question stems from the recent String Theory post. I asked it in there and was advised to make a new post. Is this where string theory comes in? I've read that some of the math string theory has produced is remarkable. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r43fi/eli5_what_exactly_is_meant_by_the_math_breaks/ | {
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"When you do quantum mechanics in the obvious way, you get infinity as the answer to a lot of problems where the right answer isn't infinity. There are special tricks you can use to get around this normally, but the tricks stop working if you try to add in general relativity.",
"To add to what /u/Amarkov/ said, \"the math breaking down\" doesn't mean that the things that we're attempting to do calculations on are inherently \"non-calculable\" in general. It just means that the equations we've come up with to approximate the real world aren't completely right, and they can't be applied to these edge cases without resulting in clearly-wrong results.\n\nIf you want a more abstract example, imagine is someone tried to add `1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... + 1/n` before the idea of limits was conceived. They'd say \"We can't calculate that, because the math breaks down,\" but it's not because the problem is somehow beyond the ability to be calculated. In fact, now that we have better mathematical techniques, we know that the answer is simply 2.",
"The maths in general relativity works at the macro scale. The maths for quantum physics works at the quantum scale. The maths for both don't work when you switch them to the other. There seems to be a contradiction in reality that we haven't yet solved. ",
"Classical Gravitational relativity is nonrenormalizable. Physicists use a technique called normalization which essentially eliminates the infinities in the equations. Like taking an infinite series and discovering that it is convergent, to continue with this analogy a nonrenormlizable force (like Gravity) will be a non-convergent series. We know gravitation effects particles on the quantum scale (by indirect measurement), though according to classical gravitational relativity this should not happen. From a theoretical perspective this situation is not tenable, we cannot have two fundamentally inconsistent theories (Quantum Mechanics and Classical general relativity)."
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2k5sjx | in theory... if i dont sleep, but just keep my eyes closed for 8 hours, will it be the same as sleeping? | like just keeping eyes closed but not actually falling asleep.. what is the difference on the body? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k5sjx/eli5in_theory_if_i_dont_sleep_but_just_keep_my/ | {
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"Not the same at all. The difference is your brain would never go through the sleep cycle your body needs",
"You need a normal sleep cycle, or it has effects on memory, thinking, and even your eating cycles. I have narcolepsy, which is a disruption of this cycle, and I have have these problems. You don't want to go there."
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2a9nw0 | how does communism work? does everyone get the same share of national revenue, regardless of profession? what about those in the sciences, politics, business, and other "highly paid" professions? | I was just wondering if communism refers to the relatively equal money that everyone gets or the high rate of taxation and government-funded programs a nation might have. Really don't know much about it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2a9nw0/eli5_how_does_communism_work_does_everyone_get/ | {
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"There are so many forms and interpretations of communism that this is hard to answer. But, if we look at the classic \"academic communism\" based on marx then, no...if well done there should be no social class. Since all people are doing are things that benefit society, differentiating the value of one brink in the wall from another is impossible. It's only our capitalism that equates the \"value\" of medicine with money and resultant social class, to the communist the job that isn't needed is the job that isn't done and other jobs are bricks in societies wall. In it's ideal, money doesn't exist.\n\nIn practice, no country got to \"communism\" they were all communistic in government structure (or tried to be) and socialist (a gateway economic structure) in economic organization."
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1i4217 | why can't you use gravity and buoyancy to create perpetual motion? | I would say I probably know less than the basics of physics. But why couldn't you run a dry shaft deep under water to drop something heavy and buoyant into depths of water, have them released into water where they will float to the top to repeat the cycle. The items could be shaped to fit through a one-way opening to allow for safe passage from the dry shaft to the water. The item could be pulled with magnets?
This what equates to about an 8th grade understanding. Could somebody point out the holes in this logic for me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i4217/eli5why_cant_you_use_gravity_and_buoyancy_to/ | {
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"you'd expend too much energy actually putting the object from the shaft into the water.\n\nlet's say that you've got a flap that is exactly the same shape as the object, so it can be pushed in with an airtight seal around it. however, you have to push the object against the water pressure. guess what? that energy you expend to push the object out through the opening against the water pressure is the same energy that you recover from it.\n\nso let's try an airlock. you've got one the exact size and shape of the object, no pushing required. you open the dry door, put the object in, and close it. then you open the wet door, and the object floats up. however, now you've got a box full of water. guess what? the energy it takes to pump out the water is the same energy you'll recover from the object floating up.",
"This is what I made up in my head based on your description.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nidontthinkitsgoingtowork.png",
"The basic reason why perpetual motion machines do not work, ignoring the setup you have (which other people explained) is that energy is never free. Energy is what does work, which is the (loosely defined, in this case) physics term for \"getting stuff done.\"\n\nFrom a very formal perspective, conservative potential fields cannot do work, because they are path-independent when integrated over the gradient.\n\nThat sounds really fancy, but it's actually pretty straightforward to translate to layman's terms. As you know from experience, if you lift something up and let it go, it will fall. We call the energy that it had from falling *potential energy*, because you gave it energy by lifting it up, and when you let it go, it converted the potential energy to kinetic (moving) energy.\n\nNow, it turns out that the math says that no matter which path you take in raising the ball, it'll have the same amount of energy. That makes sense intuitively. If you're lifting a ball, it doesn't matter if you zigzagged your hand while you lifted it, or if your friend picked up and threw it to you, whatever: it falls the same way when you let it go. Physicists call this \"path independence\": it doesn't matter *how* the ball got to point A, all that matters is that it somehow got there.\n\nNow, without going into the specifics of *why* it's the case (it involves a lot of calculus), what that \"path-independence\" means is that you can't \"trick\" gravity into generating energy for you. There's a billion ways to get a ball up into the air, but it *does not matter how you get it there*, because the ball has the same amount of energy no matter what method you used to get it where it is. There is no shortcut: the minimum amount of energy it takes to get the ball up into the air is the exact same amount of energy it will release by falling back down.\n\nYou can, in theory, make a machine that never stops moving, though friction and thermal loss will eventually stop it in practice. Even in theory, though, you can't make a machine that never stops moving *and* generates energy. It's simply not possible, as far as we understand physics."
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383e5m | if a store is on the corner of the street, how do they determine the address? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/383e5m/eli5if_a_store_is_on_the_corner_of_the_street_how/ | {
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"The address is given by the street the front door/main entrance faces, as a rule of thumb. Sometimes, especially for large complexes (malls, office buildings) the address is where the main entrance/driveway is, not where the front door faces. \n\nThink of it as the road you'd have to be on in order to access the building. Same rules apply for residential buildings. There are exceptions, especially in cases where roads/buildings/parking lots have been changed or don't comply with rules.",
"It depends on the local ordinances, which in the United States are usually set by the city. In Houston, Texas, the rule is that corner lots can take the address for whichever street their front faces or whichever street they have direct vehicular access to. However, you have to put your mailbox next to the driveway if you base it on the driveway or at the front of the building if you base it on that. In order to get the address, you submit the proposal to the Department of Planning and Development, which approves it. \n\nI've also heard of localities recognizing both addresses or basing it on street hierarchy (the building will always have the address of the largest street it is adjacent to.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is the Houston ordinance on numbering generally and [here](_URL_1_) is specific guidance that has a section on corner lots. \n\nAs a side note, when you buy property you typically use the legal description which comes from a survey, so there is no address. They look something like:\n\n > Lot Fifteen (15), Block Forty (40), PINEY OAKS SUBDIVISION, Harris County, Texas according to the map or plat thereof recorded in Volume 123, Page 456 of the records of Harris County.",
"My SO works for county government, and actually is one of the people that figures this kind of thing out (addressing for unincorporated parts of the county). This question came up in a conversation we had recently. Basically, the organization responsible for determining the address will have a policy in place; usually it will depend on where the front door is, as others have said. \n\nHowever, these policies can change and have weird little corner cases- I was told about a particular case where a homeowner paid to have a new driveway put in, on the other street of the corner lot. They moved the mailbox as part of this (technically doing this without coordinating with the postal service was against the rules). Only problem was, the house number was the same as another house on the other street. As a result, the house's address number (for the old street, street A) was now confused for the other house (with the same number, on street B- where both driveways now connected). It was a mess because the county couldn't go to the person who moved their driveway and renumber their house unless that homeowner asked for it. Policy was, once addressed, you don't change the address without a request from the property owner. Moving the mailbox (and confusing the postal service) is against the rules that the postal service has, and they could tell him to get his address changed, but the local postmaster wasn't interested in enforcing things. Meanwhile, the person who didn't move his driveway was complaining, since all his mail went to the wrong house, and the only thing the county could do is change his address- which considering he didn't cause the problem, was unfair."
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b9gv72 | whats the muller report and why is it so important? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b9gv72/eli5_whats_the_muller_report_and_why_is_it_so/ | {
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"Robert Mueller was charged with investigating whether the Trump Campaign to get him elected as President of the United States broke any laws in regards to illegal activities with Russia. While we know that Russia tried to interfere with the US election to get Trump elected, we don't know for a fact if Trump was actively working with Russia to get that done, or if Russia was doing it without his knowledge. During Mueller's investigation, several prominent members of Trump's election campaign were found to have had illegal actions with Russia, several of whom confessed guilty to the crimes. \n\n\nHe has completed his investigation and made a large report which was given to the US Attorney General, who was chosen by Donald Trump. The full report has not been released to the public, just a 4 page synopsis written by the US attorney general. It indicates that there isn't enough evidence to prove that President Trump was illegally involved with Russia during the campaign, and doesn't make a judgment about whether President Trump illegally used his authority to try and interfere with this investigation. \n\n\nAttorney General Barr, before being chosen for the position, wrote an essay stating that he felt the President of the United States can not be charged with crimes, something many people suspect is the reason why he got chosen. Likewise, Barr's son-in-law works for the Trump Administration. Many feel that Barr is too biased. \n\n\nMany members of Congress want the report released to the public, so that the American people can decide for themselves given the evidence. But... at first it appeared that Barr wouldn't let it be made public. Now it seems that Barr is having the White House censor the report, and that censored version is all that the public would see. If the report does have evidence of Trump doing bad things, then President Trump's team getting to remove those sections seems unfair to many. \n\n\ntl;dr - It's an investigation into President Trump, and may have information that makes him look bad or implies that he may have broken the law. ",
"There was an investigation into the potential collaboration of Russia and Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Many democrats considered this collaboration obvious, illegal, and likely to provide good rationale to overthrow Trump. Many republicans saw no collaboration, their interests were clearly aligned (neither wanted Hillary Clinton to be president) eliminating the need for collaboration.\n\nThe report contains information that's protected, like grand jury testimony. At 300+ pages, it's going to take a couple weeks to finish redacting it for release.\n\nJudging by the Barr summary (only 4 pages, so this is not much to go on), it seems to be more the republican's view than the democrats. As a result, the report's not very important. The republicans don't need a report to overthrow the president, they won, and the report doesn't seem to support the democrats hopes.",
"Basically there were questions raised during the 2016 Presidential election about whether or not a foreign government (specifically Russia) interfered with the U.S. Election through a campaign of spreading propaganda and misinformation to influence the result of the Election towards the election of Donald J. Trump. When evidence was found that, yes, there had been Russian Government agents actively trying to sway opinion against the Democratic candidate, the question became why. The most common theory was that Donald Trump had colluded with the Russian Government to increase his chances of being elected in exchange for favorable deals either once he held political office, or for personal business deals with his company. The Mueller report is the capstone of this investigation which details the final findings of the investigative team. Now the official statement is that it determined that there was no collusion, but many Americans feel that since the report itself has not been released publicly, that that official statement is not to be trusted (since the people saying \"It found nothing\" are the same people who said \"It will find nothing.\")"
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4gx7zz | what's the deal with domain .io? it seems that it getting more and more popular in recent years | a lot of website i regularly visit has migrated to .io. Is there any certain benefit using TLDs without any relation to the original country like .ly or .io? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gx7zz/eli5_whats_the_deal_with_domain_io_it_seems_that/ | {
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"\"IO\" meaning \"Input-Output\" is a commonly used term in programming and technology, and so the domain .io is often used for technology-related websites. It is especially popular for the personal websites of programmers, because .coms and .nets are mostly registered already -- you have zero chance of getting _URL_3_ but you might get _URL_2_. Likewise you might want to give some service or application you've made a simple catchy name, but all the .coms and .nets are registered, so you pick _URL_4_, _URL_1_, etc instead.\n\nThis is kind of like the domains .fm (supposed to be for the Federation of Micronesia but overwhelmingly used by music-related sites because it's reminiscent of FM radio), .ly (supposed to be Libya but popularly used like the English suffix '-ly' eg _URL_0_), and .tv (supposed to be for the nation of Tuvalu but popularly used by TV networks and video services)."
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414rkc | why are there sunken cities? | And will they someday be exposed again? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/414rkc/eli5_why_are_there_sunken_cities/ | {
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"There several major reasons why ancient cities can become \"sunk,\" including:\n\n-Sea levels have generally risen over time\n\n-Erosion shifts masses of land to lower elevations, closer to the ocean\n\n-Tectonic activity can displace land vertically\n\nTo answer your second question, yes. Tectonic activity can lift land masses back up again, and if sea levels were to start to fall, some sunken cities could be exposed again.",
"The earth changes quite a bit, it's just on a longer time span that what we observe in our daily lives.\n\nA sunken city may be the result of earth quakes etc.\n\nSometimes, it's the direct result of human choices and intervention. If there is a town in the bottom of a valley, and then we later decide that we need to build a dam and turn that valley into a lake, the town is not at the bottom of that lake. \n"
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4z2dum | how do company-owned shares worked? | My understanding is that 100% of a companies shares are owned by other people or entities that either founded or invested in the company - so how can a company actually own its own shares, buy them back, use them for acquisitions, etc?
Isn't it all traced back to who actually owns the shares? founders, investors, etc?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z2dum/eli5_how_do_companyowned_shares_worked/ | {
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"When a company purchases its own stock, it's called \"treasury stock\". The company does literally own a piece of itself. However, when a company buys its own stock, that means there is less stock outstanding. Outstanding stock is the amount of issued stock minus treasury stock.\n\nTreasury stock has no voting rights and don't get dividends. But the company can sell treasury stock if it needs an influx of cash."
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2eqsou | mass of the earth? | (Besides meteor impacts) Is the mass of the earth slowly increasing due to the growth of plants, trees, grass, etc? They are using the sun's energy to grow. And with that in mind Mars's mass has remained the same for as long as Mars has been "dead"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eqsou/eli5mass_of_the_earth/ | {
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" > Is the mass of the earth slowly increasing due to the growth of plants, trees, grass, etc?\n\nNo. All creatures, plants and animals, grow by taking in matter from the environment and using it to construct their bodies. Your entire body is made out of elements from food that you've eaten.\n\nFor plants, most of their mass comes from carbon in the carbon dioxide that they've taken in. Plants are, quite literally, made of air.\n\n > They are using the sun's energy to grow.\n\nThey are using the sun's energy to power the chemical reactions needed to move molecules from one place to another. The molecules themselves are where their mass comes from, and the molecules are just recycled betwen plants, animals, and the environment, over and over."
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2vzekr | if the muscles in my face are not autonomous, why is it so hard to stop myself from smiling/snickering in inappropriate situations? | Sometimes something funny pops into my mind when I should be serious or paying attention to something else, and I just can't control myself. I'm pretty sure it happens to everyone else too, so what is that about?
EDIT: Thanks for the explanations, some of them are a bit complicated, but I think I've grasped the idea.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vzekr/eli5_if_the_muscles_in_my_face_are_not_autonomous/ | {
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"Autonomous muscles =\\= autonomous reactions. True autonomous muscles are smooth or cardiac, controlled completely unconsciously. An autonomous reaction would be more akin to smiling reflexively. The brain has made a habit of doing so to essentially save processing power. Habitual reactions are controllable, but are really just a way the body can circumvent your conscious motor control. \n\nNone of the terms I used are technically correct and I might be wrong altogether. Paging /r/badscience\n",
"The muscles in your face are partly autonomous. Your brain can subconsciously send signals to your nervous system to flex certain muscles in your face, thus registering an emotion, and in turn you can flex those muscles consciously (tell your brain to send signals to your nervous system). Smiling can be the effect of dozens of emotions, so I'll use a simpler expression as an example. \n\nWhen you grimace,your brain is registering disgust at some external stimuli, and the muscles in your face flex in a particular way to express that emotion. You can fake a grimace (or a smile, or any other facial expression), but what you are ultimately doing is imitating the natural facial expression you would have when genuinely experiencing a reaction. \n\nHuman beings are social creatures, and a large part of the way we communicate is through body language (gestures, posture, facial expressions, etc.) Just like any other animal, we are conditioned through millions of years of social interaction to convey what we are thinking or feeling without the use of words, such as facial expressions. This has helped us communicate to each other in large groups, which was key for our survival as a species.\n\nOf course our body language does not always communicate what we would like it to. For example, smiling in a socially inappropriate situation. This is a perfectly natural reaction, and could be due to a number of reasons. Perhaps, for example, you are made uncomfortable by the situation, and so you think of something funny as a sort of defense mechanism to avoid dealing with the uncomfortable external stimuli.\n\nThe next time you're in a situation where you find yourself smiling inappropriately, try to examine why you are doing this. Are you trying to avoid the uncomfortable feelings the situation is eliciting in you? Are you nervous you might react in the wrong way, and so your mind wanders to something less stress-inducing, causing you to fall victim to a self-fulfilling prophecy? There could be hundreds of reasons why you react this way, and the best way to understand it is through self-reflection in the moment.",
"I wonder how much this relates to your 'pyramidal' vs. 'extrapyramidal' motor systems. Your extrapyramidal system takes control of certain skeletal muscles when you're not thinking about them (e.g. right now you're sitting without having to consciously control your posture, and breathing without having to think about it.) But once you *do* think about it, your pyramidal system takes over and you can sit up straighter, hold your breath, etc. Just a theory here, but maybe when there are strong emotional responses, these two systems are at ends with each other, thus the subconscious smirking that sneaks through even the most sincere attempts to consciously hold a straight face.",
"I feel like I should come at this from a new perspective.\n\n-----------------------------------------------\n\n#Programmer\n\nYour conscious mind could react but it lags a second behind the events that it is sensing so it has a co-pilot which it programs to react faster.\n\nA witnessed event impacts your eye, you then have to process that information through the nerves, decode it and then feed it into your main cognitive unit, which then processes that information and creates an intelligent reaction based on the input.\n\nThis reaction is then recorded and stored, in what some might suggest is a simpler brain, one that takes the raw unfiltered data and can process it without using the construct that you exist in.\n\nIn short, there are two pilots in your body. You have control but your invisible co-pilot also has control and can react faster than you can.\n\nThe two versions of you are in the cockpit, a smart version of you, who thinks and reacts to stimuli thoughtfully, and your co-pilot who you teach to react based on your previous reactions.\n\nIf a person waves their hand in your face, your reaction might be; to move away and evade the hand.\n\nThis gets remembered and then, at a later point, when something similar occurs; you flinch before you have a chance to process the data. Your system will give you an assurance that you were the one who did it, but really your co-pilot did it based on your previous decision.\n\nYou won't realise that it wasn't your choice to flinch, because you already made the choice to flinch from things in your face ages ago.\n\nThis is called **conditioning**. If you want to be able to play music from a score, it takes repeated instances of pressing the same note on an instrument whilst also looking at the symbol of the note to be played whilst being played in order to train the 'co-pilot' to simply react to the visual stimuli and take over the function of your hands whilst playing the instrument.\n\nBasically, your co-pilot is like Mr/Ms Macro, taking over when tasks get repetitive. Some people call it, muscle memory, but it is actually just pre-conditioning.\n\nIt's a really useful function to have, it actually increases your reaction time, well beyond your processing speed of a second, and because the co-pilot doesn't have a mental construct, it doesn't interfere with your thoughts.\n\n--------------------------------\n#What's the problem?\n\nWell, having a preprogrammed reaction to speed up your reaction times is handy in one respect but not in another because the reactive brain is used to taking over and it can be quite hard to kick a bad habit.\n\nLet's take smoking for example.\n\nWhen one is stressed, the reactive brain might make the helpful gesture of reaching for a cigarette, which the main unit, you, has decided to stop smoking. \n\nIt might even go as far as to light it and put it to your lips only for that second later for your cognitive functions to think.\n\n\"Oh for goodness sake!\"\n\nOnce the neural pathways are built, it takes reconditioning to break them or at least divert them. This is why one habit is easily supplanted with another, because the reactionary brain has already built up the macro based on the input. So shifting an addiction to cigarettes over to alcohol or food is quite easy but stopping all together can be very difficult.\n\n--------------------------------\n\nLet suppose that the reactive brain takes control.\n\nYou're walking down the street when suddenly you have a small headache. It's a minor episode in your head, might be a stroke or a simple shifting of cells, who knows? ..but the reactionary system has got it's wires crossed with a pathway that usually states not to do a thing. \nSuddenly you find yourself compelled, seemingly beyond your control, to blurt out words that are highly inappropriate to situations or even noises that cross your mind, before you even think about them. This is audible Tourette's syndrome.\n\nIt could be caused by a fungus hijacking your co-pilots functions or just brain damage but it is a problem to many, with the feature that most of us use every day acting up against them.\n\n---------------------------------\n\n#Vertigo\n\nWhen input is lying to us, our reactionary brain is a real pain.\nThe balance engine that runs the show is another process that the co-pilot is responsible for. We learn to walk, over a long time of trial and error and the co-pilot remembers the processes. \n\nThen you get a mild inner ear infection and the input is sudden and harsh! \n\n##\"YOU'RE FALLING TO THE LEFT!\"\nYells your inner ear to the reactionary brain, which then leaps to the right to save you from the fall!\n\nThank heavens! However, you weren't falling at all, a small sediment landed on the small hairs in your ear and told you that you were falling. You got the adrenalin kick and you leaped to the side, but that's all you did, and your conscious mind has caught up with the reality and is thinking: \"I just threw myself down the stairs!\"\n\nThis is a horrid condition that I have suffered from myself, it shows how little you can trust yourself with basic input.\n\nSo that's my summary of the co-pilot. A reactionary brain that is programmed by a smarter, thinking brain.\n\n-------------------------------\n\n#In conclusion.\n\nIf you want to take control of your body back, you need to continually take a second of time to stop, and think, before acting. Learn to do this and you will be able to make the calls in your life, without the automatic co-pilot making a mistake.",
"I'm not gonna read anything above me haha I'm on my phone but I'm in neuro anatomy right now. My teacher just covered this subject, so I'll chime in. The nervous system that is attached to your facial muscles are dealing with 2 types of control. One of them is voluntary where you can fake smile and such but they don't look the same as a genuine smile. The facial muscles also have an involuntary input where you smile when you're genuinely laughing. The unconscious part conveys your feelings and such. The teacher said it's an evolutionary feature because humans or our ancestors who didn't have this trait, didn't have it passed on. emotional features on our face are said to show because we wouldn't be able to know what a person is thinking. We wouldn't know if they are a danger to us and that's why when we have physical masks over our face. You feel a social disconnect and you're uncomfortable in that setting. I hope answered your question! "
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es8xjm | why do so many immune responses cause harm when they're supposed to help fight disease | e.g. lungs filling with fluid and mucus to counter pneumonia and high fevers that can lead to brain damage | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/es8xjm/eli5why_do_so_many_immune_responses_cause_harm/ | {
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"The simplest answer is that despite the severe symptoms, for most cases, the result would be worse without an immune response. Most of the intractable diseases tend to be immune or auto-immune dysfunction (RA, lupus...) This means the immune system is pretty powerful and also pretty important. \n\nBut it is a balance, to fight off an invader you send in your troops but there is bound to be collateral damage and sometimes this collateral damage is severe. But you won't know until you respond to the invaders and NOT responding isn't an option either.",
"Essentially it's the same operation as a hospital. To quote my doctor: \"We're here to save your life, not necessarily to make you feel good.\"",
"You tend only to notice the negative effects of the immune responses. What you don't notice is how you'd be dead without them. \n\nTo put it differently: if your house is on fire, and firefighters come to put the fire out, they are going to damage your house a bit in the process. Some doors might get axed. Some of your stuff will get soaked. But, it's better than your entire house burning to the ground, possibly with people still inside."
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2g22zp | why were those specific presidents and benjamin franklin chosen to be the faces of american currency, and who chose? | I understand that each one was an important historical figure, but I'm wondering why did they specifically choose Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant, and Franklin over others, and who was it that made these decisions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g22zp/eli5_why_were_those_specific_presidents_and/ | {
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"The Department of the Treasury has a committee to choose.",
"Those decision were made by the Department of the Treasury, because those people are some of the most important in American history, these are the people that you *need* to know if you want to know about America. \n\nWashington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Franklin had a leading part in writing the documents that our country was founded on, the Declaration and Constitution. \n\nAndrew Jackson was the country's first real war hero, he won the Battle of New Orleans without losing a single soldier, he was the first to establish the internal sovereignty of the Federal Government, denying secession from North Virginia with military threats, and he was the first to spend government money on national infrastructure. He was also kind of an asshole, though, he had a personal vendetta against Henry Clay, denied the establishment of a central bank, and he forced all the Native Americans in land claimed by the US to move to Oklahoma. \n\nLincoln is often cited as the epitome of the American president: he was strong in the country's greatest crisis, he pushed through abolitionist measures (that were honestly probably illegal), he's a perfect success story: from poverty to everlasting fame, he wrote one of the best speeches ever made, and he strove to be in touch with the people. He was killed in office, which can be seen as a sacrifice he made, but it surely resulted in his final years leaving an amazing legacy. The story of his duel with James Polk is also hilarious. \n\nUlysses Grant (whose middle name was just S), was the first elected president after Lincoln, and he was handed a broken nation. We had just completed one of the deadliest wars in history, the abolition of slavery was incomplete, and there was much work to be done in rebuilding what was destroyed and readmitting the rebellious states. Things didn't go perfectly, but they went well enough that he is remembered as one who took what he had and did an excellent job of fixing it. \n\nOne that you left out is Franklin Roosevelt. He is on the 10 cent piece. He's the most popular president in history, he was elected 4 times in a row with almost no opposition. He entered office at the beginning of the Depression, and immediately started enacting the \"New Deal\", a series of social programs that got people working again. He significantly expanded the national park service, he built the Interstate highway system. Many of his programs were actually struck down as illegal and beyond his power by the courts, but he was doing so many of them that they couldn't touch them all, he began the practice of government subsidies for necessary industries like agriculture, and essentially had America work itself out of the worst economic recession in it's history. He also led America through World War II, his role in it was debatable, but he is remembered for it. On top of all this, he was a terminal Polio patient who beat the odds and lived to adulthood, and didn't succumb to the disease until he was elected for a 4th 4 year term, and all the while he hid it from the people. He had special made braces that held his useless legs so that it would look like he could walk and talk. He was more connected to the people than many other presidents, with his \"fireside chats\", a series of thirty radio broadcasts that he made during his presidency, just so that all of the people could me familiar with him, and they loved him for it. "
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1elwvo | why do companies release update products at least every year? even when they don't change much from last year'd models. | It seems like its a market requirement that products have to be constantly updated, instead of only doing that when the new model makes a big enough difference.
For example: cars. I think updating car models every year and discounting last year's model hurts manufacturers, because car technology doesn't change and improve as fast as say samrtphones. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1elwvo/eli5_why_do_companies_release_update_products_at/ | {
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"Because people generally think newer things are better. So even if they *aren't*, you've got to release new things, or your competitors can get your market share by selling a new model.",
"Money and image:\n\n - People want to have the latest things so they can show off to their friends.\n - Companies make a new one every year knowing that people will want to buy it (because it's the latest thing).",
"Depends on the product in question. Sometimes, as others have pointed out, it's a question of just wanting to appear new. Sometimes there is a purpose. TurboTax releases a new version each year because they've updated for the changes made to the tax code. Sports games release a new version each year to reflect the changes in the teams' lineups. Now, you could argue that in both cases they could just make the changes as a patch to last year's version, but when you've got a set-up that makes you money you don't mess with it."
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3ynffi | how can the film industry claim they are being negatively effected by piracy when 8 of the 10 highest grossing films of all time have come out in the last 5 years and the highest grossing film of all time only 6 years ago? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ynffi/eli5how_can_the_film_industry_claim_they_are/ | {
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"Stealing is still stealing, even if the victim is rich. And that's the theory behind piracy. No, you're not stealing a tangible product, but the argument is you are denying them money that would have been spent on the product itself. You are robbing them of future profits.\n\nEDIT: Yes. I know the above is stupid rhetoric. I don't agree with it. I'm not providing my opinion here, I am stating the argument of companies who claim to be negatively affected by piracy (which is what the OP was asking for). Just because you don't what the answer is doesn't mean it isn't the answer.",
"The industry isn't saying they aren't making boatloads of money. They're saying they could be making bigger boatloads. \n\nLets say a movie makes, say, a $1,000,000,000. And lets say that if nobody pirated it, it would have made $1,000,000,001. Clearly, piracy has negatively affected the revenue from that movie.\n",
" > At the end of the day, isn't money the main thing the majority of the people/companies in the industry care about?\n\nYou answered your own question. They are arguing if no one pirated the movies theyd make even more money.\n\nAlso just because the big blockbusters are doing well doesnt mean the smaller movies aren't being more negatively affected. The big blockbusters are going to sell movie tickets no matter what. Its the average rom coms etc that people arent going to waste money going to the theater over and are simply going to pirate.",
"I think, when adjusted for inflation, Avatar would be the only film from the last 15 years to make the top 10 of all time. So whilst the big films are making a lot of money, they aren't necessarily as huge as it might seem. Whether they would be in the top 10 without piracy is debatable but piracy can only have harmed the chances of it happening. I imagine a few of those films are in [this](_URL_0_) list of the most pirated films. I'm not sure how much extra they would have made without piracy but you could be looking at $50-100 million in some cases.",
"\tGone with the Wind\t$3,440,000,000\n\n\n\n\nGone with the Wind held the record of highest-grossing film for twenty-five years, and, adjusted for inflation, has earned more than any other film.",
"Yes, what you seem to be missing is the overall picture of the revenue of film studios.\n\nIt's as naive as asking why gamblers moan about losing money when one of their horses came in at 50-1 and another at 100-1.\n\nDid you not look at all the other horses they backed?\n\nSimilarly, have you actually studied the accounts of the film studios, cinemas and so on or did you just glance at a list of popular movies?",
"I think a big issue is that the films making big box office sales are the epic films and sequels that people are willing to pay for. Other movies that might not be established franchises or big screen suited action movies or 3d epics are easier to stream online, pirated or not. I know that I personally would only go pay to see a few movies, the rest I'm perfectly content to wait on. This means the movie studios have to work harder to put out a product worth buying, and capitalism is all about finding ways to not work hard.",
"The Revenant and the Hateful Eight leaked a week ago. I can honestly say I was planning on paying to see it if they didn't leak.",
"The movies that aren't major blockbusters ARE being hurt by piracy. Smaller movies don't really stand a chance anymore.",
"I'm glad you asked because this is a common misconception: The mega-corporations ARE THE ONES WHO CAN SURVIVE PIRACY. They can spend a quarter billion on promotion and overcome the losses. Piracy murders the middle class of film makers, the ones who count on every penny.\n\nSame with the music industry - pirates justify what they do by pointing at millionaires like Lars Ulrich and at bands with nothing who used file sharing to get the word out, but that's not who has suffered from the music industry's collapse. It's everyone in the middle who used to be able to scrape out a living from selling recordings, and now can't. There's a reason all of your movies seem to be mega-blockbusters or cheap bullshit like Paranormal Activity. Piracy is what wiped out everything in between.",
"All of the big blockbusters you are talking about are *event movies,* where seeing them in theaters is part of the experience. \n\nForget about the blockbusters and actually look at the types of films that used to make up the bulk of domestic box office receipts. They've mostly disappeared, and they are making smaller amounts of money than ever before, and getting smaller budgets. This is also part of why so many directors and actors are flocking to television - there is an ever-shrinking volume of mainstream non-superhero films being made by studios.\n\nAlso, the revenue you're looking at is international revenue. When the original Star Wars opened, there was no Chinese market. There was virtually no Nigerian or Indian market either. International markets mean that the big event movies are making more money than ever before, but everything else is largely ignored. In the 1970s a small, personal film like Kramer vs Kramer or Annie Hall could be a national phenomenon; nowadays they'd be, like Infinitely Polar Bear and Grandma were last year, confined to a few art house theaters. ",
"For a bit of insight, go onto IMDB and look at a film's estimated budget versus its box office and remember that most films will never recoop their initial investment and that one blockbuster pays, possibly, for itself and the cast/crew/technicians/animators/etc. but does not necessarily save a studio (which actually means the independent or up-and-coming studios that help make and finance films) from bankruptcy. \n\nIn a few years, this will be all moot since we are moving towards a more independently produced arts market. ",
"Guys... entertainment has monetary value. Watching a movie (especially one still in theatrical release) without paying for it is wrong. If you still wanna do it, more power to you, but don't make up a bunch of hollow moral justifications.",
" > I feel like all I ever hear about is actors and films studios crying about how the industry is being effected by piracy yet they appear to be making more money than they ever have.\n\nSo one of the flaws you're making is thinking that the largest grossing film represents the total boxoffice or average rate of return on a film. That's not necessarily the case. \n\n > At the end of the day, isn't money the main thing the majority of the people/companies in the industry care about?\n\nyes.. kinda? \n\nOne of the things with movies is that you'll notice a trend - big budget action films. Super heroes and star wars and dinosaurs. Movie studio executives are as you say, basically only interested in the bottom line, so they have shifted the movie market to be stuff that sells well on the big screen, but all the studios and actors making anything else are getting hosed. It used to be the case that you could make a successful money making if not box office breaking drama piece or thriller or romcom or the like and reasonably expect a decent return on it. Most of that is getting shut out of the market and moving to TV.\n\nWhich goes to I think the essence of your question which is \"is this really a bad thing?\" and the answer is probably not. Consumers want what they want, and if people would rather watch a movie from a couch you can probably hit a bigger more lucrative audience with 'netflix' (or similar) then that's a good idea. No one wants to spend 20 or 30 dollars to go to a bad movie, but for 5 bucks I can watch it on my couch and so can 10 other people sort of thing. The (relatively) expensive tickets + big screen format probably held people back as much as it helped them, trying to pigeon hole a story into a 2 hour format on the big screen, well... it doesn't work always work that well, that's why the extended edition of LOTR is definitive, not the theatrical releases, that's why game of thrones is on HBO and not in the cinema etc. Some things work well on the big screen, some don't, the market just needs to adjust (and there needs to be a sensible way to pay for things internet only). \n\n",
"The better question is how can so many crappy movies be made...anyone who has Netflix knows that you can search for hours and hours and see title after title of crap no one should ever waste hours of their life watching...\n\nafter just wasting the hours searching. ",
"First of all inflated ticket prices make the dollar amount appear higher but ticket sales have been down. Adjusted for inflation there aren't any films for the past 15 years in the top ten of ticket sales:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAlso, pirating has hurt the home market immensely. Video and dvd used to be a powerful secondary market. Once films have been out for a certain amount of time it's even easier to pirate them and many people have forgone purchasing films in lieu of downloading or streaming services. ",
"The claims that piracy hurts [insert industry name here] are based on the premise that anyone who pirates content is someone who would have paid for that same content if it wasn't available to pirate.\n\nA quick look at the history of various contents will give examples both of people who pirated and never purchased, and of people who pirated and then purchased.\n\nBecause theoretically there are people not buying their product who would have if it wasn't pirated, then argue that they have lost the money they would have made.\n\nNow, in my experience as an observer, piracy can either hurt or help sales of content. on the one hand, you have people who will pirate content and then never buy it afterwards, as the various companies content. However, you also have people who experience the content and then decide to go out and purchase the content (buy a game, CD, or DVD, or get movie tickets) and even act as free advertising by exposing their friends and family to the same content (who themselves may then pay to experience it)\n\nMy opinion is that good content will tend to make more money from the positive side of piracy (those who like it and choose to buy) and bad content tends to be hurt by piracy (because why buy something you know sucks? and wouldn't you warn your friends against wasting their money?)",
"What's worse is that the studios are the owns putting the movies out their to download. This is how they get federal money. They make it an issue they need \"help\" with. ",
"It's complicated to say the least and should probably be evaluated on a show by show basis. \n\nGame of thrones for example has probably made more money due to piracy and widespread distribution of their show. They make more money off of film related merchandise. Such as action figures, blankets, shot glasses, and replicas of objects from the show. Kinda like how the merchandising rights to star wars is worth more than the film. \n\nOther movies/shows maybe not so much. Such as everything Adam Sandler has made since Happy Gilmore probably loses money every time someone pirates it. Because it's dog shit and no one that isn't your parents will buy a ticket to it with real money or buy it on DVD/Bluray/Download.\n\nSo i'd say that piracy hurts the film industry on a sliding curve the better your film is the less likely it will be hurt. The worse the more likely it'll get hurt. \n\nHowever, the biggest most damaging problems have been Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime Streaming. Those have inflicted more damage than piracy ever could. They're also a pandoras box once they were opened there is no turning back. Also the stagnant recovery in the economy has decimated a lot of the crappier films. If you only have enough money to see Star Wars or Pixels which do you choose? Yeah that's what I thought. ",
"The part that got me was that we would pirate stuff we would never pay money to see. Like if we pirated soul plane an watched it because we were drunk and though it would be funny (it wasn't). If it wasn't easily accessible we wouldn't have seen it and they wouldn't get any money. So when they calculate the amount of movies being stolen and multiply it. The amount of money lost is likely inflated.",
"I get it, there are plenty of movies that come out that I'd never pay to see in a theater. But if you have enough interest in seeing a movie that you'd pirate it, just wait until it's at redbox, where it's so cheap it's basically free. (Seriously, put your email in one time and they'll send you a coupon for a free movie almost once a week). And if you want to see something so you don't feel left out when your friends or coworkers talk about it, then apparently you want to see it badly enough that you should pay for it.\n\nPiracy is also a HUGE problem in international markets. In places around South East Asia, you'll find pirated copies of movies far more easily than you'd ever be able to find a legitimate copy. It's entirely possible in those places that a person may have seen dozens of popular movies without the content producers ever seeing a cent of it. So yes, in that case, they are absolutely losing significant amounts of money on it.\n\nThis isn't really relevant to any particular stance, but the nature of going to the movies has changed dramatically over time. Before the advent of television (i.e. when Gone with the Wind came out) a huge proportion of the American public went to the movies every single week. I can't remember the exact number but it's somewhere around 50%. When there was no other source of mass entertainment, that was how people spent their time. There was also a period where movie theaters were one of the only places you could go to find air conditioning, so it was extremely popular during the summer. So figures for inflation and ticket sales aren't really applicable. \n\nAnd keep the production costs in mind when you're considering what you're watching. A lot of people have commented on how the industry is now split between micro budget movies and giant event movies. That's due to the fact that movies are INCREDIBLY expensive to make. This is where the comparison to the music industry falls apart. A musician can cut an album for no money in their basement and make a profit off of it. The only people who have ever done the equivalent in film are the paranormal activity and Blair witch teams. Making a movie requires union crews, locations, permits, insurance, equipment rentals, etc. When midrange budget films operate on thinner margins and have a harder time making their money back, the studios are going to be much less interested in making them because they're not as good of a bet. While you might be able to rationalize not paying to see a movie by thinking that you're only hurting a giant corporation, keep in mind that you're actually hurting the blue collar workers who make the films. When you consolidate all the funds a studio has into a few tentpole franchises, you're making fewer movies, and that means fewer people are working. And that's a shame because a lot of those jobs are really good union positions, often held by people with limited education. And your average midbudget film, btw, is going to employ upwards of a hundred people everyday on set. Think that's bloated? Have you ever been on a real film set? They're complicated places, with several tons of lighting equipment, immense power requirements, medical personnel in case of emergency, dozens of trucks, and huge pieces of gear like cranes. If the studios could get away with less people on set, trust me, they would. Thinking movies shouldn't be union? Try googling \"Safety for Sarah.\" (Cutting corners got a young woman killed on set recently).",
"They're creativity bankrupt. They are re gagging dabs sit seen before people aren't buying it. Dinosaurs will die. Op said they have been making money, 8 films out of his many? There are allot of losses and flops in there.",
"Like this-\n\nFilm Industry: We are negatively being effected by piracy!\n\nPeople can claim anything, doesn't make it anywhere near the truth. Look at politicians, they proclaim one thing or another daily.\n",
"The main fallacy being held up by the movie industry, or the music industry or really any industry claiming loses to piracy is the idea that every pirated copy is a lost sale. This simply isn't true.\n\nIn addition to that fallacy they also calculate absurd amounts of money based all through the creation to sale process. The cost of actors/singers, packaging, marketing, directors, etc every aspect of cost that goes into a product is being calculated against this fictional loss to piracy.\n\nFor example, a movie company might claim that the lost sale of a movie is worth 10,000 dollars based on this kind of absurd book keeping method instead of the 20 bucks the actual DVD sale would merit. So 50,000 pirated copies of a movie is viewed as 500m loss instead of a 10m dollar loss. ",
"Are you using constant dollars? Because, adjusting for inflation, the most recent film in the top 10 grossing is Titanic, in 1997, and the top grossing film of all time is Gone With the Wind.\n\nsource: _URL_0_\n\nAlso, piracy could have slowed their growth, even if it didn't have enough impact to negate their growth entirely.",
"It's because they were able to push through the [Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999](_URL_0_).\n\nCopyright math made by the lawyers and lobbyists for the industry was able to figure that somehow, each time you pirate a song or movie, that's up to $150,000 lost.\n\nThey were able to get this because the Institute for Policy Innovation was paid off by Jack Abramoff to come up with the numbers that led to their [2011 press release](_URL_1_) that indicated piracy cost the industry more money than what would amount to most of the US agricultural crop failing (58 billion dollars) and also cost the industry so many jobs that it would result in having -58,000 workers (yea, negative, they claimed it cost them more jobs than they had).\n\nTL;DR ELI5 - It's make believe.",
"Do you honestly believe that nobody, ever has stolen a film instead of bought it?\n\nNot stolen a film they wouldn't have paid for (that's theft but not lost revenue) but stolen it instead of paying for it. \n\nIf you acknowledge that some revenue loss has taken place, then there's your answer. If you don't think any loss has taken place then I'd love to hear your reasoning. ",
"Yes, it's about money, but it's the people WITH the money who are really causing the biggest changes, and it's about how the industry is perceived.\n\nThe traditional film industry is perceived by many to be a 'sunset' industry, as Subscription Streaming TV and asynchronous viewing (binge-watched a TV show lately? That's asynchronous viewing, as opposed to waiting to watch one episode each week) becomes the norm.\n\nSmaller studios and independent artists who don't have the budget of Disney etc. are finding it harder and harder to convince producers and studios to take a gamble. They don't want to risk their money on anything that won't be a blockbuster with lots of endorsements and tie-ins, so blockbusters are becoming more and more prevalent.\n\nThe knock-on effect is that it limits the number of unique voices and perspectives in the industry. Intelligence, nuance and originality become liabilities.\n\nAlso, a larger and larger proportion of movies being made are adaptations from comic books and other media, and nearly all of it sci-fi or fantasy (When was the last time you went out to see a big budget film entirely about real world situations without any fantastical elements? It may have been a while.)\n\nThis 'adaptation' model isn't new, but now it is seen as a MUCH safer bet by producers who identify a 'built in' audience for the movie franchise. And who can blame them? It's easy to see it's less risky to design or adapt a product to suit a market niche than to spend money on an experiment and hope there's a market.\n\nOf course, once in a while an interesting nuanced film will get made, but it's the big blockbusters that are paying to keep the lights on.\n\nSo now we've reached a point where only a set of 'blockbuster formulas' are really viable - whether it's the JJ Abrams \"Canon Remix\" approach to reboots, or the Marvel \"Every movie is a trailer for the next one\" approach that will seemingly never, ever end.\n\nWhy? Because movie producers - the ones putting their money on the line - are as averse to risk as anyone. And film makers know it, so they stop pitching truly original ideas.",
"As someone who watched 2-3 movies a year now, all big blockbusters (Jurassic world, Star Wars and something else I can't remember this year) I can see how they are losing money. Years ago I might have watched one movie a month, those days are gone. I will watch the big stuff where it is still fun to watch in a theater, everything else I will watch at home, pirated or otherwise. \n\nI can see big movies surviving and smaller stuff disappearing completely. ",
"Theft is theft. Piracy is theft. The film industry is taking the wrong approach to the problem. Instead of trying to figure out why people would download movies instead of just assuming their all a bunch of dirty criminals, they deny themselves an opportunity to get ahead of the problem. VoD, Streaming services, could be tailored to get movies into peoples homes faster and far more legally. \n\nBut no, they sit on their billion dollar cash piles and cry because theyre the victim here. Yes smaller, independent films are harder to finance because piracy takes a dent out of profits. But if anyone lives outside of a major city, piracy is the only way to see some smaller movies. The film industry needs to make a better option than piracy. Its the only way to beat it. ",
"Because for every big hit movie there are 20 movies that lose money and those big ones have to pay for the ones that lose money. Not to mention the costs involved in making many of those movies. \n\nYou're talking about 10 movies. Out of thousands of movies made in that time. Most of which lost money. "
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7oewok | why are people trying to find the biggest prime number? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7oewok/eli5_why_are_people_trying_to_find_the_biggest/ | {
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"It's an exercise in computation, mostly.\n\nThere are a few large prime number searches that are trying to settle old mathematical conjectures (e.g. the Prime Sierpinski Problem), but for the most part it's just people who are fans of mathematics and who have computers letting them run to see if they can find a large prime number.\n\nThese prime numbers may have slight interest to mathematicians who could study their distribution and may come up with interesting mathematics as a result, but that's not too likely. It's long been known that there are infinitely many prime numbers.\n\nNote that there have been various awards offered over the years for finding especially large prime numbers. Most notable are some przes [offered by the EFF](_URL_0_). Since these only judge the size of the primes it's most logical to search through numbers that are both 1: likely to be prime, and 2: easy to test. That best describes Mersenne primes, in the form of 2^P - 1 (where P is itself a prime number). The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, is the most notable collaboration looking for such large prime numbers. Their client, Prime95, is notable for being brutal to CPUs and is sometimes used in the overclocking community to demonstrate that a CPU is stable--if Prime95 can't break it then hopefully nothing can.\n\nThe EFF awards are all about encouraging the development of technology for collaborative computing. It's not so important that the search is for prime numbers. It's all about building the technology. ",
"Bragging rights mostly. It is also a way to improve the method we used to compute things involving large numbers, especially distributed methods. "
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25mbwx | what do the radical islamists have against education for women? | Simply put, why are they so against womens education? And in light of the recent hostage situation in Nigeria, how can these groups rationalize that what they are doing is right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25mbwx/eli5_what_do_the_radical_islamists_have_against/ | {
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"A dumb person is easier to control? ",
"Much of it is to do with traditional views that women should stay in the home and get married. This leads to two things:\n\n* the view that educating women is a waste of a schools time and resources and a waste of parents money\n\n* educated women are more likely to want independance and choose not to marry, or choose to marry someone who is not 'suitable'. The way the extremists view it is that a good Muslim girl should follow (what they perceive to be) God's will and get married. \n\nAnother factor is that women are seen to be 'weak minded'. Boko Haram is particularly against western education as it teaches more than just Islamic ideals. Education can be seen as dangerous to women who will succumb to dangerous western ideals and then influence men with these ideas.\n\nAnd, as u\\develinainablackdress pointed out, an uneducated person is easier to control.",
"If you live a country where the woman's job is solely to take care of your home, food, and to give birth to your kids, what on Earth would she need an education for? ",
"Many of the terrorist groups require permission from there mothers in order to join. Al-qaeda specifically views it as very shameful to join without their mothers consent. More educated women are less likely to allow there sons to join. ",
"Easier to convince someone of your righteousness and purity when yours is the only way they know. ",
"Its much harder to control an educated population. ",
"Educated women don't want to marry goat herders and live in a mud hole.",
"In Afghanistan it's estimated that over 80% of the population is illiterate, and the Warlords like it that way.",
"So this is actually somewhat misleading, in Nigeria they've been against western education as a whole, they've just started kidnapping women lately. Other events in the Nigerian anti-education campaign include burning and shooting male students [source](_URL_0_)\n\nAs to why the western education is so wrong, I can't say I'm an expert. But if I was trying to prevent people from turning away from religion, cutting off education wouldn't be the last thing on my list.",
"the less you know, the more vulnerable you become.",
"They are scared shitles of an educated women knowing that they are smarter than they are.",
"I assume we are talking about Boko Haram. When the British colonised what is now Nigeria in the mid-18th century, they took over the jungly south, then the foresty mid-north easily. Then, when they went further north they encountered a tribe called the Hausa. The Hausa had already been colonised by muslim arabs from North Africa. The Arab warlords didn't want any of their peasants being educated as that would make them more difficult to rule. The Brits were happy to oblige. The highly educated Igbo were made the rulers - they were like the Chinese in Singapore, or the Jews - hard-working, loved education and very creative. The army was made up of Hausa - dumb, but obedient.\n\nWhen independence came in 1960, the dumb, obedient guys with guns decided that they wanted all of the rich, creative guys' money. This was called the Biafran war. It wasn't so much a war as a five-year genocide.\n\nAnyway, the bottom line is that dumb, obedient people are easier to rule. Fatalistic religions (things happen because god says so) just happen to encourage that sort of culture.",
"Just to correct you, Boko Haram is against western education for everyone. The different is they slaughter the boys while they kidnap the girls to sell them",
"I think other posters have covered some of it.\n\n-uneducated people are easier to control\n\n-women are only for marrying, making babies, and taking care of the house. No need for education.\n\n-education is dangerous because 12-y/o girls might not want to marry a goat-herder 40 years senior to them if they learn they have other options.\n\n\nI think what is missed in these is that often it's not just \"western education\", it is ALL western influence that these extremists want to get rid of. \"How can these groups rationalize what they are doing is right?\" It is because they look at western culture and they think it's decadent, corrupt, cheap, disgusting, and - most of all - against Islam. They really are no different from ignorant people anywhere throughout history. \n\nImagine how a very conservative Christian American would look at gays getting married: they think it somehow taints the whole culture to have such impurities. Think how this Christian would feel when hearing their kid's elementary school is going to have an \"Acceptance Day\" where everyone is going to wear pink and listen to gay people talk about how being gay is cool: \"No way I'm letting my wholesome god-fearing son be indoctrinated by those fags!\" Same thing with these extremists.\n\nI know it is difficult for our modern, western sensibilities to understand these crazies: \"You think you're helping women by kidnapping these girls from their school, and then selling them as wives and sex slaves!?\" But to these crazies it's just how things work. I bet if you could ask the kidnappers about it, they'd look you straight in the eye and tell you with complete sincerity \"Yes we are doing the right thing, we saved these girls from being corrupted by evil indoctrination by our enemies, and we are saving their souls by making sure they marry a good Muslim man.\" In a perverse way, I'm sure their motives aren't really that different from a Christian camp that tries to cure gay people of their homosexuality.\n\nFrom a purely cynical point of view, I've read that one of the motives is to raise cash for their terrorist activities. So it also is just modern-day slavery. The OP asks about how people \"rationalize\" it. Well, did the ancient Romans need to rationalize it? Did Americans rationalize it? Did any of the many cultures throughout history rationalize it? As hard as it might be for us to comprehend, I think to some cultures slavery just is a business.",
"For a lot of the same reasons why some conservatives bash science and higher education. Knowledge is power, and if people remain ignorant they're easier to manipulate. \n\nTo be clear, I'm not equating American conservatives with Islamic fundamentalists. I think the latter is simply an extreme extension of the former.",
"Haters gonna hate. ",
"The ability to read and think for themselves might make them realize the things theyre conditioned to accept as fact are in fact a means of control not a deeper truth. ",
"There is something you need to understand, Boko Haram is not an Islamist group. \nThey aren't even real Muslim. They refuse the exegese (the study of the Coran) and they believe in magic (black magic;this is incompatible with Islam).\nThis is a terrorist and politic group but this isn't a radical or whatever Islamist group.",
"Please understand that this post is not written by a person who is a muslim and thus I am no expert in the Islamic faith.\n\nIf I recall correctly, and I did confirm this fact with a muslim colleague, in Islam the wife or daughter has no responsibility to contribute to the household. In other words if the man and wife both work the man's salary must pay for the rent, the food, the costs of living for the entire family including the wife. Her money is for her to spend. Most muslims in the western world discard this rule and the wife willingly contributes to the cost of living.\n\nSo now you know the religious rules regarding it. But it gets more complicated. If a woman doesn't have to contribute then why should the family spend resources and money on sending the girls to school. She isn't going to contribute to her husband's household, she is under no obligation to do so. There are actually cases of boys prostituting themselves because since their fathers are dead it is their, not their mothers', responsibility to put food on the table.\n\nNow we take it to the extremists point of view. If a woman doesn't have to contribute, and sending her to school is a waste of resources then one could (if crazy enough) interpret the laws to mean that women shouldn't be educated and thus its against Islam for women to go to school. Meanwhile it is not.\n\nI hope this helps.",
"Because education leads to free thought, which is not how life works for them. ",
"If you don't educate them they are easier to control. \n\nThis is not unique to Saudi. Just look at the entire African continent, even countries like South Africa ",
"Ignorance is a fertile ground for stupidity, and that's good for business.\n\nThe traditional role for women is raising kids. Educating the women causes two problems: they begin to think outside their assigned roles, and they raise children that think outside their assigned roles.\n\nThe first problem has been adequately covered, I think, but the latter is pretty important too. Extremists indoctrinate children from a young age, and depend on their unquestioning loyalty and belief. Free thinking is not encouraged. \n\nThis is particularly important for militant extremists, who may call upon people to die for their beliefs. A rational, educated person with experience employing knowledge and logic is much less likely to follow blindly than someone who was raised in total ignorance.\n\nIf you're looking for an interesting read on the subject, pick up a book called Three Cups of Tea. It's about a fellow who's spent his life building schools in the middle east to combat the militant groups' hold on youth in the regions. It's a great read.",
"Calling a liberal arts education an actual education is a bit of a stretch. If women arn't able to be home-makers they might put men out of a job. \n\nJews (and Christians) used to do the same:\n\n > “Anyone who teaches his daughter Torah teaches her tiflut”. The word tiflut is defined in two ways: 1) sexual license or lewdness. It is feared that the woman will learn how to outwit her husband and sin in secret; 2) The learning itself is considered blemished, an unnecessary thing (Rambam on the Mishnah: Vanity and nonsense).",
"Women are considered property of the man in Islam. No reason to educate her because she is simply a convenience for the man. Education a waste of time. ",
"Though this is not a direct answer; denying education to women is one of the fastest ways to destroy a nation. Imagine if 50% of the population suddenly lost the capability to function in modern society you've basically guaranteed your country will never progress to anything similar to 'western demons'. So, conservative religious groups who are trying to resist culture change always try to attack or undermine women's education since that it's the most effective way to do it. Whether they know it or not I believe that is why it's such a prominent trend, even in western religions."
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5e5ywd | why are "mouth breathers" held in such low regard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e5ywd/eli5_why_are_mouth_breathers_held_in_such_low/ | {
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"Breathing through your mouth is a bad idea compared to your nose, as your nose can warm and filter the air. Breathing through your mouth is more likely to make you sick.\n\nThe implication/joke is that someone is *so* dumb that they can't manage to breathe correctly. Plus, having one's mouth slightly open creates an expression that can be interpereted as confusion.",
"It's inconsiderate to exhale orally around people, as it often smells worse than nasal breath. Doing so is theoretically rude and taken as a sign of selfishness and ignorance. People who are out of shape physically also do it, and humans have obvious stigmas against those that do not take care of their bodies. It's also fairly unattractive to sit around with your mouth open, it makes people look empty-headed and dopey.",
"Honestly I think it just stems from campy movies and cartoons where the \"idiots\" always have their mouths open, maybe with a bit a drool. You must admit, people look a bit neanderthal with their mouth agape.",
"Mouth breathing can be a sign of Down syndrome: [Mouth breathing may occur because of smaller nasal passages, and the tongue may protrude because of a smaller midface region.](_URL_0_)",
"I've never cared about how people breathe, just whether I could hear it or not. I've always found it annoying when somebody is breathing exclusively through their nose and that's all I can hear. But I also have a problem with hearing anything like chewing, breathing, smacking lips etc. Because of that I find I'm always making an effort to keep all my face noises as silent as possible.",
"The term 'mouth-breather' was an insult from older generations and you still see references to this. Its basically calling someone an idiot. I dont think its hard to see why; look at someone staring at something with their mouth open. its similar to someone walking around with their button shirt off by one button. It shows a lack of awareness. ",
"I always thought this had to do with weight. Overweight people often have to breathe through their mouth since it's easier (it seems) to fill your lungs quicker that way especially under weighted pressure of fat tissue.\n\nEdit: I am not trying to fat shame, I genuinely thought they were related.",
"I have a roommate who mouth breathes, and while that in itself is not overly annoying, it is connected to other annoying things they do. They snore at very high volumes at night (can't breathe through nose), and they make some pretty gross noises when eating (can't really chew/breathe at same time). While they are overweight, which is very likely to be the cause of this, they eat very unhealthy (besides warnings from friends/family) and make no effort to fix the listed tendencies or better themselves, which is the part I find most annoying of all. It isn't really the mouth breathing, it's just that it's the most easily identifiable problem.",
"Apart from all the suggestions in this thread that people with their mouths open smell bad and look dumb, know that breathing with your mouth is bad for you in the long run.\n\n(Your mouth gets dry which is bad for your teeth and the bacteria in your mouth, you lose a lot of water, and you are neglecting to use one of the channels of respiration which affects your ability to breathe during intense situations.)\n\nTherefore, breathing with the mouth is likely not a choice for people that do it. It is likely due to some sort of congestion of the nose, either because of a narrow nasal canal, an allergy, or illness. Being sick is not sexy.\n\nIf you find it hard to breathe through your nose, see a specialist that can determine the cause. Narrow nasal canals can be fixed by a surgeon. Consciously breathing through your nose can slowly open up the nasal canal. If you need to clear your nose more than you would like, use one of them [special water jugs](_URL_0_).",
"I've always thought of \"mouth breathers\" as nerds. \n\nThe poindexter type of guy with taped up glasses and a stuffed up nose because allergies. \n\nI've never associated with \"stupid\" people, but definitely with \"socially awkward\"",
"Super weird, I was just watching Stranger Things, this is the first time I've heard the term mouth breather being used and now seeing this made it such a weird coincidence.",
"I'm going to just list several concepts, make of them what you will.\n\nPeople often naturally consider it as a lack of self-awareness. They breath on others and possibly even drool. You can't drool with your mouth shut.\n\nIt's also often not pleasant visually.\n\nConcentration and thought are often associated with tightening of the face in general to include closing the mouth. This makes a certain kind of sense on a basic level. It can be a subtle defense mechanism(no catching bugs) and aid to balance. One can become more aware of their whole body via this mechanism and counter or adjust for that which comes along, be it a wind, shifting ground, bugs(as mentioned) or dust, or debris(say, you're working with tools on something that has a possibility of spattering or squirting). In this sense, closing the mouth is just one more means of avoiding distraction.\n\nKeeping it closed, as a practice is actually a boon to expression, you can open the mouth in shock or clench it further for anger. If it's already hanging wide open, it can very much be taken as someone who is always shocked or surprised.\n\nI'm sure I left some out....it helps retain moisture in extreme environments is one simple benefit.\n\nIn general, there are so many benefits, biologically and socially, to keeping the mouth closed that someone would have to be....a bit lacking....to have a habit of just letting the jaw hang there.\n\nThere are always exceptions, say you've had your nose broken so many times that you just can't breath well through it, allergies and sickness and minor deformity. A lot of people with these or similar problems still often tend to come to a middle ground instead of just leaving the jaw hang freely, but the difference can be subtle sometimes.",
"It is interesting how many people in this thread see mouth-breathing as an unintelligent \"choice.\" For the vast majority of the time, people don't actively think of how to breathe; it is subconscious. Normally, the mouth will open if the nose is not providing enough airflow. The majority of mouth breathers cannot breathe well through their nose due to things like allergies, polyps, or a deviated septum.",
"I have no sources, but when I first heard the term \"mouth breather\" I found it an absolute perfect description, because there were a few kids in my class when I was a kid who permanently breathed through their mouths, and also gave the impression in many other ways that they were a bit \"developmentally challenged\". I have no idea what the link is, but it does seem to be a thing..."
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40l741 | how do file formats work? | Also, how do formats like for example jpeg/png, or pdf/xps differentiale? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40l741/eli5_how_do_file_formats_work/ | {
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"File formats are just arbitrary standards that define how to encode information (including both data and meta-data) and how that information is organized or structured within the file.\n\nFor example, if you wanted to encode an image, you might arbitrarily decide that for each pixel you will record three one-byte values (ranging between 0 and 255) per pixel representing the brightness of the red channel, green channel, and blue channel respectively. Then you may arbitrarily decide that those bytes of data corresponding to each pixel will be presented in order as those pixels appear in the image from left to right and top to bottom. You may also have an arbitrary way of encoding the pixel resolution of the image as meta data in the header of the file (before the main data is encoded).\n\nThis way, software that is familar with the file encoding format can decode the image by first determining its pixel resolution, and then reading the **R**ed, **G**reen, and **B**lue channel values associated with each pixel. This allows the software to then reproduce the image for display on the screen.",
"A file is a bunch of bytes, and that's **all** a file is.\n\nA file format says what the bytes mean. ASCII text files are pretty simple - each byte means a letter or symbol (except for a few of them that mean other things). 72 then 105 then 33 means `Hi!`.\n\nBitmap files are a bit more complicated. There's a certain number of bytes at the start of the file, called the *header*, which tells you things like how big the picture is, and the number of bytes per pixel. After that, each group of 1 to 4 bytes (depending on what the header said) represents the colour of one pixel. Put the colours together in the right order, and you get a picture.\n\nMost other formats are a lot more complicated. A ZIP file contains a header for the first file in it (unlike the BMP header, this one tells you things like the filename and the compression level), and then the compressed data for that file, and then a header for the second file, and the compressed data for the second file, and so on. Then at the end it has an extra copy of all the headers but without any compressed file data in-between.\n\nJPEG and PNG both store images, but they do it in completely different ways, *and* they use completely different compression algorithms. The result of that is that JPEG is sometimes better and PNG is sometimes better.",
"Note a lot of modern formats including xps are zip files with xml in unicode text files (openable in a text editor) and some binary files(for images, ext.).\n\nThis includes xps, recent Microsoft office files(docx, xlsx, pptx) and open/libre office files(odd, ect.).\n\nYou can rename them to .zip or open it with 7zip (open as zip file)."
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3u0ggu | that breathing-type noise when i'm in a quiet place. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u0ggu/eli5_that_breathingtype_noise_when_im_in_a_quiet/ | {
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"Does it happen everywhere or just in certain places? It's definitely not a phenomenon I've heard of unless there's something in the room or if the wall to your right at your desk is a natural windbreak or something."
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8pvwaa | how come people don't get ptsd from really scary nightmares? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8pvwaa/eli5_how_come_people_dont_get_ptsd_from_really/ | {
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" Nightmares we know are imagination. Scary as they can be, they are not real. \n\nThe kind of trauma that causes PTSD is all too real.",
"I'm sure that there are people that suffer from really intense bouts of Sleep Paralysis that could justify having some sort of ptsd from their nightmares. ",
"I think an equally interesting question would be: why does most people never develop PTSD no matter what kind of trauma they go through?\n\nThe highest PTSD rates come from victims of rape. Yet most people who experience this devastating form of trauma don't end up with PTSD. Why?\n\nI believe it has the most to do with the processing of the event rather than the event itself. Male survivors of rape have a higher chance of developing PTSD than females. I think this has to do with the fact that men find it harder to talk about their trauma.\n\nTalking is important. It's a big part of how we process and interpret events in our lives. Writing can be equally good. It sounds very clichéd, but it's true: it helps.\n\nBecause the interpretation is important. If we experience a loss of control so great that it overshadows all our previous experiences, it can change how we see the world. If we keep feeding this view by acting on impulses to run away or to sedate ourselves with drugs, entertainment, or food, it grows stronger as it goes unchallenged.\n\nCBT, the most effective form of therapy for stress- and anxiety-related disorders, is mostly about testing your beliefs. Challenging them. Updating your hypotheses about the world, given your (flawed) model of how it works.\n\nI think one reason why we are so resilient is because we are highly social animals and instinctively seek each other out to process our experiences. The size of one's support network is a big factor in whether one will be able to \"bounce back\" following trauma.\n\nAnd to answer your question: we don't get PTSD from nightmares because we have a very simple interpretation: it was just a dream. It has no real-life consequences. So there's no need for us to update our models of the world to include a great chance of round-the-clock horror."
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3sd3ox | how we feel an itch somewhere but the source is completely different and we end up "chasing" it to scratch the right spot | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sd3ox/eli5_how_we_feel_an_itch_somewhere_but_the_source/ | {
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"Assuming you are talking about random itches on the back of your leg or on your back and not on your face, it is a simple reason: density of sensory neurons. Some places like your hand or mouth have a really high density of sensory neurons, and it is easy to discriminate between two pin pricks only a millimeter or so apart. Other places have a much lower density of sensory of neurons and you cannot tell the difference between pin pricks a couple of centimeters apart. This means that even though you know you have an itch somewhere, you may need to search a moment to find it since you don't have as precise a location to go to. "
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3fzmz0 | why we have evolved with the ability to physically shut off our sense of sight, but not any of the others.. hearing, smell, taste and touch? | Sitting on the tube and realising i made huge error of leaving my headphones at home it got me thinking, why can't i "close" my ears. That is, without of course sticking my fingers inside, why haven't i evolved to protect my hearing at will, much like how eyelids protect eyesight? I have been reading many papers on our senses and haven't come to any solid conclusions. Hopefully someone can answer this in a way that i can understand. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fzmz0/eli5why_we_have_evolved_with_the_ability_to/ | {
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"The reason we can \"shut off\" our sight is because while awake, we can protect our eyes but while asleep we cannot so dust, particles, bugs etc would be able to get in and damage them. Eyes need to be exposed to the outside elements to function whereas hearing, smell etc does not.",
"Vision is incredibly resource intensive. A whole lobe is dedicated to it, and it is responsible for 40% of the energy used by the brain. I'm not sure, but \"turning it off\" might be a way to conserve energy while we sleep. Also eyelids clean and keep the eyes moist -- other sensory oregon's do not need these mechanisms in the same way.",
"We can't shut it off, we close our eyes. I mean, our eyes are vulnerable, and we needed to protect them. Our ears are not as vulnerable (or as important, until mammals came along with their fancy inner ear that included 3 ear bones instead of 2) as our eyes. The only thing that will permanently damage hearing (that I'm aware of) is damage to your ear drum, the bones inside, or the brain. While simple dust blowing in the breeze can do a lot of damage to your sight. What is going to damage your ears? I mean, nowadays we have loud music, and machinery that can damage your ears (not to mention, there are these things called explosives that have been used in the military quite a bit nowadays). But for most of our evolutionary past, there was nothing loud enough to damage your ears.\n\nHence, we quickly evolved an eyelid to protect our eye lids.",
"Just because you close your eyes, you don't \"shut off\" that sense. You're still very much able to see the light that get through your eyelids. Furthermore, eyelids were not evolved to turn off your sense of vision, but to protect them from different stuff that can get in to them and damage them, and keep them moisturised so they don't dry out. ",
"Your hands *are* the feature we evolved to close off your ears, nose, mouth, etc. They're the ultimate multi-tools.\n\nAnd, apparently, There weren't enough incidents involving those body parts that resulted in death for any mutations which would have lead to the advent of more specialized coverings to have a significant evolutionary advantage.\n\nIn the case of eyes, however, we needed something faster, would keep the eye moist, and something that could stay shut while we slept.",
"you actually do close off your ears. When you wince from a loud or high pitched sound you might notice a squeeze and physical action that occurs deep within your ear. There is a mechanism that helps protect your hearing deep within your ear to reduce the sound traveling.",
"You can shut off your sense of smell, can't you? I can.",
"my nose gets so stuffed up that I can no longer use it, does that count as shutting it off?",
"Feel free to plug your ears or pinch your nose closed.. Mechanically it might take a little more effort, but the effect is basically the same.",
"Well you CAN \"stop\" your sense of taste in the same sense you stop your sense of sight, by closing your eyes or mouth",
"I can't prove this, but I very strongly believe the brain does shut down your hearing senses to a certain extent while sleeping. When I wake up under certain circumstances I can sense my hearing 'coming back online' as my brain reboots that part. I know this because my awareness comes back just a moment before the hearing sense comes back, just by a millisecond but enough to notice. I don't notice it most of the time, every now and then it's very obvious to me."
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4mi1tz | why do some planes leave a visible stream in the sky while others don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mi1tz/eli5why_do_some_planes_leave_a_visible_stream_in/ | {
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"Contrails are the result of water vapor from the engines condensing to form clouds/ice crystals.\n\nDepending on the local humidity, pressure, and temperature, this may or may not occur. ",
"It's simply a matter of the air temperature at the specific location and altitude of the plane, because that will determine whether it forms condensation trails. The same plane that you see not leaving a trail may leave one half an hour later as it moves into air with different conditions. ",
"Hydrocarbon fuels produce water when they burn aswell. Gasoline, diesel, jet fuel. They all produce water and co2 as exhaust.",
"It's called a \"contrail.\" The air up there is super low density, so even though the water vapour in that air is below freezing, it's not frozen. When the plane passes, the engines compress the air they consume and leave behind extra water vapour from the combustion. This causes the super-cooled water vapour to freeze instantly. Sometimes it's not cold enough, or there's not enough humidity.\n\nInterestingly, contrails spread out after their formation and can be so significant as to act as an artificial cloud layer, causing albedo to be lowered while trapping the heat below them like a blanket. Areas with heavy high-altitude air traffic consistently experience some anthropogenic weather effects as a result.",
"It's those chemtrails man. They are poisoning the earth and all of us are gonna die. Jet fuel can't melt dank memes."
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4oa4el | what is the difference between an accent and a dialect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4oa4el/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_an_accent_and/ | {
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"Not a linguistics expert, but an accent is all about pronunciation of words. That is, how the words sound when said.\n\nDialect includes the sound of the words but then adds in word choice and/or grammar.\n\nFor instance, the New Orleans yat accent sounds a lot like a Brooklyn accent. But you can tell they're different dialects more easily by what is said instead of how it's said.\n\nIn New Orleans, you don't go grocery shopping, you make groceries. The middle part of the road isn't a median, it's the neutral ground. A vehicle inspection sticker is a brake tag. Soft drinks are cold drinks."
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1wkfey | why are videos from itunes significantly larger than the same video downloaded off say the pirate bay? | I downloaded the latest Sherlock episode off the Pirate Bay, and then off iTunes when it came out. The one off iTunes is 3.48 GB while the episode from the Pirate Bay is 576 MB. They're the same level of quality all around as far as I can tell, so why is one ~6 times bigger? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wkfey/eli5_why_are_videos_from_itunes_significantly/ | {
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"Well, are you sure they are the same quality? There are a number of different ways to compress files, or video, which provide similar quality through different methods.\n\nThen there is the possibility that your display device (read video card) only supports a quality of, for arguments sake, lets say 5 quality units. If you are viewing a video which has a quality of 7 quality units, and compare it with a video which has a quality of 9 quality units, I believe that since your display device can only handle 5 quality units, that is pretty much all you get.\n"
]
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[]
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|
absz8e | what happens when you accidentally ‘crick’ your neck? when you move it the wrong way and something feels like it snapped, and it feels hot and sore for like 1 minute? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/absz8e/eli5_what_happens_when_you_accidentally_crick/ | {
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"I do this all the time to loosen my neck up. It's the same as cracking your knuckles or any other joints. Gases get trapped in the joint and the \"pop\" releases them."
]
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[]
] |
|
6jhfzr | how does https hide visited websites from internet service providers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jhfzr/how_does_https_hide_visited_websites_from/ | {
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"text": [
"It does not hide which websites you visit. However it encrypts (scrambles with an algoritm) the communication so they cannot see what you are doing on the website."
]
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[]
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||
1wy40x | obamacare vs medicare | I still don't fully understand the difference between Obamacare and Medicare. I have never been into this kind of thing, and whenever I ask someone they give me a horribly complicated answer that is way over my head. Can someone on this Subreddit give me a simple explanation to the following questions?
1.) What is the difference?
2.) Why does it seem like people hate Obamacare?
3.) Why would someone want one or the other?
Thank you so much guys. If you don't feel like answering all of them that's fine, I just want to know the difference the most. Again, thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wy40x/obamacare_vs_medicare/ | {
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"Medicare is a set of plans created and overseen by a government agency that are restricted to a certain age of people and paid for via social security\n\nObamacare is a change in the rules about what can and cannot be covered under the regular insurance companies. That you pay for independently. ",
"Medicare is a government-provided automatic health care for people over the age of 65. ACA is a law that requires people to get health care and forces healthcare providers to do certain things.\n\nMany republicans trash ACA because Obama supports it. There's really no other logical explanation given the praise that republicans lauded over Romney for implementing a similar law in MA. But then Obama said \"let's do this for everyone\" and it's impossible for Obama to something good because many vocal - ie extrem - Republicans are too caught up in the political game to give a rats ass about anything else. I wish I had some other explanation, but if you follow the GOP's response... It makes no sense. I'm not even a democrat, I'm a Republican who thinks that Obama is physically capable of doing something good, and I don't understand what's happened to my party in the last 10-20 years.\n\nI feel like my explanation of 1 kind of answers (or let's you figure out) 3\n\nEDIT: Spelling, Grammer",
"1. Basic differences are that the Affordable Care Act still uses private insurers and Medicare is run by the government. Anyone can participate in the Affordable Care Act while you have to be at retirement age or be disabled to get Medicare, see Medicare eligibility here _URL_0_.\n\n2. I imagine people hate the Affordable Care Act because healthcare insurance is now required (there are exceptions) and they're uninformed and associate it with the word Socialism (which they think is bad and think they're wasting their money paying for another's coverage, which they're doing anyway with any other type of insurance). \n\n3. Uh, people like having health insurance coverage and not having to pay the entire cost of their health costs. If you're eligible for Medicare, it can provide a better discount than traditional insurance coverage, but not everything is covered and not everything has a lower cost like with the Medicare prescription coverage. The Affordable Care Act makes it against the law for insurers to deny you based on preexisting conditions, it allows women to be charged the same as men and get things like birth control covered.\n\nOn a side note, when on Medicare, you pay for it and it costs about the same as a health plan that you would get with an employer. There are also deductibles just like regular insurance. You can get help with these costs if you qualify for extra help. There are also different coverage levels within Medicare, just like with a regular insurance plan.\n\nPersonally, I would have rather have had a single payer system put in place like the majority of other Western nations have for their citizens."
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1vpy93 | why are some of the darkest roads lacking street lights? | I've noticed in my travels that some of the darkest roads you can drive down are lacking street lights. I'm not even talking rural areas. I live about a mile from a major road and there's a dark stretch of about 2 miles without lights. The reason I bring this up is I was driving on said road tonight and almost plowed over a guy walking in the road and didn't see him until I was right in front of him. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vpy93/eli5_why_are_some_of_the_darkest_roads_lacking/ | {
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"They're dark because they lack streetlights.",
"Cost, mostly, and as /u/mr_indigo points out your question has a tautology. If the street *did* have lights you wouldn't consider it a dark street.\n\nStreet lights are put up in high-traffic areas or where there is a intersection that is traveled enough that just relying on car headlights isn't really enough."
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1txpbz | why staying up late can completely change your mood/mindset | Whether it be for the worse or for the better, lots of people change a bit after a certain time. For me, it's 2am. At 2am I usually become very happy, and carefree. It's like becoming a completely different person. I stay up late and suddenly I have energy, motivation, and an odd giddiness. Why does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1txpbz/eli5_why_staying_up_late_can_completely_change/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"When you rest, neurotransmitters shut down for a while and regain their sensitivity to the compounds released in the brain. If they do not regain sensitivity, your brain acts as if these compounds are in lower quantities. For you, your logic processing sounds a bit off making you slap-happy, enjoy it :D"
]
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|
3nvjci | as a college freshman, of course i have to take all the classes and things on rape. most of them make it sound as if it is illegal to have sex while drunk. is this true? why or why not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nvjci/eli5_as_a_college_freshman_of_course_i_have_to/ | {
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"This is a very complicated grey area. Basically, sex needs to be consensual, which means all involved parties must *want* it to happen. \n\nThe problem with being drunk is that your ability to give consent is impaired. In ELI5 words: If you're shitfaced, you do stuff you wouldn't do if you weren't shitfaced. \n\nNow, if both of you had a beer or two, it can probably be assumed that you two were still able to give consent. If both of you are completely shitfaced, not so much. The problem then is... technically you both assaulted each other. It's messy. How about you don't get shitfaced. Gives you whiskey-dick anyway.\n\nOf course the super-bad ultimate douche move is to get *her* super-drunk while staying totally sober so that you can then have your way with her. That's rape and you deserve to be punished.",
"Despite what many others are going to say, **the law** and precedent says that *it is completely legal to have sex while drunk,* it is legal to consent while drunk, being drunk has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to consent.\n\nHowever, someone who is *not in control of their own actions* can not give consent (the legal standard is whether they are able to understand what they are consenting to). This can be caused by being inebriated. It can also be caused by many other things. The amount of booze you've drank has nothing to do with it directly, the only thing that matters is your mental state.\n\nAnd here's the tricky part: you have to literally not be in control of your own actions for you to be unable to consent. Most people don't understand what that means. But what the law and precedent has decided it means is, if you are aware of your surroundings, if you are aware what you're doing, **if you are aware what you are consenting to** then it's not rape. Even if you are extremely drunk, even if your judgment is extremely impaired, it's still not rape.\n\nSo what does this look like, practically? Essentially, if someone has to lead someone anywhere, and they are unable to walk on their own and don't understand they're being lead (think, like, you could walk someone to their car or you could literally walk them off a cliff and they wouldn't understand the difference) they probably can not consent. If you ask someone if they want to have sex and they say yes, but then you ask them if they want to fly off the empire state building and they say yes, then you ask them if they're a power ranger and they say yes, that's not consent because they clearly don't understand what you're asking. If, however, they can of their own accord follow someone to a bedroom, take off a guy's clothes, take off their own clothes, it's probably not rape even if they're *extremely* intoxicated.\n\nSo, that's the law's stance on it. (Seriously, I urge you to look up the laws, I guarantee a lot of people are going to get this wrong with what they ASSUME consent is) *however,* your school can and almost definitely does have private policy on what constitutes \"rape.\" Their policy isn't the law, so you won't get in legal trouble (for violating their policy but not the law), but they can kick you out of school.\n\nAnd school policies are many times extremely, extremely unfair, especially to men.\n\nEdit: and please keep in mind it doesn't matter what actually happened, all that's going to matter is what the evidence shows. If you're considering having sex with a very drunk but consenting girl, it would be good if her friends heard her say she's going to bang you. If she wakes up the next day and can't remember it and cries rape, and the only witness is some guy who says she was super drunk, had passed out earlier and it looked like you were sort of carrying her, that's going to look a lot like rape even if that's not exactly what happened. The guy may not even be lying, just recollecting to the best of his ability. In all honesty your best bet is to just wait until they sober up. You don't want to bang chicks who only want to bang you when they're drunk, anyway. That's just depressing.",
"It is still legal to have sex while drunk. It is not legal to have sex when you are too drunk to consent. There is a big difference between the two. \n\nThe problem is that there is no easy definition of too drunk to consent. It depends on the situation and the person. You can't just say 'you are too drunk to consent if you have had three drinks or more' cause most people are nowhere near too drunk too consent at that point, and some point (especially if they are drinking on an empty stomach or mixing alcohol with meds) might be too drunk to consent after less than three drinks. \n\nFor universities, if they get in the news related to a rape (or alleged rape) that is bad publicity for the university. Especially when universities in the past already had a lot of bad press over pretty much allowing rape to happen and hushing it up. So now universities are trying to be more firm on it, and create an environment in which there is less chance of rape happening. And one way they are trying to do that is by playing it safe when it comes to sex and alcohol and advocating abstinence: drink and don't have sex or don't drink and have sex. ",
"I have a question, because I've never taken one of these classes. Do they say it's illegal to have sex while drunk, or do they say there could be legal consequences to drunk sex?\n\nI ask because there's a nuance there. As a man, I think drunk sex has become risky. It's entirely possible for drunk me to have drunk consensual sex with drunk her and to have a Bad Time if sober her feels differently about the event.\n\nI'm not saying that's the way it should be or anything, but it's something that I personally would be worried about.",
"Buy a breathalyzer. They're fun at parties.\n\nIt's also interesting to try to guess your own BAC. You might find that as you get closer to the legal driving limit your guesses get much worse, which is another reason it's useful to have an objective measure."
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4kpnt8 | how does a record produce a sound at constant speed but the record needle travels smaller and smaller circles? | I read this comic and don't understand:(
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kpnt8/eli5_how_does_a_record_produce_a_sound_at/ | {
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"The sound produced by the record player is dependent upon the rate at which it moves along a groove, not about how many times it circles the disk. The groove could be a straight line for all it cares.",
"The sound on a record is - at the simplest level - produced by the needle bouncing over a series of peaks and valleys in the groove. The peaks and valleys toward the center of the record are closer together along the track of the groove than the ones at the edge. Think of a dish with two sets of dashes running around the edge of the plate. One is right at the edge, the other halfway toward the middle. Both have eight dashes total, so the one halfway toward the middle has to have either shorter dashes or smaller spaces between dashes.\n\nAs a result of the increased space between the peaks and valleys, the grooves toward the edge end up being able to produce better-quality sound than the ones toward the center. This is part of the reason why the best songs on a record are typically at the beginning of each side.",
"Think of it this way-the record was recorded with the same discrepancy between the speed of the inner and outer portion of the disc as it has when it is being played. As others have mentioned, the groove is filled with little bumps for the needle to roll over, and that produces the sound. \n\nLike the comic talks about, the record is rotating at a constant rpm, but the outside of the disc is moving at a faster \"meters per second\" than the inside. The way this will show up on the recording is that the little bumps will become elongated as the groove works it's way to the outside of the disc, keeping the sound uniform.\n\n...I think..."
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c23zar | why are fraternities/sororities considered important? i keep reading bios that say person x was in delta kappa blah like it's a thing worth mentioning. why is this a thing that's important enough to include in a bio? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c23zar/eli5_why_are_fraternitiessororities_considered/ | {
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"Because when you get right down to it, if you are going to college with the intent of getting an education, you are fooling yourself. An education is a part of it, but by far the most important part of the college experience is forming interpersonal ties that you can use for business contacts later.\n\nFraternities and sororities are some of the most direct ways to form those ties. As somebody who was stupid enough to go to college and focus on education, please take my advice and do not even bother with college unless you are planning to make friends with as many wealthy people as you can. Even if you have to sacrifice grades to do so.",
"it used to be about networking, once you got your degree and got into the job field it helped you find and get jobs by having an alumni from your fraternity/sorority putting a good word in or informing you that they would have an opening soon in your area or your field of expertise."
]
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6qvdde | how could biting on a lemon stop your hiccups? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qvdde/eli5_how_could_biting_on_a_lemon_stop_your_hiccups/ | {
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"As you know, hiccups are repetitive cyclical events which do not have a voluntary start stop switch.\n\nA lot of cures have been suggested.\n\nPaul Allen created _URL_0_ his institute to understand the brain better.\n\nPhysicians use really powerful drugs to stop hiccups which go on for hours. These are generally occurring in people with severe brain dysfunction. \n\nIf you have a simple fix that is wonderful. Great. How it works is a mystery except that brain input, lemon sensation, is doing something which you want."
]
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bc0ktp | if sulfur can only have two covalent bonds, then how is something like so3 possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bc0ktp/eli5_if_sulfur_can_only_have_two_covalent_bonds/ | {
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"Hybrid Orbital theory allows for delocalized electrons.\n\nThats a little fancy as an answer but what it means is that basically they can share an electron between them rather than having 2 distinct bonds.",
"In school, they teach you that an atom can only form as many covalent bounds as it lacks electrons to obey the Octet law (2 for Oxygen, 4 for Carbon, 1 for Fluor, 0 for Helium, etc). This is only true for the first rows: when you get to bigger elements (like sulphur), you can encounter atoms with as many covalent bounds as they have electrons on their external layer (we call them \"hypervalent\").\n\nIn SO3, sulphur forms 6 covalent bounds."
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639s08 | why are you more susceptible to sneezing and runny nose directly after waking up, as compared to once you get up and around? (while not being sick) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/639s08/elif_why_are_you_more_susceptible_to_sneezing_and/ | {
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"my personal theory has always been related to melatonin and cortisol levels.\n\ncortisol suppresses the immune system, melatonin stimulates it. this is why coughing, runny nose, inflammatory pains are worse at night when cortisol is low and melatonin is high.\n\nhowever, cortisol normally peaks shortly after waking up(giving you energy and making you feel more alert) so you shouldn't have worse symptoms at that time.\n\ncortisol makes you more alert and reduces runny nose because it increases the sensitivity of alpha receptors(alpha receptors in your brain keep you awake and alert, while alpha receptors in your submucosal glands(which make and release mucus) reduce mucus production)\n\nyou're a bright 5 year old",
"I've always thought that, as a photic sneezer, its because my eyes aren't fully dilated to light.",
"Possibly allergies. I am allergic to dust and find my self more stuffed up when I wake up after sleeping in a bed probably covered in dust. My allergy specialist (didn't know they existed til I saw the bill) said not to bother with hypoallergenic pillows because even though they can remove 90% or more of the allergens the 10% or less will still affect me in the same way."
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4617hi | why is it that some people can sleep through loud alarms and noises while others seem to be awoken by the drop of a needle? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4617hi/eli5_why_is_it_that_some_people_can_sleep_through/ | {
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"Some people might remember hearing a noise in their dreams- their subconscious wasn't alarmed (excuse the pun) by the loud noise.\nBut generally- some people are too deeply asleep to 'listen' while others are lightly asleep and prone to being disturbed.\nIf your subconscious is 'watchful'- having been a soldier or being a parent of small children, noises can alarm you enough that the idea of sleeping through it is foreign.",
"Depends on context as well. . \nI used to live in a really high traffic area. There would be cars going by and people in the street all night. It never bothered me. So one in the apartment though. Instant awake. \n\nOne time I went and visited a friend in a rural city. Almost no noise. I kept getting worked up by people talking down the street. ",
"can confirm, i'm not even woken up by the noise of my own kid crying, and we sleep in the same bed...",
"Evolutionary biologist here. It involves a lot of complicated neuroscience, but it basically boils down to this: Imagine that the stuff around your is a kind of paper and that loud sounds are needles trying to puncture their way through. If get woken up easily by sounds, then your brain is surrounded by pretty thin paper. Those who can sleep through alarms have brains surrounded by cardboard, which is harder to puncture than paper.\n\nThe reason paper-brains are more common than cardboard-brains is because of natural selection. Imagine that you're a caveman and you're sleeping in your cave. ALL OF A SUDDEN, A tiger comes by and roars, getting ready to eat you. A paper-brained caveman would have woken up and defended himself, but a cardboard brained caveman wouldn't have and died.\n\nTLDR: Paper is better than cardboard.",
"Could be a learned response. Some people with extreme PTSD sleep very light. It could also be that there is a subconscious need to satay alert. Like when someone you fear says \"Sleep with one eye open\". "
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lhmae | why can't i 'unsend' an email? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lhmae/why_cant_i_unsend_an_email/ | {
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"The old Outlook could. Happened a lot.",
"Your email is basically data.\n\nWhen you send it your sending the data from your computer, to a sever, that send that data to another server, eventually going to a mail server where it is held until the person reads it.\n\nThere is nothing stopping someone from writing a unsend mail function into a mail server but it's unlikely to be implemented because it would allow people to delete mail from other people's mail server. This could be exploited by hackers.",
"Your message is essentially copied from your email app to the recipient's email app, so you can't destroy the recipients copy.\n\nGmail \"undo send\" is just a countdown timer that delays the actual sending giving you a chance to cancel before sending.\n",
"For the same reason you can't unsend a letter.\n\nOnce it's in the mailman/mailcomputer's hands, it's no longer yours. It now belongs to someone else.",
"In truth, it's because SMTP doesn't implement it.\n\nThe way emails are sent is through the SMTP protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol); this is a push-based protocol, which means that once the data leaves your hands, you're done with it.\n\nFirst we should compare push- and pull-based protocols.\n\nIn a pull-based protocol, such as HTTP, the client decides what data they want (a web page on a server somewhere on the web), then contacts the holder of the content and asks for it. In this way, HTTP effectively *reaches* into the internet, and *pulls* data out. This means you can stop pulling if you choose, and once you receive the data, you're free to delete it if you choose.\n\nA push-based protocol like SMTP on the other hand, requires the client to have the data, and a desire to send it somewhere. The same connection handshaking occurs as a pull-based protocol, but once this is complete, the data is sent from the client which initiated the connection to the end client.\n\nWhen dealing with email, your data has a slightly complex path to take to it's destination. \n\nFirst and foremost, your packets must be built, with your recipient's account name, as well as the mail server to send to, subject line, and the actual body of your message. \n\nNext, your mail client contacts the server you have set up as your outgoing mail server, and establishes a TCP connection to it. Once the hand shaking is complete, your mail client sends your email packet in it's entirety to the mail server, then closes the connection - your job is totally done now.\n\nHowever, this mail server may not be very big or expensive or popular, meaning it doesn't get a lot of traffic. If this is the case, your email could sit in the outgoing buffer for any length of time until the mail server decides it's time to deliver it (once a single connection is established, all emails going in that direction are sent at once, so it is beneficial for the server to stockpile emails and send them in bulk).\n\nWhen the server decides to forward your email, it looks at the address of the email (everything after the @), looks up the location of that server, and picks the closest server from the list of all the mail servers it knows. It then makes the exact same connection that your mail client made to the server in the first place, only to the next-closest mail server to the destination.\n\nThe next server then repeats this process, and this continues over and over until the message finally reaches the destination server. At this point, the email will sit on the server and wait for the recipient to log in through POP or IMAP (both pull-based), and download the message from the destination server to read.\n\nThere are exceptions to this, and GMail is a good example; when you send an email through GMail to another GMail account, it goes through instantly (as it should; it starts out at the destination server). However, you can still unsend such an email, specifically because the GMail server software is written to allow it - the server can tell itself to unsend the message because it was programmed that way.\n\nConversely, if you send from a GMail account to a Hotmail account, you can still unsend the email; GMail holds the message you wanted to send inside the outgoing buffer for a predetermined time (I think it's 15 or 30 seconds) while you mull it over. If you choose to unsend the email, it will be popped (removed) from the outgoing buffer, and never leaves the GMail server (and hence is never received). If you do not unsend the email, the timer on your email expires and your email is sent out during the next connection in the direction of the Hotmail server.\n\nSo, the only reason you can unsend emails on certain platforms is that they are either both the sending and receiving platform, and have been written to allow unsending, or the server (or client, in the case of outlook) waits a predetermined amount of time before actually making the connection to send your email, giving you the opportunity to remove the email from the outgoing buffer.",
"The old Outlook could. Happened a lot.",
"Your email is basically data.\n\nWhen you send it your sending the data from your computer, to a sever, that send that data to another server, eventually going to a mail server where it is held until the person reads it.\n\nThere is nothing stopping someone from writing a unsend mail function into a mail server but it's unlikely to be implemented because it would allow people to delete mail from other people's mail server. This could be exploited by hackers.",
"Your message is essentially copied from your email app to the recipient's email app, so you can't destroy the recipients copy.\n\nGmail \"undo send\" is just a countdown timer that delays the actual sending giving you a chance to cancel before sending.\n",
"For the same reason you can't unsend a letter.\n\nOnce it's in the mailman/mailcomputer's hands, it's no longer yours. It now belongs to someone else.",
"In truth, it's because SMTP doesn't implement it.\n\nThe way emails are sent is through the SMTP protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol); this is a push-based protocol, which means that once the data leaves your hands, you're done with it.\n\nFirst we should compare push- and pull-based protocols.\n\nIn a pull-based protocol, such as HTTP, the client decides what data they want (a web page on a server somewhere on the web), then contacts the holder of the content and asks for it. In this way, HTTP effectively *reaches* into the internet, and *pulls* data out. This means you can stop pulling if you choose, and once you receive the data, you're free to delete it if you choose.\n\nA push-based protocol like SMTP on the other hand, requires the client to have the data, and a desire to send it somewhere. The same connection handshaking occurs as a pull-based protocol, but once this is complete, the data is sent from the client which initiated the connection to the end client.\n\nWhen dealing with email, your data has a slightly complex path to take to it's destination. \n\nFirst and foremost, your packets must be built, with your recipient's account name, as well as the mail server to send to, subject line, and the actual body of your message. \n\nNext, your mail client contacts the server you have set up as your outgoing mail server, and establishes a TCP connection to it. Once the hand shaking is complete, your mail client sends your email packet in it's entirety to the mail server, then closes the connection - your job is totally done now.\n\nHowever, this mail server may not be very big or expensive or popular, meaning it doesn't get a lot of traffic. If this is the case, your email could sit in the outgoing buffer for any length of time until the mail server decides it's time to deliver it (once a single connection is established, all emails going in that direction are sent at once, so it is beneficial for the server to stockpile emails and send them in bulk).\n\nWhen the server decides to forward your email, it looks at the address of the email (everything after the @), looks up the location of that server, and picks the closest server from the list of all the mail servers it knows. It then makes the exact same connection that your mail client made to the server in the first place, only to the next-closest mail server to the destination.\n\nThe next server then repeats this process, and this continues over and over until the message finally reaches the destination server. At this point, the email will sit on the server and wait for the recipient to log in through POP or IMAP (both pull-based), and download the message from the destination server to read.\n\nThere are exceptions to this, and GMail is a good example; when you send an email through GMail to another GMail account, it goes through instantly (as it should; it starts out at the destination server). However, you can still unsend such an email, specifically because the GMail server software is written to allow it - the server can tell itself to unsend the message because it was programmed that way.\n\nConversely, if you send from a GMail account to a Hotmail account, you can still unsend the email; GMail holds the message you wanted to send inside the outgoing buffer for a predetermined time (I think it's 15 or 30 seconds) while you mull it over. If you choose to unsend the email, it will be popped (removed) from the outgoing buffer, and never leaves the GMail server (and hence is never received). If you do not unsend the email, the timer on your email expires and your email is sent out during the next connection in the direction of the Hotmail server.\n\nSo, the only reason you can unsend emails on certain platforms is that they are either both the sending and receiving platform, and have been written to allow unsending, or the server (or client, in the case of outlook) waits a predetermined amount of time before actually making the connection to send your email, giving you the opportunity to remove the email from the outgoing buffer."
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29935s | could classical composers actually play everything that they wrote? if not, how did they know it was even possible to play it as written? | I'm talking about the composers famous for writing nearly impossible-to-play concertos -- Rachmaninov, Paganini, etc. Were these guys talented enough at multiple instruments to actually play everything they wrote, or were they kind of like "wow, this concerto is really going to f*** up somebody's day when they try to play it!"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29935s/eli5_could_classical_composers_actually_play/ | {
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"Rachmaninov and Paganini were both known to have gigantic hands. Historians believe they both may have suffered from [Marfan syndrome](_URL_0_). This allowed them to play very precisely, and also to play those gigantic chords they're famous for.\n\nI don't know about their skill with other instruments (Rachmaninov outside the piano, Paganini outside the violin). I always thought Paganini was totally a violinist, and his compositions for other instruments were just background for a solo violin. But he was so good with his violin that people claimed he had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his skilled hands.",
"Well, Paganini and Liszt wrote for themselves, so knew their limits. Composers know the range (lowest to high) of each instrument, so could write lines for them on other instruments, typically composing at a piano, as it has the widest range. They also work with soloists in mind, who evaluate and attempt the works in progress. ",
"They generally wrote for themselves or for someone they knew, with the difficulty of the piece reflecting the ability of the person they knew was going to perform it. To give one example, the famously virtuoso aria 'Der Hölle Rache', which appears in Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' was written for Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer, who Mozart *knew* was an amazing singer. Mozart wrote the aria in order to show off how good Hofer really was.",
"no, but they still had a good understanding of the instrument. a lot of times, the composers work with the concert soloists to create those concertos (Tchaikovsky concerto was written with the help of kotek)",
"Many of our most famous composers (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc) were known in their own lifetimes as virtuoso performers. It's pretty clear that they could play anything they wrote *for their own instruments*. Bach was famous as an organist but he was also a very capable violinist and violist. Mozart was a child prodigy on the violin, but he was also an exceptional pianist. \n\nStill, this doesn't tell the full story. Beethoven could not play the solo part for his violin concerto, Mozart couldn't play the solo parts for his clarinet, bassoon or horn concertos. In many cases, these pieces were written with specific soloists in mind, either as commissioned pieces or for soloists known to the composer. \n\nMozart's [horn concertos](_URL_0_) were written for his close friend Joseph Leutgeb, who very likely consulted with Mozart on the solo part during the composition and certainly before the piece was performed in public. \n\nFor anyone considering writing a concerto today, it is highly advisable to have one (or a few) skilled soloists play through the solo part during composition to get feedback on the playability of the part. \n\nTL;DR: Even if composers couldn't play everything they wrote, their friends could. ",
"I remember a story (possibly apocryphal) about Chopin (or was it Schumann?) nearly destroying his hands trying to get rid of the linkage between the middle and ring fingers in his hands through exercies, tools, and/or surgery -- which is to say he wanted to be able to play things that were \"unplayable\". ",
"Apparently, Liszt composed a few pieces that he had great difficulty performing, such as \"El Contrabandista.\" He wrote the piece to be a grand finale for concerts, and is reported to have failed in the middle of playing it many times due to exhaustion from the sheer difficulty. \n\nMikhail Pletnev, who won the Tchaikovsky competition sometime in the seventies, tried to practice it to where he could perform it, and gave up! So even now, the greatest pianists have a very, very hard time playing it. "
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28tjom | if i leave a bunch of empty beer cans on my counter for a week i get flies. where do the flies come from? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28tjom/eli5_if_i_leave_a_bunch_of_empty_beer_cans_on_my/ | {
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"From the outside. "
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322g1j | what determines which side of my headphones certain sounds come out of? | Why is it that sometimes if you listen to a song with only one earbud in you can miss certain instruments or beats in a song? Also, does this apply to regular speakers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/322g1j/eli5_what_determines_which_side_of_my_headphones/ | {
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"That's called stereo imaging. Most music has two channels - right and left (some has only one [mono] and some has more [e.g., quadraphonic]). By splitting the various instruments between the channels, either partially or fully, the producers can create a \"stage\" for the music, with some instruments on one side, some on the other, and some ranged in between.",
"The sound file has two separate audio tracks, one for each ear (unless it's extra fancy in which case it might have more tracks for surround sound). If you look at the headphone jack, you'll see that there's rubber rings dividing it into either 3 or 4 sections (depending on whether there's a microphone or not). One section is ground, and one is wired to each ear so your music player/phone can send a different signal to each ear.\n\nYes, the same thing applies to speakers. If you have a surround sound set-up, you'll be getting different sounds out of all five or seven speakers if the sound file has that many channels in it."
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1xn6qd | why dont game companies sell versions of simple, classic games as apps? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xn6qd/eli5_why_dont_game_companies_sell_versions_of/ | {
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bdvxio | method acting. what is the psychological process that method actors like de niro and daniel day-lewis go into that allows them to take on and become the character while maintaining their own identities? what is the appeal among actors unlike other acting techniques? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdvxio/eli5_method_acting_what_is_the_psychological/ | {
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"So... the first thing is that the \"Method\" is exaggerated and taken to extreme by certain film actors. At the core, the concept is that an actor should try to make their performance seem realistic, and that a good way to do so is to draw upon your own experiences. If your character has to be sad in a scene, you can think of times that you were sad so that your reactions are more authentic. If your character has to be upset, you can think of things that made you upset. The goal is to create realism, that the character you portray will respond and act the way that a person normally would. This makes it very popular as an acting technique for film actors, where realism is far more important than it is for stage actors. \n\n\nNow, some people take the method farther than that, where they go out of their way to have experiences that will allow them to bring more emotional moments to their performances. If they are to be playing a beggar, they may spend time with the homeless, or even pose as one so as to get a more authentic experience to draw from. \n\n\nThe compartmentalization is important. Many times if an actor allows themselves to go too deeply into the role, they may have \"bleed\" where the emotional state of the character they are portraying may influence their own, or vice-versa. For many, taking a step back and remembering that they are merely actors, following a script, and performing, is enough to allow them to separate themselves from the mental state of the character they are creating."
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34lcgs | how does low sodium salt work? | Isn't its chemical formula NaCl? So... wouldn't less sodium actually make it less... salt-like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34lcgs/eli5_how_does_low_sodium_salt_work/ | {
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"Some of the salt is replaced with potassium chloride which has a similar taste and the benefit of potassium which can be difficult to get in your diet. There might be other substitutions that I'm not aware of. ",
"There are lots of different salts. For example, KCl (Potassium Chloride) is also a salt and it has no sodium. Low-sodium salts are usually a mixture of sodium chloride and potassium chloride.",
"\"Salts\" are really just a broad term for any ionic compound. Sodium chloride is more accurately termed \"table salt.\"\n\nIn any case, low-sodium salt is usually just a different salt, typically potassium chloride or potassium lactate. They taste about the same, but have no sodium."
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62dlu6 | how does the "sacrificial anode" mechanism actually work? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62dlu6/eli5_how_does_the_sacrificial_anode_mechanism/ | {
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"When two different metals touch each other in a conductive liquid, a process called \"galvanic corrosion\" happens. It acts like a battery, electrons leave one metal and enter the seawater, which results in that metal decaying and a small current being generated.\n\nBoats are a great example: An aluminum propeller on a steel shaft, immersed in sea water. The steel will lose electrons to the salt water more easily than the aluminum, resulting in corrosion (rust) and some of the steel being lost to the water, which will destroy the shaft.\n\nThe solution is to add a third metal to the mix, which loses it's electrons more easily. Zinc is often used. When a piece of zinc is attached to the aluminum/steel, it's going to be the first to be destroyed, leaving the steel and aluminum untouched. "
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408geb | why our bodies differ in "locking-up" vs "going limp" when becoming unconscious? | Also, is this something our brain/nervous system controls? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/408geb/eli5_why_our_bodies_differ_in_lockingup_vs_going/ | {
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"Going unconscious can occur through different mechanisms. Tonic posturing and flaccid collapse are both simply mediated by the specific stuff going on in the brain at the moment."
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3xdcso | what is the year end budget deal that just got approved and how will it affect us? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xdcso/eli5_what_is_the_year_end_budget_deal_that_just/ | {
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"Congress is required to set a budget for all government activities, which they did back right before Boehner retired. The second piece to this is deciding how to spend each dollar that the budget required. This becomes a bit of a problem when Congressmen attach riders. Riders are basically requirements that the money NOT be spent for specific things. For instance, a rider might be that budgeted funds cannot be spent to support Planned Parenthood, an obvious non-starter with Democrats. Another might be aimed at restricting the President's plan to relocate Syrian refugees.\n\n\nThe overall effect of the budget deal on you personally really depends. For instance, my wife works for the Justice Department. If they had not agreed on spending levels, she wouldn't have been paid. Side note: because her job is considered necessary and required, she still would have required to work. Just not paid until the government set the budget.\n\n\nMost individual implications of a budget deal are very hard to pinpoint on a person to person level."
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arl4ma | dutch disease and de-industrialization? | I'm trying to grasp the economical concept of "Dutch disease." So, whenever (say) a country with weak state institutions finds out natural resources this leads to an appreciation of foreign currency (what does this mean?) and this in turn causes a "de-industrializing" effect on the country's economy. Can you give me some concrete examples of this phenomen happening? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/arl4ma/eli5_dutch_disease_and_deindustrialization/ | {
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"1. Your small country finds oil (or gold or anything)\n2. Your small country exports the newly found riches\n3. Your small country has huge influx of dollars\n4. Dollars are cheap as a result\n5. It's cheaper to import goods rather than manufacture them locally\n6. Local manufacturers go bust"
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2sgnts | why no other animals wear clothes? all points of view welcome, even your own. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sgnts/eli5why_no_other_animals_wear_clothes_all_points/ | {
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"No other animals poses the mental capacity to fabricate clothes. No other animals migrate so far outside of their native climate to develop a need for clothes.",
"Decent clothing is not trivial to create. Slapping a bunch of leaves together isn't useful in the least and without the needed resources, a huge brain and extraordinary motor skills you're not making anything fancier than a bunch of leaves.",
"Most animals have a good natural protection against cold. Fur, feathers, a layer of fat... And clothing is not easy to make; we get by because we have good hands, really. "
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6xtdft | what happened that made football and basketball popular sports? | I dont watch or get the thrill of watching them, so what happened in America that made these sports so popular? And why do we put so much emphasis on them in high schools? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xtdft/eli5_what_happened_that_made_football_and/ | {
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"For a historical context; sport leagues started up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Soccer never took off because the early leagues were corrupt, inept, and prone to infighting and petty politics. Rugby was actually really popular until the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, where no one bothered showing up because the French fans were so toxic that almost no one felt like playing (and as a result, rugby declined in popularity worldwide pretty quickly).\n\nFootball and basketball were both invented within the US, and didn't really compete with baseball that much because their seasons didn't really overlap much at first (baseball was summer, football was fall and early winter, and basketball was late winter and spring). Combine that with a relatively immense and wealthy population following World War II that had a healthy appetite for sports, and those leagues in particular became popular. Collegiate athletics were also a huge part in this, as the national rivalries that you see in Europe were replaced with state rivalries, and these rivalries were primarily played out between the flagship universities of the states, whereas professional teams really represented cities (and their surrounding regions) rather than states.\n\nIn addition, international competition (except with Canada) never really took off in the US because having teams travel to Europe was prohibitively costly, both in terms of time and money. Thus, we didn't really care that the rest of the world played soccer; we couldn't really play them until recently, so soccer wasn't any more interesting to us than other sports were."
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2gloc7 | how do underwater torches work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gloc7/eli5how_do_underwater_torches_work/ | {
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"The answer depends on whether you're British or American.\n\n"
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1qrb2k | are banks able to "forget" how much money i have in my bank account? | Let's say that hypothetically there is a destructive war or earthquake that destroys the computer servers of my bank. If I had a thousand dollars in my account, is that money gone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qrb2k/eli5_are_banks_able_to_forget_how_much_money_i/ | {
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"Generally, no. Most bank data is also stored in off site backups that are geographically distant from the primary servers. Of course, if you mean a nuclear war, then all bets are off. But in that case, your money would probably be useless anyway.",
"If you're in Canada, the CDIC protects you up to 100K should the bank or banking system fail. \n\nBanks are *legally required* to maintain resilient storage of all sensitive and financial records. The type of failure you're referring to is literally impossible. Through offsite storage, multiple datacentres, multiple servers per datacentre, we can achieve 100% data protection. \n\nFor example - in order for a particular bank to be wiped out completely (sorry, I cannot name names), you would need to obliterate 2 major cities, and at least 2 smaller communities. I'm talking Tyler Durden style obliteration. \n\nRemember the big blackout 10 years ago? It resulted in *no data loss*. In fact, the critical servers at the bank I was working at during the blackout stayed up and running. \n\nSo, no, they can't \"lose\" or \"forget\" how much money you have.\n\n... or owe. \n\n:)\n\nSource: Career in banking information technology, automation, data integrity and security\n\nedit: grammar and wording",
"Hypothetically speaking, yes it is possible. But as others have stated, there are a number of countermeasures in place which are designed to reduce the probability of it ever happening to a near negligible level. \r\rFrom a UK perspective, our landmass is significantly smaller than the US or Canada, so while we do distribute backup copies around different locations, they're not as widely spread as you'd find over in North America. I worked at a national bank last year, and there were three datacentres that I was aware of, and two of them were within 50 miles of each other. We had a blackout which caused both of them to go down, but the third was still up and running as it was a few hundred miles away. \r\rSmaller regional banks may not have had that protection and their servers would have been offline if they were all within the range of the blackout. \r\rBanks here are legally required to do some form of Disaster Recovery testing, to ensure that if something happens to the data, it can be recovered. There are a number of reasonable disasters one could anticipate and need to be prepared for. For example, in the UK we probably wouldn't test resilience against a hurricane but in some parts of the US it may be one of the most critical elements to successful DR testing. \r\rSo yes, it is possible for banks to lose all your records. It's just not very probable under reasonable expectations of disaster scenarios. If, by some freak of nature, we had a huge hurricane that swept over the UK from top to bottom, our banks which don't have international operations would probably be screwed.",
"Banks (in Australia) are required to be compliant to a body called APRA, the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority and one of the requirements under APRA regulation is to have DRP, or Disaster Recovery Plan. This is basically a set of procedures that would be followed after a catstrophic incident to get full functionality back. It normally involves, a complete offsite backup and IT systems and Tech that can be used to bring up functionallity in a short period of time. These plans are normally tested annually and the reports audited by an external auditor to make sure that nothing would be lost during a catastropic event.\n\nSource: I am an Auditor in the banking industry. ",
"There are already lots of comments here about redundant offsite backups, so *somebody* will be able to get your money.\n\nIf you do business with a tiny bank that has only one branch, and a volcano opens up directly under it while you're out of town, most likely I should think some other bank would acquire the defunct bank's assets and liabilities. They would have to recover the encrypted backups by getting the encryption key from wherever it's been kept separately in escrow (assumption). Then you'd probably have to go there to get your money back.",
"Don't worry, NSA has the records as well.",
"I work for an internationally operating Bank (one of the big few remaining). Data from accounting systems including client data is generally backed up across multiple data centers on multiple continents, for instance in two or more data centers in continental Europe, a couple more in the UK, in the US, and Russia / China / India. Unless you live in countries like Singapore, Switzerland, or Luxemberg - as they have laws in place prohibiting data storage outside their borders. In most cases, you would have to nuke at least three countries, at once. Except the sgp/lux/swiss case, where a single country would suffice.\nApart from the backup / high availability setup, there are always ways an insufficiently tested piece of application code could mess up someones account. This almost never happens, though as the code responsible for record keeping is old and tested - some of the code hasn't been changed since the early 1980s. Since every change is logged and monitored in great detail, there is always an army of indian workers standing by to review / fix system issues.\nMuch more often than messing up an account balance, there is a higher risk of things going wrong in money transfers (especially SWIFT, as it can be fairly complex) and in investment banking, where systems are fiddled with a lot more - to support new derivative instrument types, or to implement changes demanded by new regulations, etc.\nThere is a lot more to all this, but this is the short version.",
"*Could* it happen? Yeah, but it would take a lot. Like, something on the level of a nationwide \"Damn near end of the world\" type disaster or attack. \n\nI work for a credit union, and we have 1) Data on computers in the branch 2) that is backed up to off-site computers at our main office 3) and backed up to a super-secured more isolated location 4) and backed up with a third-party data storage firm. All of that would have to get wiped for your balance to be \"forgotten\".\n\nEven then, hard copies of things like statements and receipts do exist. With enough work, it should theoretically be possible to figure out a fairly close approximation of someone's balance. \n\nTL;DR: *Can* happen, but infinitesimally unlikely. "
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3exp8k | why do people forget things in the morning that they thought about the night before? | say you're lying in bed getting some of your best thinking done, you have many ideas for projects or miscellaneous thoughts, you fall asleep, wake up in the morning, all your ideas and thoughts are gone from your mind, sometimes even forever. Why does this occur? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3exp8k/eli5_why_do_people_forget_things_in_the_morning/ | {
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"For starters, how would you know this event took place unless you eventually remembered something? ;)\n\nReally though, in order for you to remember something, you have to store it in your memory. You have short term memory which stores things like RAM. You hear something, it sits in your brain RAM for a bit, you repeat that thing to someone else 5 minutes later and it's dumped. \n\nThen you have long term memory which actually functions in a similar manner to a hard disk drive. Your brain chooses a block for a memory to be stored in, compresses the information and stores it in this block. When you need to recall the information, you unpack the contents, use/manipulate the contents and then package them back up for storage (this is also how memories change over time, essentially corruption during unpacking and packing)\n\nYou have to make an effort in order to remember something permanently, maybe not a conscious effort, but a biological effort is made. \n\nBefore sleeping, you're relaxed and your brain can finally roam and play (during the day it was focused on keeping you as not-dead as possible) and process the wealth of information it has gathered. When you begin to fall asleep, nonessential systems shut down (memory storage) so that they can be repaired and maintained. "
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3o1ji3 | what exactly does a house speaker do and why is the latest withdrawal such a big deal? | There seems to be such a ruckus over the latest withdrawal and how it will affect the budget. Is the lack of a Speaker really that disastrous? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o1ji3/eli5_what_exactly_does_a_house_speaker_do_and_why/ | {
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"The speakers is like the Manger of Congress he decides what bills go to the floor when and he is also the leader of the party setting the agenda of the party in control of Congress the budget is a problem do to the fact that the current speaker is leaving to the fracturing of the party do to the hardliners holding way to much influence(tea party) and basically wanting to put their own person 8n power ",
"The Speaker of the House is the presiding officer of the US House of Representative--the lower house of Congres. Though the Constitution doesn't specify a role or responsibilities the Speaker is generally responsible for keeping order, determining which bills are brought to the floor for a vote (and when), etc.\n\nIn the US the Speaker is almost always a member of the majority party, meaning they also informally serve as a party leader and will work to advance the party's agenda. The current Speaker is John Boehner (R-OH) though as you implied he is set to resign from Congress at the end of the month.\n\n\nThe reason this is considered a big deal is because the Republican party is currently seen as very fractured with a lot of in-fighting. There are three main coalitions in the Republican party today: Conservatives (embodied by the Tea Party and socially conservative evangelicals), pro business Republicans who are otherwise socially moderate, and the libertarians (whoever Rand Paul's equivalent in the House would be).\n\nBoehner was seen as an acceptable, yet still weak, compromise between the three factions. With his departure a new speaker will need to be elected and since Republicans still control the House they will likely decide who that person is.\n\nHOWEVER, the Conservative wing of the party is very anti-compromise so they're unlikely to vote for anyone who they think doesn't tow the line. Without the conservative faction voting with the rest of the Republicans there will likely be a deadlock. I'm not sure what the consequences of not having a Speaker would be so I won't speculate.\n\nOn the other hand, the business and libertarian Republicans are fearful that next time they are up for re-election they will lose in a primary to a Conservative. This might compel them to vote for a Conservative speaker so they can prove their bona fides to their constituents come election season.\n\nIf a Conservative were elected Speaker it could be a very rough time for the US. As I said earlier, these people are very anti-compromise. This is doubly true when the President is a Democrat. If a Conservative is in charge of what bills make it to the floor for a vote they could prevent that from happening until conservative goals (like defunding Planned Parenthood) were incorporated into the bill, or even prevent a bill from coming up for a vote at all (such as to raise the debt ceiling). The former would suck but we as a country would be okay. The latter would be an absolute disaster for the US and world economy.\n\n\n\n",
"Speaker is technically the second in the line of succession after the Vice-President and is basically the legislative leader in the House of Representatives for the Majority Party. As such, they are key in negotiating with the President on legislation, especially when they are from the opposite party.\n\nBoehner resigning was a big deal, because there weren't any scandals or anything \"bad\" that made him resign. He did it because he basically didn't want to do the job anymore. He was constantly having to balance the demands of the more conservative elements of his caucus with the more moderate ones, as well as negotiate with the President.\n\nIt's a big deal for the budget, because they have to pass one, else the government shuts down. The Speaker is pretty key in that process, since he's basically the main negotiator from the House of Representatives with the President."
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5bazft | how do websites like g2a, sell games at cheaper prices and still make money? | Is it true they use stolen credit cards and shit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bazft/eli5how_do_websites_like_g2a_sell_games_at/ | {
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"Fraud. Stolen credit cards are used to buy the keys, the keys get sold to third party websites who sell them to consumers.",
"G2A works as a marketplace, allowing users to sell and buy game keys.\n\nG2A sells games at steep discounts, allowing high volume, and buys game keys for a small amount. They also take a insane chunk (some sellers claim up to 30-40% of the selling price) of transaction in fees. \n\nThe whole system depends on the ability to obtain keys for almost nothing. One way to obtain cheap keys is to buy stolen keys (keys purchased with someone else's card). The key seller pays almost nothing other than the cost of acquiring card information and the time to buy keys from another place, and sells to G2A. In the event of a charge back, the original merchant loses the money (plus chargeback fees), and G2A still has the key.\n\nNow sometimes publishers deactivate keys they know were stolen or sold over re-sellers. This is why they charge fees. If the end-user tries to obtain a replacement key or refund (which IIRC G2A charges for the ability to dispute a transaction), they take the loss, but the amount they take in fees is still greater after paying out replacements/refunds.",
"When a game releases its not the same price all over the world, simply because you cant charge the typical American 60USD price in a place that has far less than the average American pay. People buy up digital keys in these markets for not much, then resell them to higher-paid markets. Its called the \"Grey Market'.\n\nPublishers are able to counter this by distributing region specific keys (basically, Steam or whoever wont redeem it if its done outside that region) but it still happens."
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37yrpe | at the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it. | Copied this line from an article I was reading today. Can someone simplify it for me to understand? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37yrpe/eli5_at_the_quantum_level_reality_does_not_exist/ | {
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"Quantum Mechanics is a probabilistic theory. That means, it cannot predict how a particle will act, it only predicts the probabilities of acting in a certain way. To learn more about determinism vs. probabilism, click [here](_URL_0_).\n\nWhen QM was first proposed, many people - most notably Einstein - thought it was absurd to think that the universe was not inherently deterministic. Hence Einstein's famous exclamation:\"God does not play dice\".\n\nThus, the opponents of this probabilsim came up with several solutions. One of them was, that Quantum Mechanics was deterministic, but we simply couldn't see the variables governing the outcome. This theory is called hidden local variable theory. \n\n* \"Local\", because those variables obeyed special relativity. That means, faster than light communication is not possible. \n\n* \"Hidden\", because we couldn't see those variables, but they are still there. Even if we can't see them. This concept is also called \"realism\" because things are \"real\" even if we are not looking.\n\nJohn Bell, a famous physicist, devised an experiment to test this local hidden variable theory. To learn more of this experiment, click [here](_URL_1_).\n\nThe result of this experiment was, that the local hidden variable theory was wrong. Thus, either localism, or realism had to be wrong. \n\nIf localism was wrong, the theory of relativity would be wrong as well. The theory of relativity, however, works exceptionally well, so most people tend to see localism as correct.\n\nThus, realism - the concept that things are the way they are, even if we are not looking - had to be wrong. \n\nThat is what the article refers to. \n\nOn a practical not, this means that the position of an electron is not determined before we measure it. Before the measurement, the electron can only be described by a probability cloud that assigns each infinitetsimal volume ∆V in space a probability of finding the electron in this volume. \n\n",
"I think that line is a bit of an exaggeration. To understand what it means scientifically, it's useful to introduce the concept of a \"pure\" vs \"mixed\" state of a system, but this is going to take me a bit beyond ELI5. I'll do my best.\n\n\"Pure\" states are the ones we're used to, in which properties of a system have only one definite value. For example, if a particle is in a \"pure\" state of position, that means it is in only one place. If a particle is in a \"pure\" state of momentum, that means it's going in only one direction at only one speed. It seems silly to even define this, but it's important.\n\nPure states can mix into what I'll call \"mixed\" states. These are just combinations of pure states. For example, a particle in a \"mixed\" state of position is in multiple places at once, in a sense. When a system is in a mixed state, it's like the universe is carrying out multiple independent realities (again, in a certain sense). Let's say you have a particle in a mixed state which puts it at both position A and position B. If something happens at location A, it may or may not affect the particle (subsequent observations determine the outcome of this interaction).\n\nThe key point is that when a particle is observed, it must be in a pure state. If it happens to be in a mixed state composed of pure states A, B, and C at the moment it's observed, the universe will choose one of A, B, or C, *change the state of the particle into whichever it chooses*, then you will observe *that* state. This modification of a particle's state when it's observed is known as wavefunction collapse.\n\nLet's continue the example from my 3rd paragraph, in which a particle is simultaneously at position A and position B via \"mixing\", and something happens at position A. Maybe these are photons, and there's a horizontal polarizer at position A, and a vertical polarizer at position B. Even after passing through the polarizers, the photon is still in a \"mixed\" state (of both horizontal and vertical polarization), but when you observe the polarization direction of the photon, the wavefunction collapse determines whether the photon was at position A or position B when they passed through the polarizers.\n\nWhat the article refers to as \"non-existence\" is actually these \"mixed\" states, which I think are better denoted *\"indeterminate\"* states."
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aw8g0b | can you compare the internet speed to a velocity unit such as m/s? if so, how does the internet information travel? | Might be 2 different questions, and if so I'm sorry. But how exactly does the information travel? Is there any unit of velocity we can actually compare the internet speed to? (or is the speed is constant and only thr amount of information changes?) I really am lost with this question.
Thank you for your answars! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aw8g0b/eli5_can_you_compare_the_internet_speed_to_a/ | {
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"It's tricky. Data travels long distances through fiber optic cables at the speed of light in glass, which is a bit under 300,000 km/s. But it also gets relayed through electronic devices (routers), which can add large amounts of delay (like 10 to 100 ms each) along the way.",
"The speed you usually hear for the internet is how much data you can transfer in a given time. This is much more a function of the kind of connection and how the ISP will handle it than physical laws. It's like a pipe with water in it, a smaller pipe will transfer less water per second than a large pipe no matter how fast the water is going if both are equivalent.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nModern fiber optic internet transfers data very near the speed of light, and cable is similar, but it has to hop around between routers so time from point A to point B is not just distance divided by velocity. You constantly have routers reading and directing the information.",
"You can speak of speed as in m/s. But let's make a comparison. You move to a new place. You want to visit local monument. You can walk there, there's a bicycle rental nearby, also you could take a bus, but you don't really know how far away it is. You ask \"how far away it is\", and the answer you get is \"it's 10min away\". 10min isn't a distance. You also don't know how far you need to travel. But it still tells you perhaps the most important thing about how close or far you are from the monument, how long it takes to travel there. So you're like, that's pretty close, though clearly not at my backyard.\n\nSimilarly, in the Internet, when you want to talk to someone, you would like to know how far away they are, and how fast you can travel there. But we can simplify this and instead of wondering about speeds and distances, you can just say \"I'm 40 milliseconds away from them\". This distance in time is called ping. It's the time it takes for a signal to travel from you to them and back. The questions of \"how fast did the signal travel\" and \"how far did it travel\" don't really seem that important because this time it takes to talk to them seems far more useful a measure than either of those things.\n\nBut to answer your question, Internet travels somewhere between 10% and 50% of speed of light. It's not quite the speed of light, but it's pretty close. However, there are lots of variances, and you can't just check the distance between you and the server you want to communicate with on Google Maps, because actually the signal has to travel along some cables somewhere, and you gotta consider where those cables are laid, and how long the path is along those cables. Further complicating things is that some links on way might be down, so your signal might have to take longer way around some chokepoint. But you probably get a pretty decent guess of your ping if you just take the distance traveled along all the cables, and divide it by 1/4 of speed of light."
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1rsy93 | how do non-english speaking countries reddit? | Do you have to translate every comment of every thread into your language? I never see comments in other languages...do you guys always comment in English or does the website magically translate everything for me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rsy93/eli5_how_do_nonenglish_speaking_countries_reddit/ | {
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"German here. I can only speak for myself but... I learned english in school, from movies and music. I read in english, I comment in english.\nReddit gave me an option the see certain aspects of it in german, but that just confuses me, having two languages on the same site.\nSooo... yeah. I'm 27 now and I speak german, english, french, spanish, hungarian and right now I'm learning japanese as well. You should learn a foreign language, it's fun!",
"I would suspect that only English speaking people use reddit. I, for one, would find it way too cumbersome to have everything translated, mainly because even the best translating softwares/services makes plenty of mistakes.\nEdit: Possibly needless to say, but I read and comment in English. Actually, even though my native language isn't English, I tend to think in English a lot, especially when I'm thinking about concepts that I first learned by reading about them in English. I also often dream in English. ",
"There are like 11 trillion subreddits. I'm sure some of them are non English. ",
"People who do not speak English are usually put off by Reddit, as it is mostly in English, so they do not look interested in it. People who speak English quite fluently are more likely to join Reddit, so they do not need any translation.\n\nYou don't see comments in other languages because, if we posted something in our native language, most redditors won't bother reading. But local languages are widely used in country-specific subreddits. Here are some examples in [Arabic](/r/Arabs), [Brazilian Portuguese](/r/saopaulo), [Chinese](/r/chinesereddit), [Dutch](/r/Nederlands), [Finnish](/r/suomi), [French](/r/france), [German](/r/deutschland), [Greek](/r/greece), [Italian](/r/italy), [Norwegian](/r/norge), [Polish](/r/polska), [Russian](/r/ru), [Spanish](/r/es), [Tagalog](/r/redditambayan). As you can see, many of them also accept posts in English – as I said, Reddit attracts many people who speak English as a second or third language."
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4v27st | why do mobile games have an option to remove ads for a small amount of money, like $0.99 even though they likely make more money by making you watch the ads anyways? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v27st/eli5_why_do_mobile_games_have_an_option_to_remove/ | {
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"Actually not really, those ads don't earn them as much money as you think. 1 dollar is probably more than those ads will earn in a lifetime of you playing.",
"They only make more than $0.99 cents with ads if the user uses the app regularly and/or actually clicks on the ads. Also, some users will become annoyed by ads and not use the software unless there is an ad-free version."
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7ip7ke | the difference between 4 wheel drive and all wheel drive. | Edit: I couldn’t find a simple answer for my question online so I went to reddit for the answer and you delivered! I was on a knowledge quest not a karma quest- I had no idea this would blow up. Woo magical internet points!!! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ip7ke/eli5_the_difference_between_4_wheel_drive_and_all/ | {
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"All-wheel drive is in some ways similar to the full-time 4WD system in that it also sends torque to all four wheels constantly. However, most modern AWD systems don't offer drivers the option to operate in two-wheel drive and, unlike the 4WD systems, the differential between the front and rear axles cannot be locked.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"4WD and AWD roughly do the same thing but in different ways, the car is proving power to all four of its wheels. The difference is how that power is divided between them. An all-wheel-drive car can allow each wheel to turn at a different rate, while a four-wheel-drive car generally has its wheel all turning at the same rate. This 4WD set up is better for offroad driving, but can cause problems in city driving, where the inside wheels need to turn slower around a corner than the outside wheels do. Because of this, a lot of 4WD cars are designed to be able to switch to rear-wheel drive when the 4WD is not needed.\n\nEDIT: RIP my inbox",
"Different manufacturers and people use the terms differently, but in general:\n\n4WD = off-road cars. The 4WD system can be turned on/off by the driver so the car is only driving two wheels normally, but engages the other two for difficult conditions. When engaged, the front and rear axles are connected mechanically - there's no (or little) provision for different wheel speeds as you would experience when taking a turn in the road.\n\nAWD = normal/sport cars. All four wheels are driven at all times, with a differential in between to allow \"slippage\" when taking turns. This is better for road use, but not as good for difficult terrain.",
"These days 4WD means you can switch between 2wd and 4wd. AWD you don't have a choice. \n\nAs far as what wheels get torque and when - that is more a matter of what differentials you have in the front and rear axles.\n\nLSD (limited slip) will allow wheels to slip a bit in tight low speed cornering - this helps with not destroying your tires in parking lots for AWD and 4WD systems\n\nLocking differentials are a different beast and will actually force front or real axles to spin the wheels at the same rate and time. ",
"Prettt simply put, AWD has a center differential which allows front and rear axles to rotate at different speeds. 4WD does not have this center diff so at all times 1 front and 1 rear wheel have to rotate at the same speed.\n\nSometimes its how a manufacturer names it too. I know for a time at least the Jeep Cherokee could run in a full time 4WD mode which had an open center diff, putting it in part time 4WD mode would just lock that center diff.",
"4WD is typically selective (can be driven in 2WD or RWD) where AWD is always on. Typically 4WD uses a mechanical center differential with no slip (chain or gear drive) where AWD uses a viscous coupler (kind of like a wet clutch) where it can have some “slip” and direct power to front or rear as needed.\n\nObviously very basic description but hope you get the idea. ",
"If you have more than 4 wheels, then AWD > 4WD! :-)\n\nIt's about traction distribution, AWD is a type of 4WD that is on all the time, so usually changes traction distribution according to what use you are giving it. ",
"There's no official difference, but 4WD generally refers to a system designed to work best off of paved roads and AWD generally refers to a system designed to work on paved roads. AWD, like an Audi, puts the power to the wheels with the most grip, and 4WD, like a Jeep, locks the wheels so they always spin at the same speed.",
"The difference is in the relationship between the front differential and the back differential. \nAll-wheel drives usually have a horizontal differential that transfers torque to the axle with most resistance, making it better for driving on roads.\nIn a 4Wd both axles are supplied with the same torque at all times, making it better for off-road.",
"A truck that is capable of 4WD is usually a rear wheel drive vehicle for road driving until you lock the front diff. The front and rear diffs are usually locked harder than an AWD and will suffer on sealed surfaces for it.\n\nA Subarus diff (for instance) will have a baseline front and rear balance for power delivery. I.e. at 5% throttle it acts like a FWD, 20% throttle you'll get 10% of power to the rear wheels. When you floor it the distribution looks something like 60/40. The front and rear diffs are designed to be engaged at all times so can move to allow differential rotation.\n\nAn AWD is supposed to be AWD at all times and is designed as such. A 4wd lets you choose how the powertrain operates based on your situation, and is not designed to be perpetually engaged.\n\nHope that makes sense.",
"Generally speaking 4 Wheel drive sends equal amount of power at all times. All wheel drive is usually sending 80:20/70:30/60/40 to the front or back wheels. When the wheel recieving the most power starts to slip, the opposite end kicks in and the wheels are then divided at 50:50 until traction is regained, at which point it goes back to its original ratio.",
"AWD may have an open center differential, meaning the front drive shaft can spin at a different speed than the rear drive shaft.\n\nIn 4WD, the transfer case locks the front drive shaft to the rear drive shaft so that both drive shafts spin at the same speed.\n\nFrom there, the power is fed out to the wheels via the differentials. The vehicle may have front and rear open differentials, or may have a limited slip rear differential, or locking rear differential, or locking front and rear differentials.\n\nNote that some AWD vehicles have control of their center differentials to provide more torque to the front or rear as required.",
"If the car has 4 wheels, and they all drive, we have both 4 wheel drive and all wheel drive.\n\nA few decades ago, most 4 wheel drive vehicles were offroad or utility vehicles, so the term \"4WD\" came to be associated with such vehicles. When 4WD on passenger cars was getting more popular, the marketing department had to invent a new term to dissociate themself from the image of the offroad trucks; and so \"AWD\" was born.\n\nSo, the only \"difference\" is one of marketing, not of engineering or technical detail. \n\nOther answers mention different types of differential but that is a different topic really. You can have various types of differential in cars marketed as \"AWD\" and in vehicles marketed as \"4WD\".\n",
"This question is basically how to start a fight on auto/truck/offroad forums.\n\nWhile there's a consensus on 4WD, what function it provides and how's it's implemented, AWD is still not nearly as defined. Manufacturers will often implement it differently and the function is very different. Even to the point of implementing a Full-Time-4WD and then calling it AWD.\n\nYou'll get 1 answer on 4WD and a dozen different answers for AWD.",
"If you don't have a 2wd option it is AWD. Audi and Subaru use AWD. All wheel drive has a center differential that splits torque to the front and rear axle. Audis bias torque I believe 60% front 40% rear for better handling in corners. Subaru is symmetrical meaning all wheels have equal opportunity for torque but will generally split it 50/50 front to rear. Some SUV's have all wheel drive too. They also have a center differential. Land/Range Rover and older Land Cruisers have this set up (others also but the two major ones) BUT they have center locking differentials so you can make it handle like a 4wd off-road in mud on rock etc.. they may also have front and rear locking differentials so that when all three are locked there will be NO wheel spin even when one is in the air. The only way a tire will spin is if ALL 4 are spinning. AWD cars are made for bad road conditions on pavement and some are geared toward performance but not off-road. 4wd is made for no-road conditions. I only used those vehicles as examples since they are the most familiar ones that have AWD and can be easily looked up if your curious. 4wd is primarily for rugged terrain to get through or past obstacles. It is also helpful in the snow....but not as helpful as AWD in the rain. The reason you can't/shouldn't use it in high speeds and especially on dry pavement is because originally 4wd axles had a very slight bias towards the front done by actually having the axle gearing slightly different.....we're talking a 4:11 in the rear and a 4:10 in the front (smaller number turns slightly faster) so the front has a slight pull which is useful in slick conditions since the front can either drag the rear if it encourages traction first or at least spin and allow the rear to push with less resistance. On dry pavement it causes a slight and constant mechanical bind in the transfer case which leads to its eventual destruction if done continually. This slight gearing difference and the way that u joints work also contributes to the crow hopping effect when turning sharp off-road or on pavement. I'm not sure if manufacturers match gears front and rear now or still have a slight offset....but they used too. Also a pro life tip! If you are chaining up... put them on the front. Better steering will ensue this goes for all cars BUT rear wheel drive...always chain the rear on rear wheel drive! \n\nEdit: Some AWD systems do offer a 2wd setting BUT it is typically a front wheel drive then. ",
"This is actually a very complex question with a very complex answer but by the time you're done with this comment you will understand it as well as anyone. So buckle up, tape your eyelids open, and go brew a bucket of coffee. \n\nTo begin you need to have a good idea of how a differential works and what it is. As usual in the car world, the best way to learn is to watch a video from the 1930's (really, it is, I swear). Namely [this one](_URL_1_). \n\nYou're back? Good. That's what we call an open differential. It's the most basic type of differential. When you get stuck in the snow or mud and one wheel spins like mad and one does nothing at all, that's because there's an open differential. \n\nA ***limited slip differential, or LSD***, is a differential that allows the wheels to only turn at a limited range of different rates. If one starts to spin too much faster than the other, the differential sends power to the other wheel. Some LSD's are clutch pack type, where the speed imbalance causes the spinning wheel to be braked against the inside of the differential housing using a clutch pack. You don't really need to know how that works mechanically, but understand the effect is the same as if you were to apply the brake on just that wheel (a thing some cars actually do- brake based torque vectoring, which we'll get into later.) Others are of the \"torsen\" type, which is short for \"torque sensing.\" It uses magic, I think, but if you're in a torsen equipped vehicle, and one wheel is spinning uselessly, you should try lightly applying the brakes, as this will cause the torsen differential to send power to the other wheel, using magic. Anyone who's watched my cousin Vinny could have probably skipped the last two paragraphs.\n\nA ***locking differential*** is an open differential which has the additional ability to be locked so that both wheels turn at the same rate no matter what (unless you try to use it on dry pavement, then it'll probably break). \n\nA ***viscious coupling*** uses a fluid coupling of some sort to distribute power between the wheels. Usually using a computer. Some viscious couplings are made of stacks of plates attached to the input and output shaft alternately, and by squeezing them closer together, the viscosity of a fluid causes power to be transmitted from the input to the output. Others can work like a torque converter in a transmission, where fluid is splashed by one plate onto another, pushing the second plate. [If you care to learn how torque converters work you can watch this old army video, but it's not really applicable here. Still well worth a watch](_URL_0_)\n\nA ***wet clutch*** works a bit like brakes, but backwards. If you've ever driven a manual, you have an idea of how a clutch works, but a wet clutch is full of oil too, so it doesn't wear out and can handle continuous slipping. This may be used when you want to allow a computer to dole out power to each wheel individually as it chooses. \n\nIf you watched the video above (you did, right? Right?), you know that the wheels have to turn at different rates on the driven axle, but you might not know they also need to turn at different rates between the front and the rear axle. So if we want to drive the front and rear wheels, we need a differential for the front wheels and a differential for the rear wheels as well as a differential between the front and rear axles. This is where things start to get really complicated and you'll see that 4wd and Awd are just marketing terms developed because it's easier than explaining the myriad of differences to non-enthusiasts. You've made it this far, so keep going. \n\nLet's start with 4 wheel drive. 4 wheel drive generally implies that there is a degree of selectability, and something's getting locked to something. Because of the need for each axle to turn independently, most 4 wheel drive systems are 2 wheel drive almost all the time. When you get stuck, you select 4 wheel drive, and you're out. This is done with the transfer case. Usually the transfer case will allow you to select 4 Hi, 4Lo, N, and 2Hi. 4Hi is for driving at speed in 4 wheel drive on a surface that will allow the wheels to slip, such as snow or gravel. 4Lo is for when you're stuck and you want to not be stuck, or you're crawling along in really rough terrain and you need torque, not speed. N is just neutral, and 2Hi is 2 wheel drive, high range, and is just what you'd normally use putting around town. Putting the car into anything but 2Hi on tarmac is a great way to make my day, because I'm a mechanic, and I like nice things. Because the axles need to turn independently and they can't, you go around a corner, get a nice loud crunch, and get to check if your AAA membership is still valid. Now some vehicles don't use a selectable transfer case like that. Instead the front differential is always driven. What you do is you lock the front wheels to the differential at the hubs, and unlock it when you don't want 4 wheel drive. But this generally requires getting out of the truck and that's not nice. Some cars do this on their own using a computer or mechanical system. \n\nSo now you can send power to the front and rear axles. Most of the time this is great. But what if one wheel on each axle is on snow and the other is wedged up against a rock? You're still not going anywhere. Now you need locking differentials. Note that simply having 4 wheel drive doesn't mean you have locking differentials. See? Marketing mumbo jumbo. \n\nSo that's 4 wheel drive. What about all wheel drive? Well, the system varies from car to car. Awd is a blanket term that means all of the wheels can be driven at some point or another. Note that in 4 wheel drive, power comes out of the engine, into the transmission, out of a driveshaft, into the transfer case, and then out into a front and rear driveshaft. All wheel drive may do that, or it may send the rear wheels power from the back of the transmission, and the front wheels power from the sides. It's truly a clusterfuck of variability. \n\nThe most simple type of all wheel drive is an open differential for the front wheels, an open differential for the rear wheels, and an open differential to spilt the power between each axle. This is marginally more useful than 2 wheel drive, but only just. See, if even 1 wheel has no grip, you're not going anywhere. Unless the car has good brake based torque vectoring (that works, which is a crapshoot as well, as some cars have shitty brake based torque vectoring systems), in which case it brakes just the spinning wheel, forcing the power to flow to the other wheels. In any case, this electronical approach tends not to be quite so good as most mechanical ones, but better than some, so we'll keep going. \n\nThe next most simple uses a locking center differential. This means normally the car has 3 open differentials, but when wheelspin is detected, or you push a button, the center differential locks, and now it works like 4 wheel drive with open differentials. This is actually pretty good. However it only really works if you're stopped. It can't safely engage while you're moving (or stuck, but with the wheels spinning).\n\nPart time all wheel drive means normally the rear wheels aren't connected to the engine at all, until they need to be. This is accomplished using a dry clutch (in which case it behaves like a locking center diff), or a wet clutch or viscious coupling. In the latter instances, the computer engages the rear driveshaft through the coupling, causing power to be sent back there. This is how most awd crossovers do it, like the crv. I'll save you some time and tell you it's generally garbage. With a wet clutch/viscous coupling, you've got regular, not brake based torque vectoring. \n\nFinally, you can have a limited slip or torsen limited slip center differential. This, I think, is the best bet for most people. Because of its mechanical nature you're not at the mercy of a computer programmed by someone who lives in the city and doesn't understand why people don't just take the train. It actually works. It's smoother, doesn't require any driver interaction or even driver attention, and it just works. Except torsen which might require you to apply a bit of brake. \n\nSo the center differential is covered. Understand that every principle that can be applied to the center differential can also be applied to the front and rear differentials. In a perfect world, all three differentials would have computer controlled clutch packs capable of precisely sending a carefully selected amount of torque to each wheel. This is a thing in some cars. I believe it's the basis of acura's super handling awd (could be wrong, don't quóte me on that) and the Nissan gtr and a select few other cars. In a next to ideal world all 3 differentials would be torsen or lsd type differentials. This is fairly common. In the worst case you'd have 3 open differentials. \n\nIn the rear world, all wheel drive systems can be found that are pretty much every variation of this, many with different systems for each axle, but now that you understand what each does and how it works in the real world, you can make pretty informed decisions if you do your research first. Understand that all wheel drive and 4 wheel drive are blanket terms and in order to get anything that's actually useful, you have to understand the actual mechanicals underlying the marketing term. \n\nEdit: thanks for the gold. \n\nAlso, none of you are actually 5 years old. I hope. There are boobs on here, so you shouldn't be. If you want an explanation that doesn't explain the difference between 4wd and Awd, read someone else's concise and misleading explanation. The reason I have to go into so much detail is that the differences between \"4WD\" and \"AWD\" are highly nuanced. Both are made up terms, and originally awd basically meant \"shitty 4wd,\" but thats not the case anymore. If I can type this on a blackberry, you can read it.",
"imagine if you had a car on a lift and tried to stop each wheel from moving:\n\nAWD: only one tire out of 4 moves\n\n4WD: only one of the front and one of the rear moves\n\nThere are different devices to change this, such as limited slip differentials, locking differentials, smart stuff like brakes helping. ",
"It's semantics, and changes based on what country you're in. Generally, in america, 4WD Is marketed to trucks and \"off road \" applications and AWD is towards cars and inclimate weather abilities. People will say it's from a locked differential vs some type of limited slip arraignment but not all 4WD have lockers and some AWD have some form of locking.",
"Edit: The top voted answer is now a better one.\n\nThe top voted answer is incorrect, there is no difference. Just like there is no difference between a station wagon and an estate car. It's just two different names for the same thing. There are however many different versions of systems that drive on all four wheels and some are better than others for certain tasks. It's all a trade off between different use cases, price, weight, fuel economy etc. Nearly every car manufacturer puts a slight twist on their system and if you want to find what's best for you have to start learning about different types of all wheels drive systems and diffs etc.",
"AWD is a marketing term originating with Subaru to differentiate its passenger car market from the larger 4WD market even though it’s the same thing.\n\nSince then AWD has been appropriated by other manufacturers in their non-off-road offerings.\n\nFrom a technical perspective, there are, at its core, very few differences, however AWD systems used in passenger cars often include torque splitting technology to provide more or less power to front or rear wheels (and side to side).\n\nUltimately AWD is used to market on road use passenger vehicles while 4WD is used to market vehicles with off road purposes.",
"Finnaly something I'm an expert at.\n\n4WD 4x4 and All wheel drive, if we're talking about a car, are all the same.\n\nThis terminology just determines how many wheels can put power from the engine to the ground. AKA \"driving wheel\"\n\nLets run a few examples to make it clear\n\n1: If i have a regular motorcycle, it is 1 wheel drive. But if I get one of those Dakar modified bikes, that have 2 wheel drive, it will be simultaneously 2WD, AWD and 2x2. All possible wheels have \"power\"\n\nNow a modern four by four like the jeep renegade, it is on demand 4WD. Power goes to the front wheels all the time, and when needed also goes to the rear wheels. The vehicle has 2WD and 4WD modes. When in 4WD it is also in 4x4 and AWD.\n\nSee where I'm going with this? It's just a matter of semantics. If you get what the words really mean in practice, that's it. All those terms tell you is how many wheels in the particular vehicle are capable of driving.\n\n\nNow, for the nitty gritty:\n\nEvery manufacturer likes to call their traction systems a fancy name, like Subaru with their symetrical all wheel drive, or Land Rover with therir Terrain Response, or Jeep with Terrain Select.\n\nThere are also many types of all wheel drive, or four wheel drive, or four by four... you get the point. I'll just call it AWD from now on.\n\nOlder vehicles will be rear wheel drive, with the option to turn AWD on.\nMost modern \"common\" awd vehicles will be normally FWD and switch to AWD on the fly when needed.\n\nSome vehicles you need to switch by hand, at the wheel, others have electronic engagement, while others there's just a clutch that couples the secondary axle.\n\nThe famous Land Rover Defender is what is called Full Time AWD, where the vehicle always sends power to all four wheels, you don't have the option of turning AWD off. For those cases, there's a third differential between the front and rear axles to compensate for the wheel speed difference between axles.\n\nAnybody that tells you AWD must do this, 4WD must do that, 4x4 must do that other thing, is just wrong and has no idea what they are talking about.\nSource: Am fourth generation mechanic. Also Mechatronic Engineer, and worked for one of the 5 biggest car manufactures in the world, in the AWD deppartament.\n\n\nTLDR: AWD 4WD are the same, if you are referring to a car. It just serves the purpose of conveying the information of how many wheels are capable of powering that particular vehicle. \n\n\nedit: Even people that work in this field are confused by the terminology. That's why the real question should be: What Kind of AWD or 4WD or 4x4 do you have/want/need. Not the difference between these terms. Even manufacturers use different terms to describe the same thing.",
"4-wheel drive is part-time 4x4 (RWD with a differential locker for 4x4), AWD is full time 4x4. Think Subaru (AWD) vs Jeep (4WD).",
"These are marketing terms of art more than strictly defined technical terms. Four wheel drive is generally used when the driver does something such as push a button to go from 2 wheel to 4 wheel drive. Also the 4WD cannot be left engaged all the time - it's not for higher speeds or pavement. I owned a Nissan Xterra which was like this - driver had to manually engage 4WD. \n\nAll wheel drive, which a normal person would expect to mean exactly the same thing, is usually reserved for systems which are completely automatic in switching and can be left engaged all the time for all surfaces and conditions. My current Honda truck is normally front wheel drive but switches automatically to add rear wheel drive when it detects slippage. This is called all wheel drive and is a more sophisticated system. In addition, there is an optional button to force 4WD if I wish.\n\nBoth systems worked great for me. Once you realize these are just made-up terms by ad agencies, it all becomes clear.",
"While users like /u/krovek42 gave you a good technical description, understand that for some manufacturers, 4WD vs AWD is a marketing distinction, not a technical distinction. Ford uses 4WD when they market for off-road use and AWD when they market for all-weathr highway use.\n\nLet's look at the Escape and Edge: both use a front transaxle (FWD) equipped with a power take-off unit that connects to the rear driveshaft- > rear differential - > rear wheels. However, the Escape is marketed as 4WD since it still is marketed as a \"sport\" utility vehicle while the Edge is a crossover and gets an AWD designation.",
"Very simple explanation, the difference is where and how the drive is split. All true 4wd systems will have a transfer case, be it single speed or double, directly after the transmission, splitting the drive front and rear. AWD systems (assuming front engine, the most common) usually send drive to the front wheels internal to the transmission via a 3rd differential, with a power transfer unit sending drive to the rear, usually to a coupling then a differential. \nMost AWD systems will have a drive bias, be it front or rear.\n\nELI5: 4WD direct, equal mechanic split front and rear. AWD biased split front to rear. \n",
"4WD= All the wheels get turn at same speed\n\nAWD=power can be split/directed between front and back.",
"I was always told that 4 wheel drive was something you could turn on and off and all-wheel drive was just always on.",
"So after reading many ways to not explain this to a five year old, here is my late, but simplified answer. The mechanical yadda yadda is not important. AWD means all 4 wheels are turning actively and constantly. 4WD means you will have rear wheel drive until the vehicle senses traction loss. Only then will the front wheels engage and spin. Most 4WD trucks/SUV's have a knob that can switch their 4WD from \"part time\" (4WD mode as explained above) to \"full time\" (AWD mode as explained above). But AWD cars cannot do that. This is because of the mechanical yadda yadda i had you ignore. Kind of long but much simpler then the novel of a top comment. Try explaining limited slip differential to a five year old lol.\n\nEDIT: Spelling",
"How is this not a violation of the rules. There are tons of websites explaining the differences here....",
"On cars nowadays:\n\nAWD: power is fed to all 4 wheels in some combination 100% of the time\n\n4WD: you have the choice of 2W, 4W lock hi and lo.",
"I'm starting to hate r/EIL5. AWD means the tires can move at different speeds based on road conditions.\n\n4WD means all tires are spinning, but at the same speed. This is good off road but bad on road.\n\nThat's how I'd explain it to a 5 year old.",
"Transfer case engineer here. \n\nAwd: computer of the car controls t-case torque distribution. It selects how much to squeeze the clutch in the t-case which is related to how much torque you are sending to the secondary driveline. Mostly SUVs and cars have this tech.\n\n4x4: as other guy said in top comment you select the mode manually. There is no 80/20 splits or torque or anything. Mostly truck and off road vehicle use this tech.\n\n",
"Imagine you had two toy RC cars and one was AWD and the other 4WD. If you lifted it in the air and gunned it, all 4 wheels would spin on both of them just the same. If you grabbed a single tire on the AWD and stopped it, the other 3 tires would keep spinning and the opposite tire would spin faster. If you did this to the 4WD, all 4 tires would stop until you let go of the tire. \n\n\nAll wheel drive drives all four wheels through front, rear, and center differentials which are able to speed up, or slow down individual tires, allowing for a good trade off of traction, ease of steering, and ease of driving. AWD can't be turned off. It's always on. If the front wheels start to slip, torque can be delivered to the rear wheels. If the rear slips, torque can go to the front. If the front left wheel slips, torque can be sent to the other 3 wheels. It's an active kind of grip management system that ensures only tires that grip get power. \n\n\nFour wheel drive locks all four wheels together and they rotate at the same speed. 4WD can be enabled or disabled and if disabled usually only the rear tires are driven. If one wheel is hanging off over a pit and spinning freely, the other 3 wheels will keep turning like nothing happened, where as if the differential were engaged, then all the power would go to that wheel, preventing the other 3 from spinning. Because of this locking of wheels, they can handle very rough and loose terrain where maybe not all 4 of the wheels are touching the ground or have a good bite on it. However this locking of the wheels makes it harder to turn. This is not a problem on loose dirt and gravel, but it can put a lot of wear on the tires driving on asphalt with the 4wd system engaged. Most 4WD systems also have a selectable high and low gear for 4WD mode, which allows for driving up or down extreme grades and going up or down hills that most vehicles would not be able to climb. It also helps multiply torque, allowing a vehicle to power over most obstacles. \n\n\n\n\n\nThis is a simplified explanation that has dozens of vehicles which don't quite do either of these, but in general it's the key difference. Some vehicles use a hybrid of the two, others can lock or unlock differentials as needed to switch how the drivetrain operates. Others don't have a center differential and use braking on individual wheels to re-distribute torque. the devil is in the details. \n\nIn general: \n\nAWD - Good for driving in the rain and snow. Can handle light off road use. Good handling on the road and drives like any other car. \n\n4WD - Drives like a truck (or a jeep) on the road with RWD usually if the 4WD is not engaged. Off road they are capable of climbing over extremely rough terrain with rock crawling being the extreme of that. They can cover terrain that many horses would not be able to traverse. Mud, snow, ice, sand, dirt, it eats em all up and comes back for seconds. Hurts fuel economy and most 4WD systems are installed in truck like vehicles rather than passenger cars. ",
"Soooooo many wrong answers here. While there is a lot of marketing that comes into play with both of these terms, in order for a vehicle to be a “true” 4WD system it will have 2HI (rear wheels spinning only, this is usually the systems’s default position), 4HI (all 4 wheels spinning) and 4LO (all four wheels spinning with a gear reduction, think of this is as the biggest gear on a mountain bike; it gives you the most amount of torque {twisting force} at the expense of top speed. This is why it’s not good to use 4LO at high speeds, it would be like trying to use that low/big gear on a mountain bike for high speeds. \n\nAWD in its most basic form means that all 4 wheels can be powered to help move the vehicle. After that fact it comes down to differences in manufacturer. Some cars will have zero select-ability for the driver, meaning a computer chooses when to apply power to all four wheels, while normally operating with 2 wheels (can be either front wheels or rear wheels depending on car manufacturer) spinning only. Some cars will have an AWD lock switch that allows power to be sent to all 4 wheels. Some cars will have all four wheels powered at all times."
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3urbq9 | can economic growth (rise in gdp %) still happen if a country has 0% unemployment rate? | This is theoretical because I mean literally 0% unemployment rate | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3urbq9/eli5_can_economic_growth_rise_in_gdp_still_happen/ | {
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"Absolutely. If you had a country with 100 people, those people can be making shoes or advanced aeronautical equipment and your GDP would reflect your economy. That same premise is easily extrapolated to a country with millions of people. One of the reasons why the GDP of America is still so high even though we don't have the manufacturing base which we had in the 1950's is because we've moved to a high-tech and service oriented economy. \n\nIt does mean that we'd run out of people flipping burgers, however, as higher paying jobs continued to open up and people moved up the pay scale. "
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3ufan6 | are dogs really "giving kisses" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ufan6/eli5are_dogs_really_giving_kisses/ | {
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"Generally its affection. If they lick you in the face, particularly around your lips, they're showing submission to you. I'm not an expert, but I do have dogs.",
"dogs lick for a lot of reasons. It's a comfort/soothing action. Sometimes they may just like the taste of your skin. Sometimes they do it when they recognize an injury. Sometimes they lick as a sign of affection so yeah basically \"kisses\". \n\nDogs are very \"oral\" in general. When you praise them watch closely and you'll see that often they will lick their lips and swallow. This is a sign of acceptance of the praise. It wears out quickly so if you do it more than a couple times in a row they'll probably stop \"acceptance swallowing\" or whatever it's called . but if you pet them and verbally praise them they will swallow. \n\nIn the wild, canids will eat more than they actually want so they can bring back food to regurgitate to their pups. Puppies will often lick at the sides of an adult dogs mouth. This is supposed to stimulate regurgitation from the adult who generally is the provider. This licking behavior extends to dominance/submission signals so it doesn't always correlate to the \"provider\" but to a dominant pack member.\n\nIf you're really into this stuff there's been a ton of research on dogs, but I recommend the less esoteric \"Dog Watching\" by Desmond Morris. \n\n_URL_0_ ",
"One additional reason that hasn't yet been mentioned: they do it because their owner has reinforced it.\n\nI believe that many natural dog behaviors get trained (generally unintentionally) to the point where the original meaning behind the behavior is no longer relevant. If you always respond to your dog licking your face in a way that he considers rewarding, he will lick your face more often to obtain that reward. The thing to remember is that **he** considers your response rewarding, not that you think you're rewarding him. If done incorrectly, pushing him away or trying to dodge/block the licks can be seen as a form of attention, which may be enough to encourage the behavior in some dogs.\n\n*Ninja edit: Formatting*",
"I'll add that it's also learned social behaviour - humans are orally-focused and tend to show affection by getting up close and in the face of their affection object. Dogs get rewarded as puppies when they do that kind of exploratory licking to a human who gets all up in their face so they learn that licking is translates to affection for humans. Face-to-face stuff can normally stress a dog out unless they're pretty sure there's no threat to them - dogs commonly use actions like turning away or sniffing the ground to demonstrate that they won't be a threat, especially when greeting each other, and even when they're playing with other dogs they tend to bite at the neck and legs more than straight-up mouth play.",
"As an extension on this question, my dog gets really calm and contented when I kiss her head and neck. Do they realise that kissing is a sign of affection from us?",
"Dogs lick your mouth because they watch you shovel food in there all day and they're hoping for scraps.",
"Dogs/wolves use this to communicate with each other and other animals (humans). They could be trying to convey a message, reinforce their bond with you, or in many cases just doing it for the sake of licking you. ",
"What about when my dog sticks her tongue 3 feet into my ear hole?",
"Just a quick fact. It is fairly safe to let your dog kiss you. The germs in a dogs mouth are species specific, so they do no harm to humans. You are more likely to get sick from kissing another person than a dog.",
"Anyway according to them most of what comes out of his post and knit-picked his choice of words."
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9bpxxl | what makes a computer program a virus? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9bpxxl/eli5_what_makes_a_computer_program_a_virus/ | {
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"Antivirus software doesn't determine on the spot if something is a virus.\n\nThe company that owns and updates the software has a library of known viruses and have a definition of it, like a pattern unique to the virus so they can recognize it on your drive or in your memory and remove it.\n\nSo the software only detects viruses that were known and concluded to be viruses.\nThis is also why you need to update your virus definition so often. So new virus definitions can be added to the library on your computer."
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8skvw8 | how is it that sound waves of multiple sounds don't interfere with each other and cause distortion or change the tone of the sounds? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8skvw8/eli5_how_is_it_that_sound_waves_of_multiple/ | {
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"Waves are additive, so two 50 Hz waves add together to make a sound at 50 Hz that is twice as loud.\n\nSpeakers don’t vibrate at multiple frequencies at the same time, but instead replicate a much more complicated wave that is the sum of all the components. The result is not a clean looking sine wave, but a complex wave with many peaks and valleys. Your ear interprets this complex wave as the individual component sounds because you at familiar with those sounds. A sound that you have never encountered before is more difficult for your brain to sunbdivide, which is partly why it is so difficult to figure out the sounds in a foreign language with which you are not familiar.\n\nTo clarify a bit, the amplitude values add rather than the frequency value.",
"Addition of sound don't work like that The additions of two 50 Hz sin waves will result in a single 50 Hz sine wave. \n\nDepending of the phase of the waves the resulting sine wave might have double the amplitude or it might be called out and have 0 amplitude. This is how nose cancelling headphone work, they add a same sound but change the phase to the result is 0.\n\n\nSound is just pressure waves vibration in that air. You can hear multiple frequencies at the same time and from the same sours lets say a musical instrument that produce sound in a large spectrum for each tone. \n\nIt trave in the air a a complex pressure patten and hit your eardrum and make it vibrate. The vibration travel trough the ear in vibrating bones to the cochlea where you split ut up by frequency and it is send to the brain in nerves.\n\nSo a sound with multiple frequensis can travel as a pressure wave in the air.\n\nA microphone work lik you ear but instead of vibration of bones is is a electrica signal. \n\nA speaker use that signal but the membrane instead of get vibrated by the air it vibrate and cause a pressure wave in the air. The pressure wave is the same as the one the hit your ear or the microphone that we know can contain multiple frequencies.\n\n\nif you look a it from a math standpoint you can show that all periodical signal can be represented as a sum of sine waves. And each signal have a unique pattern so if you add sine waves there is alway a way to take them apart and find out the amplitude and frequency of each of them. \n\nThe only exception is if the frequency is the same the result of the addition is a new sine wave with the same frequency but a change in amplitude and phase.\n\n\n\n",
"They can, if you listen to a car's horn it is two tones mixed together from two separate speakers. Each one generates a perfect sine wave but together they should warbly because of constructive and destructive interference ",
" > Could two 50hz sound waves, interfere to make a 100 hz sound to the ear?\n\nNo. Think carefully about what frequency means. It means something happens a certain number if times per second. When it's sound, that means the air molecules next to your ear drum move back and forth 50 times a second. If you have a device that moves the air 50 times a second and then add a second device that moves the air 50 times a second, you're still only moving the air 50 times a second. \n\n > How is it that a speaker can play a multitude of frequencies over one vibrating surface?\n\nIf there are multiple devices causes the air to vibrate then the surface will be vibrated for each one. \n\n\n > i don't understand how it could play two or even more frequencies without screwing up the rest of the sounds it's trying to reproduce.\n\nDepending on the other frequencies and their relative strength, they do interfere with each other. Sometimes two devices are pushing at the same time and make it twice as intense, other times one is pushing while the other is pulling and they cancel each other out. \n"
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6jbv47 | why is french considered one of the most useful languages to learn in the world, despite the relatively few speakers compared to other languages? | There are more speakers of, say, Spanish, German, and Portuguese than French in the world. So then how did French become one of the lingua francas of the world instead of those other languages? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6jbv47/eli5_why_is_french_considered_one_of_the_most/ | {
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"French was the language used by royals centuries ago, and when they had a large empire it was one of the more useful languages to know. But in modernity it is not really considered to be one of the most useful languages. ",
"French is the official language, or has special legal status in: Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, France, Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo, and Vanuatu.\n\nIf you live in the USA, the reason you're told French is a good language to learn is \"Quebec\".",
"Today, English is the closest thing we have to a \"world language\". However, that only became the case in the last 250 years or so.\n\nBefore that, French was the lingua fraca in Europe, used in diplomacy and business. Plus, French culture has always been considered very prestigious, and knowing French has long been considered a sign of a cultured individual.\n\nThings have changed, but the perception that \"French=sophisticated/useful\" still sticks around in a lot of people's minds.",
"I have no formal training in this whatsoever but that won't stop me form spewing my opinions. You've been warned. \n\nAfter the Norman conquest of England in 1066 the ruling class spoke French and careerists and social climbers alike learned how to speak the language of the victors. The English regarded it as the aspirational language, both the French and English nations were successful expansionist powers, and this carried globally. Meanwhile, as a successful and early expansionist power the French refined the necessary art of diplomacy and like a USB cable, everyone needed to be able to plug-in to communicate and the common interface was French. But not anymore, now it's English and someday it will change to another *lingua franca*. ",
"For centuries, France was the largest, most powerful, (and the first major) nation-state in continental Europe. So when you had diplomats and businessmen speaking dozens of languages needing to negotiate and conduct business, French became a natural language of choice. Note that this was a niche fulfilled by Latin in the days of Rome. Also note that, regionally, other languages were used - German quite often in Eastern Europe because of the reach of the Austrian empire, Polish and Russian as well.\n\nFor a long time French was also the language of the English nobility, because of William the Conqueror's introduction of it (after all, he was a Frenchman from Normandy). So French had that going for it as well.\n\nFrance's colonial empire reached far and wide, spreading the language's influence as an international language of diplomacy. But I suspect that its influence on the continent (which Britain could not share) was the main reason it kept being so important.\n\nIn the late 19th and 20th centuries, France's fortunes fell as Britain and America's rose, and that's how you begin to see English supplanting French as the most broadly spoken international language.\n\nAs far as whether it's still useful to learn French today, I seriously doubt it. I'd learn Chinese or Arabic, personally.",
"While French may not be ranked as highly as German or Portuguese as a *primary* language, it has more speakers overall. Those speakers are fairly widely distributed, where German and Portuguese are not terribly useful outside of countries where it is primarily spoken. \n\nThat makes French an excellent complementary language. If you speak French in addition to your primary language, it is likely you will be able to communicate with somewhere no matter where you find yourself. English and Spanish are probably slightly better for this, but French is still a solid choice.",
"Short answer: History. Now, choosing a language to learn is a multivariable choice. The number of native speakers alone doesn't reflect utility to you. Power and Influence != number of native speakers.\n\nsome pointers \n_URL_0_ \nin PDF form: _URL_3_\n\nSee also\n_URL_6_ \n_URL_1_ \n_URL_5_\n\nan oldie but goodie _URL_2_\n\n\nYou may be pondering which language to learn. In that case going by the number of speakers alone is weak.\nLearning a language is a hard commitment, most of those who begin to learn a language will never be close to fluent. If you already know English, my advice would be to learn the language the most appealing to you. Culture is a huge appeal, so French scores big points there. \nDo you want to visit sometimes and interact with the local people? Do you see yourself living there for a bit? Study abroad? \nDo you want to read iconic novels in original version? movies, music ? \nDo you want to reconnect with distant relatives or a cultural heritage? Can you speak the native language of your grandparents / cousins abroad? \nDo you wan to meet people from neighboring countries? Maybe you can't afford to travel regularly to say Japan, but if you are in Europe it's easy to go down to France or Italy. Canada esp Quebec is not far from the US in that respect. \nMotivation is a big factor to your success in language learning, so go with your gut. There are more than enough speaker in whatever language you pick, you won't run out of speakers. You already have English the current global lingua franca, so don't constrain yourself with Spanish if it's not your thing. \nNumber of native speakers is one thing, but you have also L2 speakers, economic potency (GDP / language if you will), cultural production and exports etc. French is still one of the best languages to learn atm. Maybe it doesn't make YOUR top 3. If your thing is manga or korean dramas then learn respectively japanese or korean. Why do you care about the number of speakers alone. \n\nLearning Spanish in California/southern US is not that much of a marketable skill because now despite all your efforts your are outcompeted by millions of native spanish speakers. _URL_4_"
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"https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/these-are-the-most-powerful-languages-in-the-world/",
"http://language.media.mit.edu/rankings/books",
"http://french.server276.com/bulletin/articles/promote/advocacy/useful/toplanguages.pdf",
"http://www.kailchan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Kai-Chan_Power-Language-Index-full-report_2016_v2.pdf",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn6bi6VN8pc",
"https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/which-are-the-world-s-most-influential-languages",
"https://www.fastcodesign.com/3040149/mapping-the-most-influential-languages-on-earth"
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1w5rou | does boycotting sweatshops make the lives of sweatshop workers better or worse? | My friend often takes issue with large companies that rely on cheap Chinese labor to produce goods at cheaper prices, and she often boycotts their products. I've been wondering though; if most or all of us were to follow her example, would that help or harm the abused workers? Could any economists explain the short and long term effects? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w5rou/eli5_does_boycotting_sweatshops_make_the_lives_of/ | {
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"Worse. Now they don't have a job.\n\nRemember that the West originally built up its economy by having sweatshops. It's not like workers in the West have a long history of fair wages, vacation time, short hours, etc. All of that was paid for by the centuries of people working in sweat shops. ",
"Worse. Remember, people work in sweatshops because the wages and conditions are BETTER there than they are elsewhere.\n\nI remember reading that one of the problems that these factories cause is that they entice trained persons like nurses and teachers to leave their professions and take employment there for the increased pay.",
"I can't recall the title at the moment, but there was a documentary who followed up on some sweatshops being closed in India, for the presumed purpose of making sure that the minors employed there could go to school.\n\nTurns out many of them did not end up in school. The sex industry pays better. Unintended consequences are a bitch."
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e68slo | what does it mean if the experimental group in a study had an increased overall risk of brain cancer by 98%? | Let’s say there were 10,000 people in the study. If 100 people in the control got cancer, does that mean there were 98 more people that got cancer in the experimental group?
If anyone is interested in context, the study I’m referencing is linked [here.](_URL_0_)
I want to make sure I’m interpreting these results correctly because this seems very high, thank you! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e68slo/eli5_what_does_it_mean_if_the_experimental_group/ | {
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"Generally no. Say the incidence of brain cancer in the control group is 0.1%. A 98% increase means that the likelihood of brain cancer in the experimental group increased by 98% which would make it 0.198%\n\nSo if you had 10000 people in the control group and 10000 people in the experimental group, you would expect 10 people to develop brain cancer in the control group and 19.8 people to get brain cancer in the experimental group.",
"Yes, a 98% increase means almost twice as many subjects developed cancer. Depending on what the risk was to begin with though, twice as many can be one extra person on average or a hundred.",
"One weird trick that professors hate: read the methods and results. This is where the answer to your question lies. Read about relative risk vs. absolute risk. The difference between these terms is where 90% of flashy popsci headlines come from.",
"Holy crap that was dense. I don’t think I’ve ever read a medical study before.\n\nSo, what I got out of that is that there are multiple types of benzodiazepines. Some of them have shown increased association with unique, specific cancers from a Taiwanese sample, according to this study.\n\nThen, there’s a market of “benzos” being prescribed, which each leverage different benzodiazepines permutations. Those are created by competing pharmaceutical companies and advertised on TV, such as Xanax and other benzodiazepines.\n\nI have a few questions:\n1.\tDo pharmacists and/or pharmacologists participate in monitoring which are not deemed safe anymore? Whose job is it to tell us what to stay away from?\n2.\tDo studies like these (perhaps with a more definitive case showing harm) spawn off those late-night class action lawsuit, you-may-be-entitled-to-money commercials? \n3.\tWhy isn’t there a better estimation of long term affects before these pharmaceuticals reach production?"
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