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6l1r5a | what are raids (redundant array of independent disks) and how do they work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6l1r5a/eli5_what_are_raids_redundant_array_of/ | {
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"RAID means you distribute your data over more than one disk. You tell the type of RAID with a number (RAID level).\n\nRAID 0: Called stripping, no redundancy. You basically write to two (or more) discs parallel, each part of a file goes on a different disk this means you can write (in theory) twice as fast with two disks. If one disk fails your data is of course gone (half a file or a third of a file is basically useless). In theory you can do a RAID 0 over ten disks and hope for \"awesome results\". \n\nRAID 1: Mirroring. You write the same data on two disks, you gain no speed advantage, but if one drive fails you have the same file on the other (or more disks if you mirror on more).\n\nAnother common level:\n\nRAID 5: You have a parity drive. Imagine you write on five drives: four drives get part of the file, while the fifth saves some checksums you can use to restore missing information if one of the other drives fails. You get an advantage of speed (like in stripping minus some overhead for the parity) and you can afford to lose up to one drive with the data being still intact - if you lose the parity-drive it does not matter for the file, if you lose another drive you can restore the information from the parity-drive. If you lose a second drive before a new one is put in and all the data is re-calculated, you lose all data. RAID 5 writes bitwise (each drive a bit + a parity-bit on the last one).\n\nRAID 10: A combination of RAID 0 and 1. Imagine you have four drives, and you strip two and mirror them to the other pair of drives. You basically get the speed of stripping and the security of mirroring. You can afford to lose one or even two drives (one from each pair). \n\nThere are more complex, uncommon or outdated RAID levels, i.e. RAID 6 which works similar to RAID 5 just with two parity-disks, RAID 4 which works like RAID 5 (which works bitwise, RAID 4 writes larger blocks out to the parity-disk). \n\nRegarding combinations: You could also have a RAID 01 (meaning stripping and mirroring is exchanged) or a RAID 51, where you first build a RAID 5 and then completely mirror (RAID 1) that or you set up a RAID 50... or... whatever makes sense for your (servers) usecase.\n\n---\n\nPlease note that RAID is not considered a dedicated backup. It protects against one (or more) drives failing and might give speed advantages but a dedicated backup is still required (i.e. if the server has some electrical damage, is stolen, burns, more than one drive fails, an ransomware encrypts it all, human mishandling...)",
"It's a way to add redundancy (most of the time) so you can have hard drive failures without data loss. Each configuration is given a number. They work by having a RAID controller which splits up your data to write on all disks.\n\nRaid 0 means you add up the drives' capacities (I'll use 1 TB drives in the examples)\n\n2 drives in Raid 0 = 2 TB of usable disk space. There's no security here. You lose a drive, you lose your data. It's just a way to use all 100% of your space with one drive letter/filesystem.\n\n2 drives in Raid 1 = 1 TB of usable disk space. They are mirrored, so you can lose a drive without losing data. This is good if you only have 2 drives, but you are losing 50% of your total space to get this security.\n\n3 drives in raid 5 = 2 TB of usable disk space. In raid 5, each block of data gets carved up onto 2 of the 3 disks, and the 3rd disk has \"parity\" information. Here you can lose a drive and you've only given up 33% of your total space instead of 50% in raid 1.\n\nexample of layout: Let's say parity = disk 1 + disk 2. I have a piece of data. When it gets carved up to fit on 2 disks, it looks like a 5 on disk 1 and a 6 on disk 2. The piece on disk 3 will now read 11 (adding disk 1 and disk 2, this isn't how it's really done, but it illustrates parity). If I were to lose disk 2, and I slap in a new drive in the array, it sees the 5 on disk 1, and the 11 on disk 3, and the array knows it's disk 1 + disk 2, so it does the math and writes a 6 on disk 2. My data is still good (and while the disk is bad, and I haven't replaced it yet, it does the math while I'm still using the disks to present the 6 should my system ask for it).\n\nThere are more raid levels that look a lot like raid 5, and combinations of raid 0,1, and 5, where the goal is to be able to lose hard drives without losing data and trying to keep the amount of \"lost\" space (due to the parity data) to a minimum."
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21ijkn | why is earth's moon so much bigger in comparison to it's planet than other planets and moons? | I couldn't find an answer to this question, or at least nothing I could understand. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21ijkn/eli5_why_is_earths_moon_so_much_bigger_in/ | {
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"In a nutshell, Earth's moon is the result of a collision between Earth and another object. The moon is a massive chunk of Earth that was ejected into space. Moons like Deimos and Phobos (both around Mars) are believed to be captured asteroids. The gas giants generally have more moons because of their huge gravity enabling them to capture objects that might have been small planets in their own right without the gas giant to capture them. If you look waaay out, Pluto and Charon and much closer in relative size than Terra and Luna, to the point where Pluto and Charon orbit each other at a point between the two."
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272wov | why do some "believers" pass out when being preached / "cured" by evangelist preachers? | Are they actors faking a collapse for drama? Is there a genuine medical explanation that is well understood for this phenomenon?
Note: I am an atheist | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/272wov/eli5_why_do_some_believers_pass_out_when_being/ | {
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"Have you read Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis? Solid gold and it's about an evangelical preacher/conman. Lewis mentions a few tricks used to make the revival experience more \"authentic\" but I can't remember any off the top of my head except the hired actors. I also believe part of it is just people wanting to believe so badly in a cure or whatnot that literally they will their body into doing something a la a pseudo-placebo effect. Psychogenic shock, which is fainting caused solely by the brain, is fairly common (I pass out when I get shots because of this) and could account for some of the reactions, I suppose. I don't know if there are any defined medical terms for faith healing and that kind of general religious phenomena just because so many people believe they're bullshit ( & this is coming from a Christian). Also: I minored in psychology so this is just pop-psyc speculation. Hopefully no one reams me for being a sceptic. \n\ntl;dr - some of them are frauds and the brain is craaaaazy. ",
"Hyperventilation. These churches encourage their members to cry and sob, which means they're going to be taking rapid, shallow breaths. Pair that up with repeating short phrases in between gulps of air and you've got someone who will probably hyperventilate until they faint - particularly if it's been suggested to them, whether by word or example, that they might. "
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353rw7 | why do older television sets emit a brief flash of white light when being turned off? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/353rw7/eli5why_do_older_television_sets_emit_a_brief/ | {
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"The older CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) TV's and monitors work by using an electron gun to shoot differently charged electrons at a phosphorescent material, which is then screened to make pixels. Depending on the charge of the electron, it makes either a red, green or blue pixel, or any combination of the three. This beam of electrons is controlled by a strong magnetic field, which \"scans\" the beam across the surface of the screen in horizontal lines. When you turn the TV on, the magnetic field is created immediately, but the ray gun takes a few seconds to warm up and start firing, hence the slow buildup. When the set is then turned off, the magnetic field collapses instantly, but the ray gun still emits particles for about a second. Without the magnetic field to guide them, they all hit in one focused beam instead of diffused lines, causing all the phosphorescent material to fire at once, hence the white flash.",
"When you combine red green and blue light it creates white light. When you turn off the TV the pixel gun stops caring about accuracy and you get all 3 colors mashed together.",
"A basic black and white TV has one cathode ray tube (CRT) which is a glass tube with a heater at one end. The heater heats up the cathode which starts emitting electrons. The other side of the tube is the picture side that we see from the outside. The picture side has a screen that is charged postively to attract the negative charged electrons. Because it is a screen, there are holes and the electrons pass through the holes and hits the far side of the glass. Painted on the inside of this glass is a phosphorous coating that emits light when an electron beam strikes it. \n\nThe old CRTs didn't turn on and off fast like modern day transistors. They took a while to turn on and to turn off. Some parts turned off faster like the magnetic field coils that move the beam back and forth across the screen. The CRT turns off slowly due to the slow discharge of the power supply. So what you see is the last bit of charge being shot forward on to the center of the screen as the power supplies slowly shut off. \n\nIn the late 60s, they found that if they use a neon bulb in series with the power supply to the CRT, it would shut off the beam. A neon bulb is a bulb with two leads encased in neon gas. When a voltage was large enough, the neon would excite and emit light like the old neon signs. Most neon bulbs would \"fire\" turn on and off around 70 volts if I remember correctly. \n\nSo when the TV's power supply would drop below 70 volts or so, the neon bulb would stop conducting and shut off the power to the CRT. \n\nColor TVs as others have said, have 3 CRTs built into one glass tube. One for each of the primary colors of red, blue, green. They are aimed at holes in the screen where they hit their corresponding colored phosphor. The CRT beams are not colored but the phosphor is. ",
"Not an answer, but thanks for reminding me of this. It brings back memories of my sister and me playing with the old black and white TV to watch the \"fireworks.\" We'd turn on the TV, and then turn it off, to see the white flash and slow fade out."
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1u7st6 | why is it that religion and politics always seem to get entangled? | The political move in the Roman empire to adopt christianity, to sharia law to separation of church and state; what makes them want to intertwine so much? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u7st6/why_is_it_that_religion_and_politics_always_seem/ | {
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"Religions tend to dictate how people should live their lives. Governments tend to do the same thing. So if you're already in a power position in a government, and you want to make up some rules, you're probably going to impose your religious views through the rules you make. Think being gay is a sin? Gay is now illegal. Working on Saturdays? Yep, that's now illegal too. I'm sorry, you want to eat pork? Jail for you, buddy.",
"Each person is both political and religious (to varying degrees, including zero). You can separate the institutions of churches and states, but you can't separate a person from their politics or religion.\n\nMany people have religious beliefs, but have no direct affiliation with any particular churches, temples, mosques or shrines.\n\nThough of course, most people's political and religious views are strongly influenced or directed by religious or political institutions.",
"Democracy: for the people, by the people\n\nif the people as a majority subscribe to a certain belief that says something is bad, they can make laws against it.\n\nsay everyone in Jacobsville thinks killing and eating the wild birds and squirrels around town is wrong. They can vote to create a law that keeps people from doing that.\n\nDifferent religious groups obviously have many of these such beliefs that they take as laws in their own lives, and if they, as the majority of the democratic populous, say that something is bad, they can vote to make it illegal. \n"
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akftgd | what makes something good at absorbing water (e.g. paper towels, regular towels, microfiber cloths)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/akftgd/eli5_what_makes_something_good_at_absorbing_water/ | {
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"There are two main properties you are looking at when talking about absorption. Capacity, how much it can hold, and rate, how fast it absorbs. For paper, capacity is largely affected by the empty space in the towel. Water can occupy the empty space so the more of it that's there the more the sheet can hold. Absorption rate tends to be affected by the surface area of the towel, the more the towel is in contact with the water the faster it can absorb. This is done by rubbing the fibers to give them a rough surface and so more surface area.\n\nTo expand on the capacity part further, you can see the difference between towels you use at business versus at home. Towels in restrooms are usually made on machines that press the paper as they are faster and older equipment. Newer equipment doesn't press the paper making it softer and more absorbent because the empty space is kept intact."
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1m7vxl | what/how can the medical examiner in the zimmerman case sue for? | The Medical examiner is now suing the state for 100M. The article doesn't explain WHAT he is suing for.
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m7vxl/eli5_whathow_can_the_medical_examiner_in_the/ | {
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"He's suing because he thinks he's got a case for unlawful termination.",
"You are citing newsone. That's a biased joke of a website. Don't be surprised if you come from there confused.\n\nHe's suing for wrongful termination. Making these accusations is either a revelation of some terrible actions by the government, or a way to try and get the public on his side for his wrongful termination suit."
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2471xs | what exactly does the first lady do? does she have certain political obligations? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2471xs/eli5_what_exactly_does_the_first_lady_do_does_she/ | {
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"The First Lady doesn't have any official obligations. Legally, she's just some woman married to the President.\n\nHowever, unofficially she can do a lot. She's got the President's ear, and her high profile nature means that she can be very effective at pushing programs. Even in this case though, she's basically just a spokesman or lobbyist. ",
"First Lady doesn't have any specific responsibilities and doesn't even get a paycheck but they typically are involved in some kind of social activism. Michelle Obama, for example, started the whole \"healthy eating for kids\" thing. Barbara Bush went after illiteracy and so on. They also can get involved in certain political situations but obviously nothing that would normally be the responsibility of the President. "
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211mnp | why do some young men wear their pants sagging off their ass? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/211mnp/eli5why_do_some_young_men_wear_their_pants/ | {
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"I doubt we had any influence on wider trends, but when I was in the 8th grade (mid 50's) it was the fashion for guys to wear their pants low (although not as low as what this is about). The disadvantage was that someone else might \"pants\" you, coming up from behind you in the school yard and pull them down (a major \"burn\" but before the term had that meaning).\n\nAs with most fashions, it disappeared soon after.",
"When I was a kid it was called \"no place to hang your onions\" because when you had to hop on the ferry to Morganville, which is what we called Shelbyville at the time, you had to pay with a nickle, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. \"Give me five bees for a quarter,\" you'd say. \n\nNow where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time."
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2jdn61 | how can cars legally drive off dealerships with no license plates, without discrediting the entire license plate law? | Isn't the whole point of requiring license plates is so that all cars can be easily identified? Yeah sure crooks will use stolen plates but that's illegal and you can do anything if you don't care about the law. But now with cars driving around legally without plates (like _URL_0_), law enforcement will no longer stop cars who are missing plates right? I live in California, by the way. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jdn61/eli5_how_can_cars_legally_drive_off_dealerships/ | {
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"You have a grace period where the license and registration _filing_ is sufficient. You receive a flimsy paper version of this. You're required to display this in your windshield and you aren't allowed off the lot without it.",
"California has allowed people to drive new cars for up to six months without a plate for quite a while now.\n\nThis fact was made famous by Steve Jobs who had an arrangement to have a new Mercedes Benz Coupé delivered to him every six months. They set the seats up for him and set the radio presets the way he liked them. He didn't use license plates for years. \n\nPeople thought he was participating in a secret program to test RFID or something that would eliminate the need for license plates. He was just feeding his personality disorder. "
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2qzpcu | how virtual surround sound works on headphones. | I understand they make the sound seem to the left or right but how do they simulate the sound source being in front, behind, above, or below? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qzpcu/eli5_how_virtual_surround_sound_works_on/ | {
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"They are usually recorded with a dummy head to mimic exactly what your ears would hear. Dummy head quite literally a thing that looks like a person's head with two microphones where the eardrums would be.\n\nYour brain places sound by two factors. Delays between sound getting to one ear or the other; and high-frequency loss as the sound has to travel through your head and the pinna (cartilage part of the outer ear). ",
"You should rather be asking how you can identify the origin of a sound with only two ears! This is because the shape of your outer ear (as well as the rest of your body, to a lesser extent) colors the sound. Quite obviously, sound coming from behind is more muffled because it can't travel directly into your ear. Your brain recognizes this and infers that the sound must have been produced behind you. This is the basic principle.\n\nThere's more. Your outer ear has this complex shape to produce even more 'colors' depending on the direction of the sound. It accentuates and diminishes certain frequencies and has slightly varying delays. This is known as the [head-related transfer function](_URL_0_), or HRTF.\n\nThis system isn't perfect. It's hard to locate mosquitoes, for instance, which is probably no accident! And if you can produce any sound of your liking, as with headphones, you can artificially color sound to fool yourself all the way."
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myzeb | why does the major scales sound right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/myzeb/why_does_the_major_scales_sound_right/ | {
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"LY8: Western music divides the space between octaves evenly into 12 notes. The major and minor scales have 7 of these 12 notes. Major scales sound a particular way because of how they are contrasted with other chords and scales in a piece of music.\n\nBy itself, a major scale still sounds 'nice' because the difference of steps between the notes is: 2-2-1-2-2-2-1 where 2 is a whole step and 1 is a half step. In contrast minor ~~chords~~ scales are 2-1-2-2-1-2-2.\n\nWhen chords are used from this arrangement, the major chords tend to have less dissonance than the minor chords (w/respect to the 'tonic' note or the first note in the scale. See the EDIT). **Dissonance** occurs when notes are closer together in an interval.\n\nWhile there may be a natural reason (ly12: evolutionary) to prefer consonance to dissonance, remember that a lot of this cultural. Major and Minor are only 2 modes of about a dozen (Aeolian, Phrygian, etc) that were used prior to the Baroque period. During the Baroque and Classical times, musicians had to follow certain rules about form and resolving dissonance. The Romantic era saw a break from this, while Impressionist, Expressionist, Modern, and Jazz music were more dramatic breaks.\n\nInterestingly, early Rock and Roll was inspired by the Blues and was very simple from a technical standpoint. The cultural implications of Rock and Roll were revolutionary, however.\n\nEDIT: For a bit more technical stuff LY16, C major scale is identical to A minor in key signature. Their tonic notes (the 1 note out of 7) are different - C and A respectively. Strictly speaking there's no real difference between the major and minor scales in terms of consonance - just the order the intervals come in. However, the chords that are derived from the scale make all the difference.\n\nCM is C E G. Cm is C Eb G. Both of these chords have a minor 3rd and a Major 3rd interval. The only difference is which is on top vs. which is on the bottom. Obviously they both have equal amounts of consonance and dissonance, but differ in position to the TONIC note - C in this case.",
"[What is up with noises?](_URL_0_)",
"LY8: Western music divides the space between octaves evenly into 12 notes. The major and minor scales have 7 of these 12 notes. Major scales sound a particular way because of how they are contrasted with other chords and scales in a piece of music.\n\nBy itself, a major scale still sounds 'nice' because the difference of steps between the notes is: 2-2-1-2-2-2-1 where 2 is a whole step and 1 is a half step. In contrast minor ~~chords~~ scales are 2-1-2-2-1-2-2.\n\nWhen chords are used from this arrangement, the major chords tend to have less dissonance than the minor chords (w/respect to the 'tonic' note or the first note in the scale. See the EDIT). **Dissonance** occurs when notes are closer together in an interval.\n\nWhile there may be a natural reason (ly12: evolutionary) to prefer consonance to dissonance, remember that a lot of this cultural. Major and Minor are only 2 modes of about a dozen (Aeolian, Phrygian, etc) that were used prior to the Baroque period. During the Baroque and Classical times, musicians had to follow certain rules about form and resolving dissonance. The Romantic era saw a break from this, while Impressionist, Expressionist, Modern, and Jazz music were more dramatic breaks.\n\nInterestingly, early Rock and Roll was inspired by the Blues and was very simple from a technical standpoint. The cultural implications of Rock and Roll were revolutionary, however.\n\nEDIT: For a bit more technical stuff LY16, C major scale is identical to A minor in key signature. Their tonic notes (the 1 note out of 7) are different - C and A respectively. Strictly speaking there's no real difference between the major and minor scales in terms of consonance - just the order the intervals come in. However, the chords that are derived from the scale make all the difference.\n\nCM is C E G. Cm is C Eb G. Both of these chords have a minor 3rd and a Major 3rd interval. The only difference is which is on top vs. which is on the bottom. Obviously they both have equal amounts of consonance and dissonance, but differ in position to the TONIC note - C in this case.",
"[What is up with noises?](_URL_0_)"
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eu26mz | why hacking is a recurrent problem on games like cs:go and pubg, while other games, such as rocket league, have basically no hacks at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eu26mz/eli5_why_hacking_is_a_recurrent_problem_on_games/ | {
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"Because how could a program help you play rocket league? Help you come up with strategies of where to go and what to do?\nYou can’t hack a game where the computer can’t play as well as humans.",
"All of it comes down to the framework of the games, both how the game is made and how cheaters are detected/punished. Not sure the specifics with the games mentioned, but there will definitely be differences in how easy it is to do, as well how easy it is to avoid detection. If things are handled more on the server side, clients can't change much to their advantage."
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10x9np | servers/the internet in general | Why do people suggest that a site buy more servers to remedy slow speeds? Does buying a server make you your own ISP? Does it give you a bigger pipe to the internet (so to speak...)? If I buy a server, will that make my internet faster? Basically, if someone could explain the relationship between servers and internet that would just be great. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10x9np/serversthe_internet_in_general/ | {
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"Imagine you're running a bar, and you've got only one bartender. Customers have to walk up between the tables, order their drink, wait for their drink, then walk back between the tables to get back to their seat. The tables are kind of close together, so people sometimes have to wait for someone else to finish walking through in one direction before they can walk through in the other direction. Plus, only having one bartender means only one drink is being made at a time.\n\nThe bar is a website. The drinks are individual pages on the site. The bartender is a server. The space between the tables is network bandwidth. The customers are web surfers.\n\nSo, your customers start complaining that your bar takes too long to serve drinks. So, you've got a few options. You could try to widen the space between the tables (pay your ISP for more bandwidth), but there's a limit to how wide you can get them. Or you could hire a new bartender (add another server). Another bartender means you can be making multiple drinks at once (more servers can respond to more requests at once).\n\nBut you've also got to consider that those two bartenders are sharing the same set of bottles, the same behind the bar space, and the same set of tables that are too close together. Eventually, adding more bartenders isn't going to be good enough. At that point, you might consider opening another bar entirely (setting up another set of servers in a different location entirely). That has the advantage of letting people drive to whichever bar is closer (less lag time for computers closer to the new servers), but adds new challenges of making sure both bars have the same menu, same drinks, and same level of quality service (sharing content across servers, database replication, etc.).\n",
"I don't feel like writing down a whole slab of text but if you want to chat (anyone really) you can add me on skype: **weebl.evilution** \n\nI'm a network engineer as a profession and manage servers and connections at enterprise level... and I'm kind of bored at the moment. :P\n\n"
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2kqwj2 | if my average temperature is lower than 98.6, does a fever occur at a lower degree as well? | I've been curious about this for some time! My average temperature is usually around 96.8 degrees. If my body IS fevered at the average 101 degrees, does my body do extra work to catch up? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kqwj2/eli5_if_my_average_temperature_is_lower_than_986/ | {
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"Well the general rule of thumb is that it's \"normal\" for your body temperature to fluctuate 1-2 degree during the day. That's why almost any doctor you see won't consider it a fever to be of concern until 100.4 which is getting very close to the end of that spectrum. \n\nIf your resting normal body temp is really 96 then if you had a 99-100 fever I might worry about it more than the average person but remember that no matter what your normal state is as you get closer and closer to 104 you are at greater risk. 104 or higher can lead to serious damage and even death. But regardless of your set point the range for \"normal\" is pretty wide haha, I think Wikipedia has it somewhere if you're curious. \n\nHere I pulled this from Wikipedia for you :\nThe range for normal human body temperatures, taken orally, is36.8±0.5 °C (98.2±0.9 °F).[9] This means that any oral temperature between 36.3 and37.3 °C (97.3 and 99.1 °F) is likely to be normal.\n\nYour body's set point depends on a lot of factors like where you live, your age, sex, lifestyle, medical conditions, etc. \n\nIf you're willing to do a little experiment I'd try taking your temperature every couple hours throughout the day and chart your natural changes. You might be surprised how much it goes up and down. I hang out between 97.6 to 98.2 or so... I rarely hit the standard 98.6...\n\nEdit: I saw you're feverish now? Well my experiment may not be useful until you feel yourself again haha but you get the idea."
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1xt7cf | the venezuela protests? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xt7cf/eli5_the_venezuela_protests/ | {
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"Came here to post the same thing. I don't know a whole lot about Venezuela, but it seems strange to go from student protest to full on bloody riots.",
"Quote from /u/migvello, a fellow Venezuelan redditor who summed it up pretty well: \n\n > Venezuelan here. Mind you I was on today's protest on the anti-government side, this means I'm biased. You may not know, but Venezuela is spiraling into debt. With Chavez death and the rule of President Nicolás Maduro, we had two bid devaluations. The Dollar went from 4,30 Bs (Bolivares \"Fuertes\") to 11,36 approx. on one year. We can't find basic food elements like milk, flour, cooking oil, and even toilet paper on our marts and markets, this scarcity is beyond patience: _URL_7_\nInsecurity is rampant. We are now one of the most violent countries on the world. We had even one of our Miss Venezuela killed, it wasn't because she was famous, not because she had money, it wasn't a hitman. She died with same modus operandi every Venezuelan gets killed. The government is secretly working with a lot of \"collectives\" (mafias, armed groups, violent gangs) as means of intimidation and is turning a blind eye to violence.\nHere is a video of the police and government enforcers shooting and kicking people: _URL_6_ _URL_5_\nHere are some videos of these armed collectives shooting protesters: _URL_9_ _URL_1_ you can see one protester shot death and the police not doing anything.\nPolice brutality against protesters (not today, not in Caracas but in Mérida) _URL_8_\nArmed collectives shooting and robbing. These are the Tupamaros, considered a legal political party: _URL_0_ _URL_2_\nYou won't find this on the news except on CNN. Our TV media is buyed by the goverment. It was funny and infuriating watching TV today and finding soup operas an bullshit shows while everybody was marching and the tension was boiling.\nPardon my writing. I can't write well due to anger. There is so much more about this but I can't think straight, I'm too damn angry right now, so I think this info is kinda limited. I hope someone complement this.\nEdit: Some pics: _URL_4_ \nEdit 2: Thanks /u/faxon and some some others user I can't find the name right now, for the gold! Thanks brothers!\nEdit 3: Another protester dead, apparently by the government sponsored armed collectives I mentioned about. _URL_3_ Official numbers: 3 deaths, 26 injured.\nThere is a obligatory country wide public announcement by the government (We call it cadenas, I don't know the English translation, they are very common). A civic-military parade with people smiling, music and happiness all around commemorating El Día de la Juventud while the tensions are still up in the streets. Tomorrow is going to be a long day...\nEdit 4: It Official: \"Maduro forbids spontaneous protests on the country \"quien quiera protestar o marchar en cualquier lugar del país debe tener permiso y si no es así, serán detenidos.\" - \"Those who wants to protest or rally up anywhere on the country must have permission, otherwise, they will be detained.\nAs if the President would give permissions to protests against him...\nEdit 5: Oh! I forgot to say this. Our Exchange-rate regime is too severe. The now official figure is 1$ = 11,36 Bs. approx., but the black market figure is 84 Bs. as of today. Our economy is so fucked up that the official rate is not as used as the black market rates on commercial establishments because the government has barely any money left. ",
"I live there. They want to get Maduro out of power by essentially marching in the streets. Many people believe there will be a strike against the government."
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_K3oPeQ0A",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3DS2uxihGk",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNULcdQ6a0I#t=20",
"https://twitter.com/jennyoro1/status/433771586227683330/photo/1",
"http://imgur.com/a/hvw4J#JH1ue46",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsjIb62_PoM",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrpihh6mewQ",
"http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/sep/26/venezuela-food-shortages-rich-country-cia",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15xj1Tf3sU0",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mb97ZcOd8g"
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||
2i6e31 | how does so much money(electronic) exist if there isn't enough physical currency in the world somewhere to back it? | Basically i'm getting really confused as to how there isn't enough physical currency in the world. So what would happen if everybody in the world tried to withdraw their money from the banks.
please help me! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i6e31/eli5_how_does_so_much_moneyelectronic_exist_if/ | {
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"Money is not a real thing. It is a reflection of the value of something - how much someone is willing to pay for it. This can also be the value of something that doesn't exist either, like a service or a concept.\n\nPhysical currency is just a chit - a token to show an item of money.\n\nIf everyone tried to withdraw their money at once, the bank would collapse. A bank makes its money by investing your money that it's looking after - for example by loaning it to people who need mortgages, and charging interest. It keeps enough back so that, if you ask for some of your money, it can give it to you. But if everyone asked for their money at once, a 'run' on the bank happens. This means the bank would suddenly not have enough money to pay everyone. \n\nThis is what happens in Mary Poppins and why the Dad gets fired.",
"\n1) Money is just an IOU from an official party. If you give someone a note that says that you'll give the owner if this note 2h of your labor (e.g if you know how to build websites, then doing that for 2h), and the other guy **trust** that you will do what to note says, then that's an IOU. \n\n2)now, of you are willing him to transfer this note to a third party, and that third party also **trusts** you to hold on to your word, then this note can be used to trade for other stuff. Thus your note is a form of money. State authorized IOUs are what people call \"money\". We all **trust** that other people will trust this IOU, so we are willing to trade with it for goods. you see how trust is a major thing here...\n\n\n\nnow to the answer: \n---------------------\n\n1) As most of our dealing are done from bank to bank, there is no need to issue a real life paper IOUs. you can just balance the books between accounts and between banks. In fact, the bank does not print new IOUs, it just makes accounting calculations, to allow for more trade to be carried out. **So, most of the money made is never printed into circulation of real paper IOUs.** \n\n2) The second thing that increases the amount of traded debt is that we are willing to accept IOUs from people for **future work of goods produced**. that is, we assume that this guy will be working 20y more, and we have **his promise** that he will pay all the debt he takes on himself, then we are willing to give him money (IOUs) to use now, knowing he will pay back. we are using **future** wealth!\n\n3) Now this **future wealth**, in the form of new IOUs given to the guy that made a promise to pay it up, is used by this guy in the market, thus entering into the total money available for all of us to use. \n\nfinal note:\n > Keep this in mind: Every time you take a lone, you are creating fake future money now. Let's all hope you keep your promise of working off that debt with some yoga teaching or chemical engineering or whatever you do. ",
"These articles basically explain how there's more *money* than *physical currency* and how the hell that we arrive at this situation: \n_URL_1_ \n_URL_0_"
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2jshex | how does every flight always seems to be filled? | Does *everyone* happen to be flying to the same random city at the same time on the same day every day? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jshex/eli5_how_does_every_flight_always_seems_to_be/ | {
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"Flying a plane is expensive. If it's not full, the airline is losing money. They schedule flights far enough apart that the planes will be more likely to be full when flying. They will also put you on connecting flights, meaning the larger, fuller planes going to bigger, more major airports, are often taking people to a connection, not to that city. They will get on a smaller plane, (also full) going to another destination. The planes get smaller as the destinations get more remote, making it more cost-effective to fly with fewer paying passengers. ",
"Flight scheduling/routing is the subject of *very* close study in the airline industry. Planes have to be pretty damn full before the flight becomes profitable, so airlines have to be very picky about when and where they fly. So they look at available data to determine how many customers they need to service, and provide no more service than they absolutely need to. If Delta sees that there are approximately 400 people flying from Atlanta to Oklahoma City every Friday, then they might commit two 205-seat planes to the task.\n\nThis is a dramatic oversimplification, but it should serve for ELI5 purposes.",
"Everything /u/Roflmoo said is correct, but he didn't get to the other part, which is over-booking.\n\nAirlines will sell more seats on a flight than actually exist on the airplane. This allows them to keep a plane full when no-shows fail to arrive.\n\nThat's why it's important to check in as early as you can and, if your flight allows it, select your seats.",
"As others already explained. Companies as Delta, AA, Lufthansa have expensive systems to determine the optimal occupation and to achieve a 100% occupation with maximized revenue.\nIf you read about Yield Management, you will see that there is a lot of work before the flight taking off.\n\nWhen you say random city, be aware that companies just fly between that two cities because they have studied and made \"business plans\" to that route, they are flying it because they know they would have passengers.\n\nDepending on the route, Saturdays and Mondays are usually the most full flights. Tuesdays are the weakest day of the week, with lower fares.\n\nAdditionally, during the check-in the system has a module that attributes the seats. The seating map is done in a way that the weight will be distributed by the plane.\n\nFor example, if a flight is 50% occupied, the check-in system will give the seats to the passengers distributing them by the plane, in order to have their weight equally distributed in both sides of the plane. This will also avoid the idea that the plane has lots of available seats, since you will be seeing passengers heads, everywhere.",
"I can answer this one! **I worked for the world's largest airline.** There's two parts to this question.\n\n**First Part:** Most airlines use what they call a hub and spoke system - take American Airlines for example. Let's say your journey is from Tucson, AZ to Boise, ID. Your route would look something like TUS -- > PHX -- > BOI. The \"spoke\" airports are TUS and BOI while the \"hub\" airport is PHX. Think of airports like a bicycle wheel where all of the spokes come together at one point (hub). In order to go from city to city, you need to pass through the hub to change planes. People on the Tucson to Phoenix flight might not all have a final destination of Phoenix, but rather to get off their plane in Phoenix to board a plane going to another city. People flying from Phoenix to Boise all have a final destination of Boise. \n\n**Second Part:** Now, in order to address why planes are so full. There are two types of people to fly on a plane. In aviation terms, positive space or non-rev customers. Positive space customers are like you - people who pay for an airplane ticket. Non-rev customers are people who work for the airlines that fly for free, but can only board a plane if there is space available (Non-rev = non-revenue). Next time you are boarding a plane, when boarding starts you'll usually hear the gate agent come over the PA and make a message directed towards stand-by passengers (generally these are the non-revs trying to see if there is enough seats on the flight for them to fit). \n\n**My plug: The aviation industry is absolutely fascinating. If y'all have more specific questions on how airports/airlines work, feel free to PM me.**\n",
"Not always. I was once on a plane with only 18 people onboard.",
"2 reasons:\n\nThe first is over booking. Airlines over-sell tickets by some percentage in anticipation of missed flights and plans changing. Whatever is left goes to the 2nd reason: Non-Revenue passengers. Basically, this is airline personnel and others who are able to acquire standby and buddy passes. If there are seats left, there are undoubtedly people trying to find room on these flights to get wherever they need to get. Those 2 things combined leads to full flights almost all the time.",
"Without disputing any of the discussion of overbooking, stand-bys, etc., there is another reason.\n\nConsider 2 flights, one has 1 passenger, 99 empty seats. One has 99 passengers, 1 empty seat. On average, planes are half full, right? However, 99% of the people experience a 99% full plane, and 1% of the people experience a 1% full plane. Expected experience becomes .99 * 99 + .01 * .01 = .9802, or 98% full.\n\nGeneralized, what the the airlines see as planes that are 85% full, on average, is going to feel to most people as 100% full.\n\nTL;DR: Planes feel fuller than they are because odds are you on a plane that is fuller than average.",
"It didn't use to be like that. When fuel prices were lower, airlines competed based upon availability. This chart shows the change in load factor in the last 23 years. Its gone from 60% to about 82%. _URL_0_ \n\nMore flights at a lower load factor were more convenient for passengers. As fuel prices increased, the importance of the load factor has increased to maximize efficiency. The need to maximize passengers becomes important because the fuel costs are the largest variable costs associated with adding extra passengers. But the ticket price is substantially larger than the variable costs, so you get a pretty large marginal profit from filling the last few seats on a plane. \n \n\n",
"Through a thorough analysis of historical flying data, computer algorithms and other internal/external factors, a software program out there adjusts flight costs up and down in such a fashion to generate a purchasing trend that, by the day of the flight, gets that flight as full as possible. I'm sure it's a trade secret horded by each airline or airline software provider.",
"The first time I ever flew it was when I was 21 years old going from Birmingham to Chicago for a job interview. (I hadn't flown as a kid because my mom refuses to, so no family vacations in the air). The flight arrangements were made by someone at the NW Indiana company I was going to interview for, not myself. I got on a regular sized plane in Birmingham and flew to Cincinnati to get a connecting flight to Chicago. When I got to the plane in Cincinnati, there were about 5 of us on a small connection flight. As I boarded I was asked my weight and then told where to sit to balance out the weight of the plane on either side of the wings. I was kinda freaked out by that."
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ejkvye | why does pixelating a picture of the same dimensions make the file size smaller? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ejkvye/eli5_why_does_pixelating_a_picture_of_the_same/ | {
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"Think of pixels like the thread count of a sheet. If you have a really high thread count, the sheet will be heavier than a lower thread count sheet.\n\nThe same thing is true for pixels - the higher resolution something is, the more pixels there are and the larger the file will be.",
"I don't know anything about computer science. But when you pixelate, you essentially merge neighboring pixels, right? So instead of having to code for different colors for each pixel, you now Code one color for many. Less information = less size. I may be wrong though",
"If you're using a non-bitmap image format, pixellating it makes the image easier to compress. Big blocks of solid color are far simpler to compress than whatever you had before.",
"It lets the image get compressed more easily because there's less detail. Storing the information \"one pixel of color A, one pixel of color B, one pixel of color C, one pixel of color D\" takes up a lot more space than the information \"a 10x10 pixel block of color A\"."
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jmvyf | what/who the tea partiers are | not the ones from way back in the day. the present ones | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jmvyf/eli5_whatwho_the_tea_partiers_are/ | {
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"[Tea Party](_URL_1_)\n\nTop comments [here](_URL_2_) and [here](_URL_0_) are good",
"[Tea Party](_URL_1_)\n\nTop comments [here](_URL_2_) and [here](_URL_0_) are good"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=tea+party&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jfusi/eli_5_can_someone_explain_the_tea_party_and_how/"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3pre/please_explain_the_tea_party_movement_and_their/",
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jfusi/eli_5_can_someone_explain_the_tea_party_and_how/"
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5bfho3 | if we don't use much oxygen up from the air whilst breathing, why can't we hold our breaths much longer? | About [18% of what we breathe out](_URL_0_) is oxygen.
About [21% of normal air - what we breathe in](_URL_1_) is oxygen.
That means that 85% of the oxygen that was breathed in is not absorbed into the bloodstream through the lungs. When we hold our breath, why can't we just absorb the remaining 85% oxygen, and hold our breaths much longer? Sorry if I'm missing some obvious fact here. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bfho3/eli5_if_we_dont_use_much_oxygen_up_from_the_air/ | {
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"The urge to breath out when holding breath isn't from lack of oxygen. It is from build up of CO2. The body really wants you to breathe that out!",
"The body needs you to get rid of CO2.\n\nAlso when you breath in, the air 'swirls' and moves around so more oxygen atoms collide with the walls of the lungs.\n\nOnce you've fully breathed in, the air tends to settle down and you end up with oxygen just sitting there on it's own away from the tissue.\n",
"Our body does not even have a built in O2 sensor: we only measure CO2 and it's the only value accounted for when we need to breath. The CO2 \"sensors\" are located in the aortic and carotic bodies, structures deeply irrorated with blood and very sensitive to minute variations. "
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"http://oureverydaylife.com/chemical-composition-exhaled-air-human-lungs-39363.html",
"http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryfaqs/f/aircomposition.htm"
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3zse7d | what the fuck is happening in r/me_irl right now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zse7d/eli5_what_the_fuck_is_happening_in_rme_irl_right/ | {
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"text": [
"Not an ELI5 answer, but you will have better luck /r/outoftheloop. "
]
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[]
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||
a8t9kp | what determines your internal body temperature and how you react/feel in certain temperatures? how can two people who grew up under the same exact conditions (such as siblings) change so that one can walk around in short sleeves in winter and the other wears four layers or freezes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a8t9kp/eli5_what_determines_your_internal_body/ | {
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"Many many many factors influence how you perceive temperature. Nerves that sense your internal temperature, thyroid hormones, sex hormones, and these can differ between siblings. For example, someone with hypothyroidism (lower thyroid function and/or hormone) will be more prone to feel the cold, among other things, and vice versa. Hormone levels spiking during the menstrual cycle can influence body temperature. Fitness levels too. Body fat. I could be here for days discussing this, if you want more info on a specific point I'm happy to discuss further :) "
]
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[]
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||
25kbny | why does the temperature of the water you wash your clothes in matter? | I've always wondered this. What is hot water good for whites but not dark colors? Why are light colors in warm water and not hot? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25kbny/eli5_why_does_the_temperature_of_the_water_you/ | {
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"text": [
"Hot water is more effective for loosening and removing oils. This is great for whites but a double-edged sword for colors, as it can also remove some of the dyes, making the colors less vibrant over multiple washings."
]
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|
9dro9m | difference of stop-loss, stop-limit and limit order | I'm hella confused about this. Please enlighten me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dro9m/eli5_difference_of_stoploss_stoplimit_and_limit/ | {
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"A stop order is traded when the stock is trading at a price target or worse (ie a higher price for purchases, lower for sells). The term \"stop loss\" is often uses as such an order can be placed to prevent massive losses in the event your position becomes unfavorable in the current market conditions.\n\nAs an example, let's say I own Security B, currently trading at $50. I fear the price may fall a lot, and don't want to risk losing my money. By placing a stop order ar $45, I guarantee that if the price crashes or slowly declines, I will get around $45 and lose no more than $5. If the price never hits $45, the sale never happens. Another less common use is to place a buy stop order (not counting short selling for simplicity's sake) to buy into a unusual rise in price.\n\n\n\nA stop-limit orser becomes a limit order as soon as the conditions for the stop are satisfied. (The same logic as a stop order, but instead of immediately trading, we place a new limit order when the \"stop\" target is reached/exceeded.\n\nA limit order only executes if the trading price reaches a target or a better price. (Ie a lower buying price or a higher selling price. As an example here, let's I own Security A trading at $50 right now. I want to sell the stock, but **if and only if** I can sell it for $60. If the price rises above $60, the security sale proceeds. If it never does, I still that security ",
"the question you didn't ask is, does this guarantee you won't lose more than a certain amount of money. the answer is no, you need someone to buy whatever you are selling. in a falling market a limit order won't protect you.\n"
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2mr47o | can black holes close off and stop being what we know of as black holes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mr47o/eli5_can_black_holes_close_off_and_stop_being/ | {
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"They can in fact!\n\nIt's due to a cool thing called Hawking Radiation which black holes emit. It's the only thing they give off, meaning they aren't totally black. \n\nRight so what happens at a super sub atomic level, like really fucking tiny there are two little things of which I forgot the name. \n\nLets call them thing one and thing two\n\n[](_URL_0_)\n\nLook at those two buddies. Now they appear out of nothing and then attract to one another and then pop out of existence. They have to go because the universe isn't a fan of free things happening. \n\nNow what happens to a blackhole is on the very edge. Thing 1 and Thing 2 appear but Thing 2 is sucked into the black hole! OH NO!\n\nThing 1 is left on it's own and the universe is pissed about that. This thing has appear and is staying in the universe and the price must be paid for thing 2. The only thing that can pay this debt is the blackhole which shrinks in payment. It's teenie tiny, ridiculously tiny amount that comes off the black hole. However over time it takes it's toll, and for small black holes it can make them 'evaporate' away. "
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||
4ongg3 | why do websites use entirely different domains to host their images? | Whenever I right click on an image and press "Open in a new tab," I get a domain that is different from the one that I found the image on. Why aren't the image domains the same as the site that hosts them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ongg3/eli5_why_do_websites_use_entirely_different/ | {
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"Most websites avoid wasting space be uploading the images on different servers than the one they are running on. Even if one image can use only a few megabytes, having a lot of images stored can require up to several gigabytes (depending on the website of course), and these additional data can end up increasing the monthly/yearly fee for the hosting of the website by a lot. Since it is relatively easy to store images elsewhere and reference them on your website, this is usually the approach most websites use. ",
"To host an image on your domain, you have to pay for / account for the storage space for the image, as well as the bandwidth for when people load it.\n\nIf a website is using a different domain for images, they have either set up a dedicated domain for this purpose, OR they are taking advantage of someone else's resources.",
"I do not think most website hosts image somewhere else, rather opposite it true, but in case a webmaster has enough money he will prefer using CDN to host images and other files so that the website is delivered fast to the end users. If a website is hosted on open-source CMS like WordPress than the website can take benefit of a free JetPack plugin, which is owned by Automatic, the same company which owns WordPress, and host images and other media files on WP server for free.\n\nThe main reason, as stated above, for hosting images in cloud or CDN is the speed of delivery. For a website, the optimum loading time is 3 seconds or less, the lower the better. Anything above it is undesirable, as it results in traffic fall out.",
"They are using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to host the static content (images, etc). The reason to use a CDN is performance and scalability to be able to reach a larger audience with blazing fast speeds. \n\nThe reason why CDNs are so fast is another topic, but it's mainly because they exist in multiple regions of the world and the static content is then served from the closest data center to the requester."
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1tjgfd | does tornado alley get a lot of tornadoes because the land is flat? or is that just coincidence? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tjgfd/does_tornado_alley_get_a_lot_of_tornadoes_because/ | {
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"Relevant PBS: _URL_0_\n\nBasically yes and no. Cold air coming off the mountains mixing with warm air from the gulf causes rotation in clouds high up. Something causes this rotation to eventually turn downward and it forms a tornado.\n\nIf there were a large landmass object to interrupt either the gulf stream or the cold, dry air coming off the Rockies it would disrupt this process but tornado's could still form, they just wouldn't be as prevalent."
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3tg6wo | how come since getting tonsilitus i've lost all urges to smoke despite being a heavy smoker usually? | Been a smoker for 5 years on and off, but ever since I've gotten tonsilitus I haven't had the urge for a cigarette..why is this?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tg6wo/eli5_how_come_since_getting_tonsilitus_ive_lost/ | {
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"Every person is different. My father was a smoker for 30 years and has since quit. After a year all his cravings went away. I was a smoker for 10 years. Tried quitting multiple times and failed. After having come down with pneumonia I couldn't physically inhale cigarette smoke without choking and coughing. After 3 weeks laid out in bed not smoking I decided to try quitting again. Been 3 years since my last cigarette. After 6 months my intense cravings went away. Now I have none even in stressful situations. My wife quit smoking with me and still has cravings to this day. Every person is just different. "
]
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38z6d4 | ive heard people say that communism nearly destroyed america, how and why was this possible? how did a competing form of government "threaten" another? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38z6d4/eli5_ive_heard_people_say_that_communism_nearly/ | {
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"I'm not really sure what you're referring to, but there was MAD. Mutually Assured Destruction - via nuclear weapons. This wasn't so much communism vs America as the USSR vs the USA. It wasn't itself ideological as being another form of great world power rivalry.\n\nCommunism never had much sway in America."
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3eugod | how do you make a brand new basic computer with no software know exactly how long a second is? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eugod/eli5_how_do_you_make_a_brand_new_basic_computer/ | {
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"When you run electricity through a quartz crystal, it vibrates. If you know how fast it vibrates, you can build into the computer that X vibrations = 1 second.",
"That's a hardware function. All computers have a real-time clock that knows how long a second is. All the computer has to do is check the clock."
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9jfezx | why does so much plastic end up in the sea/ocean. surely this issue could be 'nipped in the bud' by imposing enormous fines - similar to that of fly-tipping. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9jfezx/eli5_why_does_so_much_plastic_end_up_in_the/ | {
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"Because in many places there are no such enormous fines, so people litter freely. Or because the fines are not enforced.",
"It is estimate that 90% of plastic polluting our oceans comes from just 10 rivers.\n\nEight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.\n\nAround those river garbage handling system is often insufficient or non existing. So you could change the amount of plastic alot if you had western style garbage collection and handling along those rivers. So you need a lot of education and creating of infrastructure to make it possible.\n\nIt is not that people throw all in the river but if the plastic is left open on ground wind, rain and flood can transport it to the river and down to the sea."
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3n7c92 | the us reaches it's "debt limit" next month meaning at that point they are broke. however the "limit" is perpetually raised. why is it even called a limit if it is not actually a limit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n7c92/eli5_the_us_reaches_its_debt_limit_next_month/ | {
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"It's a limit which Congress can vote to raise. By only raising it a bit at a time, they effectively get to hold the country hostage every time the limit needs to be raised, saying they'll only raise the limit if they get other things they want.",
"_URL_0_\n\nToo long, didn't watch - It is a way for congress to have the appearance of power, and to regularly complain about the president. As long as congress is in the hands of one party and the president is of another, we'll have this sort of nonsense over the 'debt limit'.",
"In terms of economic theory such a limit is necessary for people to have faith in American economy. It gives our debts a \"limit\" and allows our country to be valued against others for a GDP. But what others pointed out is the shitty practically of this. Where we can raise and control the limit thereby feeding people false ideologies. The only solution is a new money system completely changing the economy, system, social classes, you name it. ",
"It doesn't mean we are going broke since a sovereign country issuing its own tokens can never go broke (people may lose faith in said tokens as legal tender, but that's a different story. the currency issuer can always make any payment of any size that is denominated in its own currency). It's just a political scare tactic exploiting most people's ignorance of the mechanics of fiat money"
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250tsz | what is the appeal to beer/wine/alcoholic drinks? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/250tsz/eli5_what_is_the_appeal_to_beerwinealcoholic/ | {
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"1) It tastes good.\n\n2) You get intoxicated to varying degrees, which can be a very relaxing and enjoyable sensation.\n\nThere's no mystery here.",
"instead of asking, why don't you just go and drink some beer?"
]
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17k4ni | what's the point of having a jury if their decisions are not legally binding? | In August, a jury heard a case between Apple and Samsung, and decided that Samsung had not only violated Apple's patent, but that they'd done so "wilfully". The word "wilfully", we're informed by the press, has a very specific meaning in patent law which significantly affects what damages can be awarded (the award is trebled).
Today, I've read that the [judge has decided the violation was *not* wilful](_URL_0_).
I don't want a debate on Apple vs Samsung, nor a debate about patent law - both of these are happening already in /r/technology. What I would like to know, though, is how is it allowable for a judge to turn over a jury's decision? Is there any point even having a jury if their decision is not going to be considered "final"? Is this ability for a judge to overturn a jury's decision specific to the US, or does it exist in other legal systems?
Edit: should have started title with ELI5. I have no legal background, so please do ELI5 as much as possible! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17k4ni/whats_the_point_of_having_a_jury_if_their/ | {
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"A jury, especially in patent cases, often does not have the same knowledge of the technology and law to make the right decisions. The ability to overturn jury decisions allows judges to correct any mistakes that have been made. On appeal, a judge cannot decide whatever he wants; there are restrictions on how much discretion he has over the ruling. \n\nIn a case, there are decisions made about facts and there are decisions made about the law. Ex. What speed was someone driving is a fact. Whether going 90 mph recklessly endangers someone is a question of law. On appeal, the judge can only overturn decisions of fact if they are \"clearly erroneous\" basically only if the jury really fucked up. However, they can review questions of law \"de novo\", meaning for the first time and can do whatever they want. The reason why is that basically the role of the jury is more or less to discern the facts, while the judge should be the one applying the law. Further, you want to give appellate judges the ability to overturn lower court judges because generally they have more expertise and allow the law to be more consistent. Finally, this is just how civil cases work, criminal cases are different.\n\nEdit: Grammar bad."
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3fdbrf | what exactly has hillary done over the years to not make her trustworthy? i am 17 and want to get educated for the primaries. | I am currently 17 and I will be able to vote in the primaries in about a year. I am trying to quite understand what she did wrong. I get that she emailed classified documents over non secure servers, but what else? I hear people talking about Benghazi and her part in Watergate, but it's all to confusing and i really need it laid out in one place. Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fdbrf/eli5_what_exactly_has_hillary_done_over_the_years/ | {
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"Not Watergate. Watergate happened in 1972 and it made Richard Nixon resign in 1974. Hillary Clinton (and Bill) was Whitewater which involved a savings and loan giving improper loans connected to real estate deals. No wrongdoing was found specifically with the Clintons there, but it centered around Bill Clinton as governor of Arkansas overstepping.\n\nAs far as Benghazi, there have been 10 Republican-led investigations into her and the Obama administration on this one incident and all 10 have found no wrongdoings (It was an embassy in Libya where Americans were murdered). It's just something that her political opponents want to keep in the news in the hopes that it makes her look bad (contrast that with George W. Bush who was president during 13 embassy attacks that no one ever talks about).",
"Hillary Clinton is what some people call a Sailor. She goes wherever the wind blows. In this case the wind is public opinion polls. If people say they dont like the trans pacific pipeline she is going to say she doesnt like it. If people say we need campaign finance reform and regulate wallstreet, she is gonna say we need campaign finance reform and to regulate Wallstreet. Its popular to talk about income inequality, so she says things about it. Yet, at the same time she is giving $200,000 speeches for goldman sachs, and has no record for anything she says. She only takes the opinion of the majority of americans, yet does nothing about it. Its popular to talk about the plight of the worker, so she talks about it, yet she was formerly on the board of Walmart, the most anti-worker corporation in existence. She has no convictions or guiding principles. She is seen as untrustworthy because she is a flip flopper. She used to be against gay marriage until it was popular to be pro gay marriage. She voted for the Iraq war and patriot act because it was popular to be for the war, not that its unpopular, she says it was a mistake. A candidate like bernie sanders has a consistent 40 year record for everything Hillary says. Bernie is seen as trustworthy because he never flip flops on issues, you know what his opinion on an issue will be before he says it because of his strong consistency on the policy.",
"Some people consider the use of her private email account for state work a pretty big deal. It basically means that it's possible she had official discussions that no one will ever be able to know about. Her claim that she didn't want to carry more than one phone seems pretty thing when she has a significant support staff.\n\nI think a lot of people also perceive Hillary as a calculating political operative. That is, she is willing to say whatever she needs to say to further her political career. Obviously all politicians are like this to some degree, but my impression is people seem to particularly feel this way about her.\n\nHowever, the biggest issue I have with Hillary is that she's a war hawk. She is quick to use military force instead diplomacy. She voted for the war in Iraq when she was in the Senate when it was pretty clear to anyone paying attention that the evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was pretty thin. \n\nI think this may have been a calculated move in that (1) she didn't want to leave herself vulnerable to the perception that she is a woman and therefore weak and (2) she didn't want to risk running against popular sentiment. So basically, in my opinion, she is either a war hawk or a poor leader. Either way, not someone I would want leading the country.",
"A lot of people consider her to be part of the two sides of the same coin (Repub or Dem, doesn't matter, same shit now) and that we need real change, which Obama really wasn't.",
"When Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas she suspiciously benefited from a lot of investments. For example turned a few thousand dollars into 100,000 dollars very quickly on the commodities market and then stopped investing in commodities right after that. A exec at gigantic Tyson foods later admitted he was telling her what to buy. Lots of weird deals which she made a ton of money off of all involving huge corporations operating in Arkansas.\n\nImmediately after Bill is elected she orders FBI files on the 900 most important Republicans. This is domestic spying.\n\nIn the run up to the 1996 election Bill canceled criminal background checks on immigrants to increase the number of immigrant voters for the election. During this time roughly 10,000 convicted felons who would ordinarily be rejected for citizenship were let in. Right after the election criminal background checks were reinstated.\n\nAfter leaving the white house Bill and Hillary set up a charitable fund which has taken in gigantic amounts of money from huge coorporations. The amount of money taken in is staggering and much has been spent on the Clinton's personal expenses and the huge corporations donating the money appear to have been helped by Hillary while she has been in office.\n\nThe US government has strict rules about government official's email being turned over and eventually made public. She has clearly tried to evade these laws and make permanently secret communications. As part of this she has used personal, non governmental emails to make communications which evade the reach of the rules regarding the archiving of all governmental emails. She has also used these personal email accounts, meaning ordinary email accounts like you or I use, to communicate classified information to others. This is an obvious security risk only being taken to evade the rules on disclosure of emails.\n\nThere is more. She is systematically breaking every rule which stands in her way.",
"Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Lewinsky, private emails, lying about foreign donations, and as a personal dig her \"evolution\" on gay marriage. Don't tell me you just happen to change your opinion on something when it just happens to be politically advantageous to do so. \"Evolve\" really is the word here. You either adapt to the changing political climate or you \"die out.\" But to oppose human rights vehemently then turn around and pretend it never happened is as slimy as they come. She has literally said that, despite supposedly being for the environment, she isn't going to take a position on Keystone until she become president. It's about integrity, and no matter how much money Hillary gets from superPACs, it's something she can never buy.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIf you like Hillary, you will love Bernie Sanders",
"I don't know if this makes her untrustworthy, but back when she was running for senator in New York, she wore a brand new Yankee cap to the Yankee game and later that day she wore a pristine Mets cap to the Mets game.\n\n I feel like she doesn't have any opinions of her own unless she has her people do a complete analysis on which is the safest position and most popular. \n\nAlso this cringy video...\n\n_URL_0_\n\nShe just doesn't come off as a genuine person. ",
"She is as phony as a $3 bill. We can go back to Whitewater etc. The best example though is how she failed the Washington D.C. bar exam. She went back 'home' to Arkansas where her Governor husband arranged for her to take the Arkansas bar exam in a private room, alone (I bet). Nobody else ever got that kind of a deal."
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3iauez | what is the smallest object that radar can pick up? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iauez/eli5_what_is_the_smallest_object_that_radar_can/ | {
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"The wavelength is rather low, so as long as the surface was radio reflective, the smallest would be the wavelength.\n\nBut it's more a matter of return probability; just because the radio wave is reflected, doesn't mean it returns the the dish to be registered and displayed. The greater the number of reflections on surfaces that could return them to the collection point; the higher chance you'd see it.\n\nThis is actually the principal that stealth aircraft use",
"The radar on the boat that I work on regularly picks up birds, and even the boat's own wake through the water."
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1jnjik | townships and boroughs? states like new jersey and pennsylvania have them, how do they work compared to cities and towns? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jnjik/eli5_townships_and_boroughs_states_like_new/ | {
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"In New Jersey or Pennsylvania, Township is just another form of municipality, like a Town or City. Traditionally, the Townships were rural, and as new towns were built, they would break away to incorporate their own local government. Most of these used the government form of \"Borough\". Boroughs differ from Town or City or Village only in the default setup of the council and mayor, and each form has the same basic governmental powers.\n\nIn the 1920s, New Jersey got fed up with the profusion of tiny boroughs (\"boroughitis\"), and made it harder to form a new local government. Thus when post-WWII suburbanization happened, it mostly happened in Townships that remained intact. So in Bergen County (near New York City, where suburbanization happened early) there are lots of little boroughs -- 70 municipalities averaging only about 13,000 residents. But if you look at Mercer County (suburbanized mostly in the 1960s and 1970s), there are only 12 municipalities, averaging over 30,000 residents each.\n\nThis can be super confusing, because in the Midwestern states, a \"Township\" is an administrative territory of the County, a form of unincorporated government service district. The Federal government actually has a lot of programs that assume all \"Townships\" are this kind of (mostly) poor, rural area. A couple of large town/small city municipalities in New Jersey reincorporated as \"Townships\" in the 1980s to access these federal programs: Montclair is a Township, and so is Orange (the locality is called \"City of Orange Township\")."
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4rjwhj | why do stove tops (and other cooking equipment) have numbers 1-6 rather than temperatures? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rjwhj/eli5_why_do_stove_tops_and_other_cooking/ | {
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"The answer is that you CAN buy stoves with precise temperatures but the level of maintenance and calibration that requires is just not worth it for nearly anyone so almost everything opts for the far far simpler relative heats. \n\nFiguring out how much energy a specific amount of burning gas will raise the temperature of something to is a lot of factors. It's far easier to say \"this mode is hotter than this other mode\" for most things. ",
"Stoves heat a pan which in turn heats the pans contents. Even if you know the temperature of the heating element you don't necessarily know the temperature of the item you're cooking. Ambient temperature and the component of your pan will affect heat transfer. \n\nIt also doesn't matter much for most foods. \"Hot\" and \"really hot\" are sufficient most of the time. When these are not sufficient you employ a thermometer that goes into the foodstuff itself and measures temperature directly. \n\nOvens, by contrast, heat the air surrounding your food. Measuring the air directly is easy, although again this doesn't mean your food is at the oven air's temperature. Again, thermometers are deployed directly into the food when internal temperature is at issue. ",
"The manufacturer knows the size of the inside of their oven. They do *not* know what pots and pans you might place on top, however. Giving you an accurate reading there doesn't do much. Not to mention that it's rather difficult, as again, there are other factors like air, air flow, sunlight, ambient temperature, et cetera."
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39aain | what happens if i inhale pure oxygen? apparently it yields some sort of high? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39aain/eli5what_happens_if_i_inhale_pure_oxygen/ | {
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"worked with oxygen in fighter aircraft ... when you go to 100%, and breathe it for a bit, it just clears your head / mind, and is a instant hangover cure. however, never experienced any high from it. ",
"Typically you feel more alert and somewhat more energetic. Short periods of high oxygen levels can give positive reactions. However it is quite dangerous for extended periods of time. Inhalation of pure oxygen can lead to brain damage after 8-10 hours and is often fatal after 12 hours.",
"There is something known as \"Oxygen Toxicity\". It is very, very hard to achieve at sea-level, though. Scuba divers who dive on some of the more exotic breathing mixes (usually Nitrox or Heliox) have to be careful because their oxygen exposure while under pressure is so much greater. O2 poisoning can cause tunnel vision and seizures -- not something you want to have happen 30-40m under water. \n\nBreathing pure oxygen on the surface, though won't be a big deal. Hospitals do it all the time to help pulmonary patients with low O2 saturations. \n\nIt should be noted that pure O2 is ridiculously flammable. Seriously -- lighting a match or smoking a cig while on O2 is a quick way to torch your lungs. "
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6ig6i5 | why does spinach break down to basically nothing while other greens do not? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ig6i5/eli5_why_does_spinach_break_down_to_basically/ | {
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"I don't think the body does break spinach down completely. Humans lack the necessary enzymes break down cellulose, the structural starch in plants. Cooked spinach however is going to be more digestable than raw because heat can break down cellulose. "
]
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4egreq | why can't / don't political candidates sue each other for defamation of character when they run negative campaign ads? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4egreq/eli5_why_cant_dont_political_candidates_sue_each/ | {
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"The best defense to a libel suit is that the statements you made are provably true. And most negative ads say completely true things, just in a very unflattering way.\n\nSo, an ad might say \"Senator Jones voted against raising teacher pay\" and that's fine, because they can show he voted against it. This is also why the ads won't say things like \"Senator Jones makes porn videos with baby penguins\", because they can't back that up.",
"As I understand it, there is no federal truth-in-advertising law that is specifically written about political ads. Also, the Supreme Court ruled in the Times v. Sullivan case in 1964 that a public official can't collect damages for a defamatory statement unless they can prove that the statement was made with knowledge that it was false or that the person made the statement with reckless disregard of the veracity of their claims (Very difficult to prove). Lastly, not all political ads are created or endorsed directly by the candidate, so any private lawsuit against them wouldn't hold water in court. Not to mention the amount of time that would be spent in court might be longer than the election cycle.\n\ntldr: There is no point because they can't collect for damages/won't fix the damage in time for the election",
"Many don't lie, slander is a civil tort not a crime. To sue is the only way to resolve it and does not look good during a campaign usually. \n\nOccasionally some ads do lie and are removed but defamation needs to show malice. Not stating something in a certain way, but actual malice. Often time it's just telling something in a certain way with just one side of the story. It's factually true, but doesn't tell the whole story obviously.",
"Candidates are too smart to put the most vicious statements in the ads that they pay for. They allow supposedly \"unaffiliated\" groups to make the harshest attacks, which gives them the ability to disavow it if things turn south.",
"In order to be defamation, a statement:\n\n* must be clearly false\n* the person making it knows or should have known it to be false\n* a reasonable listener would likely believe it to be true\n* it must be damaging\n\nUsually negative ads have enough elements of truth to not qualify as defamation.\n\nAnd even when it is defamation, suing makes you look like a crybaby, and can hurt your campaign further. It doesn't do you much good to win a lawsuit but lose the campaign, you can't collect damages for not being elected president."
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5suwlb | why do some countries outside of the us use the us dollar? | Some countries have replaced their official currency with the US dollar. What's even more confusing, though, is the countries that have their own currency, but still use US dollars frequently. Costa Rica, for example, has their own currency, but they often use USD to pay for things. It's not even limited to the tourist attractions. What's the point of using a foreign currency when you have your own? Is 1 US Dollar really that much better than 550 Costa Rican Colones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5suwlb/eli5_why_do_some_countries_outside_of_the_us_use/ | {
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"There are two specific reasons: \n\nFirst - oil is bought and sold on the open market in US dollars. So when Saudi Arabia sells oil to France - France has to use US Dollars to buy the oil from Saudi Arabia. \n\nRussia, Iran, and China are trying to move away from the petro-dollar for this reason - so they don't have to have US dollars on hand.\n\n\nSecond - certain countries experience hyper-inflation - to the point that Zimbabwe issued 100 trillion zimbabwe dollar notes. Because of this - the people would lose faith that they would not be able to purchase goods in the international market with their domestic currencies. So if a baker wanted to import wheat from Egypt - the Egyptian merchant might say, \"I won't take Zimbabwe money - I'll sell it to you in dollars.\" ",
"The US has a very stable currency. If $1 buys you a hamburger today, it will probably buy you a hamburger tomorrow.\n\nIn many countries this is not the case. A hamburger might be 100 shekels today, 120 tomorrow, and 70 the next. This is hard on both business and consumers because they have to try to second guess the currency. You might be able to make a profit selling that hamburger for 100 sh, if you knew the currency would stay put, but instead you sell it for 120 sh just in case. You sell fewer, but you know you aren't losing money. Using US dollars instead makes things safer for both buyers and sellers.\n\nThe problem also exists on a higher level. If the government want to higher a German engineering company to build a bridge, they don't want to be paid in shekels, which could lose their value. They want dollars or euros or yen. If it just so happens you sold a bunch of oil to the US for dollars, you are going to keep those around to pay for that bridge, so even at a governmental level you have to use dollar.\n\nMost countries that don't have a strong, widely traded currencies, including Russia and China, have to keep large reserves of foreign currency on hand.\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"To add to all the reasons stated here, between 1944 and 1971 the USA effectively tried to turn the dollar into a global currency by making dollars freely exchangeable for gold and/or other currencies. So for that whole time almost all of the world's currencies were effectively pegged to the dollar. \n\nThen you had the \"Nixon shock\" where Nixon basically decided this was no longer affordable and ended the exchange system, but some countries decided to continue to voluntarily peg their currency to the dollar, or simply use dollars, anyway.",
"Historically, all money was backed by gold. So if you wanted, you could take a peso or a ruble or a dollar to a bank and get back some amount of gold that was considered equivalent. This created a whole bunch of headaches with countries and limited growth, so a bunch of them started moving off the \"gold standard.\" Often this happened during war, as a country needed to be able to print more currency to fund said war. Most of the time they'd return to the gold standard afterward.\n\nThen World War 2 happened. The enormity of the cost of this war was incomprehensibly massive. Almost every country dropped the gold standard and traded off their supplies of gold to fund the war. The one country that didn't need to do this was the US, because the US was basically selling huge portions of its GDP to the war effort. Consequently, after the war the US controlled almost the entire world's supply of gold. The battered remains of European industry couldn't hope to get back on the gold standard any time soon, so most of the world decided instead to back their currency with the US dollar instead of gold. Since the US dollar was still on the gold standard, this was almost as good. Eventually, the US Government dropped the gold standard as well, but the tight rein that the government maintains on the value, its ubiquity due to the aftereffects of WW2, and the reliability and stability of the US government itself all combined to make it a common currency used in exchanges around the world.\n\nMost of the countries with stable currencies don't use US dollars for anything but international trade (see: the Euro, the GBP, the Yen). But for countries with less confidence in their government or more fluid currencies, the greater confidence in the US dollar makes it a useful item to have around."
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9yvk58 | why does it seem easier picking up a person than a weight that weighs the same as them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9yvk58/eli5_why_does_it_seem_easier_picking_up_a_person/ | {
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"I think this is because the person is using their muscles to 'help' you lift/carry them. Which is also why going ragdoll is so effective.",
"A person has some level of instinct on how to distribute their weight around your center of gravity, and your core muscles. And...they respond to your jostling and repositioning. \n\nThe weights on the other hand are stupid - they'll stay 18 inches from your body if you hold them there, which makes them effectively heavier then if they are at your chest.\n\nAs an example of this, carrying a dead body is really hard because significant portions of the body no longer \"cooperate\". Time to go out an experiment! (please don't).",
"The way the weight is distributed. A weight has all of the mass sitting in one place on the floor. A person has the weight spread out in limbs so you can move it around a little at a time. Get the arms over your shoulders and pick up the torso wilhe the legs are still lying flat and you are adding weight over time when you have a better position to lift\n",
"You’ve clearly never tried carrying a toddler who is throwing a tantrum and goes catatonic while simultaneously going noodly."
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4x1hxj | why can a 'dumb' calculator do floating point/decimal math better than a modern computer cpu? | Thinking about how in computer programming you can use a floating point number or a double, but either way once you approach a certain number of digits precision will decline. I've noticed that this does not occur in my calculator when doing operations involving large numbers or numbers with a lot of decimal places.
So why is it that an off the shelf calculator you can buy, which has no where near as much power as a modern computer system, can solve these problems to a high level of accuracy but my computer cannot. Please forgive if this is a very obvious explanation. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4x1hxj/eli5why_can_a_dumb_calculator_do_floating/ | {
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"I think this depends very much on the specific calculator you are using. Some do use floating point, and will have similar behaviour to computers.\n\nBut one of the ways in which calculators can be different is that instead of using floating point, they can use Binary-coded decimal. Because most calculators have fixed inputs and outputs (i.e. they do not accept more digits than will fit on the screen, and won't output more digits than will fit on the screen), they can be designed specifically to work with those digits. \n\nWhen you do a basic floating point calculation, a computer converts the numbers you have input into binary, performs the necessary operations to get the result, and converts it back to decimal for the human output. BCD instead does the same long-form operations you'd do if you were trying to do the operation by hand (e.g. add the units, carry the one, add the tens, carry the one, etc). This is much slower than other techniques computers can use to do sums (and requires more storage space), but because it does the actual math in base 10, the base 10 result you get should still be accurate--though because it's working with fixed inputs and outputs, many calculators will still give rounding errors for sums which don't work neatly in base 10, e.g. many calculators will say that (1/3)*3=0.999999999 instead of 1.\n\nIt's worth noting that computers can do binary coded decimal calculations, but there are other ways to do precise calculations when necessary.",
"This will depend on the calculator since mine does use (decimal) floating point and all the limitations that comes with, but it has nothing to do with the hardware. It's not true that your CPU can't solve problems to a high level of accuracy, it absolutely can do everything your calculator will and it'll do it much faster, it's just that the particular application you're testing has chosen not to.\n\nThere are lots of ways to represent a number in a computer. Floating point is a good general purpose choice - it has a large range, high precision, and most processors have hardware support built in so it's fast.\n\nFloating point has downsides though. Precision is good but still limited, so rounding of values is almost always necessary, and operations are inexact which makes it difficult to reliably compare two values for equality.\n\n\nYou can deal with the second issue by using fixed point instead - with fixed point, addition, subtraction, and multiplication are exact so long as the result doesn't overflow. However, the range and precision is very limited.\n\nArbitrary-precision rational numbers are another option. They have unlimited range because the size is variable - however, this means operations on them no longer take constant time. You can represent all rational numbers exactly, operations are exact as long as the result is still rational, and for irrational numbers you can get an approximation as close as you want. However, the amount of space required can increase rapidly with subsequent operations, and because the size is variable there is a need to reallocate memory from time to time, so these are less performant than floating point or fixed point. \n\nThey'd be overkill for most applications, far too slow and unwieldy and exact operations are rarely required - but they aren't a bad choice for a calculator - the number of operations to be performed will be small, and as the sole purpose of the application is to perform these calculations an exact answer is desirable, especially for calculations that can be done on paper (seeing a calculator give an answer you know is wrong is still irritating even if you know it's just rounding error). That said, I've not actually seen a calculator that does calculations this way - maybe it is the case on more high end ones, I don't know."
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3z3cm2 | i pulled a soda out of the freezer, it wasn't frozen or anything. after opening it though, it turned into frozen slush. why did this happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z3cm2/eli5_i_pulled_a_soda_out_of_the_freezer_it_wasnt/ | {
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"I can't give you the reason but... You can do it with beer for a cool trick\n\n_URL_0_",
"The soda can is pressurized by the carbonation. This increases the temperature at which the soda will freeze. When you opened it, the pressure was lost. The reduction of pressure also decreases the freezing point if the soda. Since the temperature of the soda was below it's non-pressurized freezing point, it began to freeze. \n\n\n"
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efmx0f | why does updating my video card driver fix issues that never existed before the update was available? | Say Nvidia releases a Geoforce update for my card, right? Say this update does nothing but add support for a game I don't even have. Now imagine that a game I was playing all day suddenly stopped booting up and started to give video errors, but the update fixed it. The update in question came out on the 10th, so in all actuality, why did my game work all day, then stop working, and now works again after I updated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/efmx0f/eli5_why_does_updating_my_video_card_driver_fix/ | {
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"*officially* it might only just add support for game *x*, but there will be dozens of bug fixes and tweaks in there too.\n\nYou’ve been playing the game all day and thus the state has changed - new levels unlocked, new cut scenes played, new characters, etc. There will be known edge case bugs which the developers accept prior to release.\n\nThere is an *insane* number of configuration combinations available on your PC and QA can’t possibly check them all."
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13yzez | why do fm radio stations seem to always be in the 80-100 range? why do we never hear of fm stations like 30.5 fm? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13yzez/eli5_why_do_fm_radio_stations_seem_to_always_be/ | {
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"There are regulations on what frequencies certain kinds of people may broadcast on. In the US, FM radio stations may only use 87.7 to 108.0; 30.5 is in the frequency band reserved for analog TV.",
"30.5 FM is used by Military bands. If you got a radio that could receive that frequency all you would hear is idiotic call signs and fart jokes. "
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3mnrsr | what would happen if saudi arabia stopped using the us dollar as the standard for oil prices? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mnrsr/eli5_what_would_happen_if_saudi_arabia_stopped/ | {
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"There'd be a little bit more paperwork involved in buying it from the US and a little less involved in buying it from whatever country uses the standard they change to, but not much beyond that."
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4eq3aj | why do big game companies like ea still release such terrible empty games that are universally disliked and criticized? with so much money, staff, and tech power, wouldn't it be so easy for them just to put out a decent game, redeeming their reputation and pleasing fans? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4eq3aj/eli5_why_do_big_game_companies_like_ea_still/ | {
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"You like banana\n\nYou keep buying banana\n\nYou think banana is too black \n\nBut you still like banana\n\nYou buy banana as you don't like the looks of fresh strawberries\n"
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2glkke | why are nielsen ratings still the only game in town? why don’t cable/satellite providers gather their own data? | Especially now that digital tv is the law. If my provider can know what station I'm viewing via my cable box, why do they need Nielsen to tell them how many people watch a given show? Why don't they just analyze that data directly? Why not let subscribers check a consent box or something, allowing them to be instant, perfectly accurate, zero-effort-required "Nielsen families"?
I realize some people are getting their digital tv over-the-air (no box, so their data can't be captured the same way), but anyone with cable or satellite definitely isn't, and that's not a small number. Nielsen isn't entirely obsolete (yet?), but I don't get why they still have no competition. Just like cable tv took a big chunk of network tv's market share, shouldn't cable companies be taking a big chunk of Nielsen's? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2glkke/eli5_why_are_nielsen_ratings_still_the_only_game/ | {
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"Because part of the business model of DVRs is to sell that information to Nielsen. See, they're *already* making money off of it.\n\nAnd as for competing with Nielsen, the problem is that there are very, very few customers of the data -- networks. So, let's say a company competes with Nielsen. They then have to convince networks to spend millions of dollars with them instead of Nielsen.\n\nSo, why is that a problem? Because while the networks buy the data, it's their advertisers who actually use it. So, if I am, say, Ford Motors, and I have viewing data from NBC and ABC, but they are using different companies, how can I know for sure that the numbers are going to be worthy of comparison? The calculations may be different -- in fact, they certainly are, since the algorithms used by Nielsen are a trade secret.\n\nSo, comparisons between networks would be pointless, and the networks know this. That's why there's one source for this information, because there isn't room for a second. It's pretty close to a natural monopoly.",
"For some great info on this, check out the Stuff You Should Know podcast. They talked about tv ratings last week. Nielson basically has a monopoly on the ratings system, and for a very long time were the most trusted (or only) company when it came to giving reliable numbers. They won't be the only game in town for long, but they are working to retool their system to adjust to changing technology. \n\nBut to get to your question specifically, Nielson works regardless of who your provider is, and also provides a somewhat impartial party in charge of determining ad revenue. Ratings are used to set advertising rates i.e. the cost of a commercial during a given program. If the cable companies were the ones providing the info, there'd be a ton of incentive to inflate the ratings. For example, Comcast owns NBC. Comcast would have a ton to gain by inflating the ratings of NBC shows, because this would allow them to charge more for commercial time. Nielsen provides a necessary third-party to the process. \n\n[Here's the episode](_URL_0_)"
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5qo91x | how can the president issue an executive order like the muslim ban without it the other 2 branches approval? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qo91x/eli5_how_can_the_president_issue_an_executive/ | {
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"The President as head of the executive branch has always had the task of implementing laws passed by Congress. There is never enough detail in a law to put it into practice. The President issues and executive order with sufficient detail that a government department can implement the law. Exactly how much detail is done at what level is negotiable and variable.\n\nPresident Bush began issuing broader executive orders. The practice continued under more Presidents. conservatives grumbled that Obama was issuing executive orders violating the Constitution. But these orders were carefully researched. None were successfully challenged in a court of law.\n\nAs President Trump has shown, executive orders can be issued immediately. The other two branches of government operate much more slowly. Congress can pass more specific laws. Lawsuits can be filed challenging the executive orders. This seems much more likely because Trump's executive orders do not seem to be well researched or even well thought out.\n\nBur lawsuits take time to file and appeals take a long time to move through the system.",
"Th president is allowed to *interpret* the laws as he or she sees fit, and executive orders are how they do so. \n\nNote that an executive order is *not* a Royal Decree. Quite often, to get it implemented, the legislative branch *does* have to act. For example, a president can issue an executive order saying a certain prison should be closed, but congress has to approve the method of prisoner dispersal. And sometimes they don't do that. Or a president can issue an executive order saying a giant, useless, environmentally disastrous wall should be built, but it won't happen without congress allocating funds for it. ",
"It falls under the purview of the President, as it is considered a case of immediate national security. The precedent was set by John Adams in 1798 as a result of our relations with France. The Alien & Sedition act gave the president the right to imprison, deport, or refuse immigrants from a nation considered hostile to the US. \n\nFirst, it is not a \"Muslim ban.\" No one is barred entry due to their religious beliefs. It is a temporary suspension of immigration from countries with a high rate of radicalization into ISIS, which has used the immigration process in the past to get onto US soil. Immigration from these countries is only expected to last as long as it takes to come up with a thorough and effective vetting process, to determine no ill intent or ISIS affiliation of the person entering the US. \n\nAs I mentioned above, this is not the first time the President has suspended immigration from certain countries due to high risk of people immigrating from those countries. \n\nIn 1882, President Chester Arthur suspended immigration from China, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1889 as constitutional. Justice Stephen Johnson Field wrote, \"The power of the government to exclude foreigners from the country whenever, in its judgment, the public interests require such exclusion, has been asserted in repeated instances, and never denied by the executive or legislative departments.\"\n\nThe immigration act of 1917 was passed by congress which barred immigration from Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East.\n\nAnd in response to Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended immigration from Japan, Germany, and Italy with Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527. \n\nThis current temporary suspension is due to the same sort of risks FDR was responding to. ",
"Can an executive order be challenged by the either of the other two branches?",
"The executive branch is usually given a lot of leeway by congress on how to actually enforce the law. A law about banking may just say \"the treasury will make rules to regulate this activity.\"\n\nSo an executive order can say how a particular administration will handle that. \n\nOf course the other two branches can step in. A judge may say that the EO doesn't follow the law like it should and the legislature could pass a law against what the EO does. ",
"The President is the head of the Executive branch of the US government and is in charge of executing the laws through enforcement (the police are an example of the executive branch acting to enforce laws on the state level, the national guard being sent into an area to enforce laws such as the desegregation in Little Rock at the national level). One way the President can enforce/execute the laws is through an executive order. However, because the President is only in charge of executing the laws and not making the the laws (which is left up to Congress), the President needs an actual law (let's call it a \"base law\") to attach an executive order to. The President cannot (or should not) just make things up and sign executive orders that mandate things Congress has not contemplated. \n\nIn the scenario of the Muslim Ban, President Trump's executive order probably falls under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which is the immigration policy of the US. Section 212 of the INA deals with \"Inadmissible Aliens.\" That chapter basically lists the situations in which an immigrant will be considered \"inadmissible,\"- not allowed entrance into the country. \n\nSo, it is not completely true that the other two branches of government do not approve of the President's executive orders. The base law must still be passed by Congress, following all of the bicameral steps to become an actual law. The Judicial branch sort of stays out of everything until it is called upon through a lawsuit. In fact, it is a practice of the Supreme Court not to even entertain questions of Constitutionality before a law is passed or has been challenged in a lower court. Neither Congress nor the President can ask the Supreme Court whether a law (and probably an executive order by extension) is constitutional before it has been challenged. In other words, the Supreme Court does not approve or disapprove of laws until it is asked to do so. \n\nIn addition, as other posters have pointed out, Trump's order was done under the color of national security. In general, when a law or order has been passed through the proper steps, the Supreme Court will usually defer to the other two branches. For example, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order mandating the detainment of Japanese citizens on the west coast during WWII. When this order was challenged in Court (See \"Korematsu\"), the Court held that the interment was not a violation of the Constitution because national security is regarded as a higher priority. "
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f7atsg | how does stars burn in an empty space? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f7atsg/eli5_how_does_stars_burn_in_an_empty_space/ | {
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"Stars are not actually on fire. They are undergoing a nuclear reaction which converts hydrogen into helium. The reaction emits charged particles, energy, and heat, and occurs because of a star's immense density and gravitational pull.",
"Stars aren't \"burning\" in the conventional sense of the word. They are not an oxygen-fuel-spark combination like a typical fire. \n\nThey are bright because they are very hot and so emit light. The heat comes from nuclear reactions in the core. Most of a star is formed of superheated plasma."
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21oxet | the gorillaz | I don't understand how that band works at all. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21oxet/eli5_the_gorillaz/ | {
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"It's a music/animation project headed by Damon Albarn (Blur's lead singer) and Jamie Hewlett (the artist behind Tank Girl). As you may have guessed, Damon does the music (along with a few guest artists) and Jamie does the art. Together they create a fictional world in which the band The Gorillaz exist. This is why most of their albums are semi-concept albums which work best when compaired to the artwork and fictional story (which can be found on the website, in music videos and in books). So it's like a meta-band with their own story and their own virtual world which can be explored through the website and music videos."
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1lv0yv | why do high-pitched sounds like nails on a chalkboard or squeaking a balloon give people goosebumps? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lv0yv/eli5_why_do_highpitched_sounds_like_nails_on_a/ | {
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"I've heard two explanations for this. The first is our primate ancestry: the high pitch sound of a nail against a chalkboard is similar to the warning cry of certain monkeys; it's also believed that our most recent ancestral predator had a similar battle-cry. So, when we hear these sounds we're wired to get pissed off and alert so we don't get eaten by something big and nasty. Unfortunately, that's pretty useless now, and just serves to ruin our day sometimes.\n\nThe other explanation is that a high pitched sound makes our ears work overtime, and the physical sensation is simply unpleasant.\n\nI have no sources. Also I get off work in five minutes, and it's time for me to drink.\n\nEDIT: I uh, I forgot you were a child. Go...go do homework or something while I touch your mother.",
"I got goosebumps just from reading the title. ",
"Piggyback question...\n\nBut SOME of us have meltdowns over feelings or sounds that are not high pitched or loud. This has got to be separate from primate warnings.\n\nFor example I can't scratch a seat belt, my sis can't let metal touch her teeth, and dad can't twist an egg carton (squeak).\n\nWhy do we freak out at small things?",
"Think of it like combining notes to form a chord musically.\n\nCertain combinations of notes - like C,F,G or A,D,E - form what we call chords, and have a pleasant combined resonance.\n\nCertain other combinations of notes are dissonant, and instead of being pleasurable are aversive.\n\nThe note combinations felt as pleasurable or aversive are instinctual - if you own a dog and play an instrument this is easy to test. When playing guitar my dog will lie next to me and eventually go belly up - showing comfort and security.\n\nHowever, if I play dissonant combinations of notes my Husky will quickly scurry away. Its rather fun, but also proves a profound point - this trait is preserved between species (although, both my and my dog are mammals, so it isn't necessarily universal).\n\nNails on the chalk board and other cringe worthy experiences are the result of a combination of dissonant notes at a high pitch and volume to boot.\n\nSo why do me and my dog instinctually agree one what is dissonant? \n\nResonant sounds (chords) are intentionally put together in that way. It demonstrates that everything in the environment is normal i.e. birds are chirping, squirrels squeaking, ducks quacking. \n\nDissonant sounds are the result of random combinations i.e. thunder, volcanos, fires, etc. \n\nPut another way, resonant chords are historically the result of animals freely communicating - a sign that nothing is wrong leading to pleasurable feelings of comfort and security. Dissonant sounds (and even a simple lack of resonant ones) are eerie, uneasy, and instinctually say \"get somewhere else! Not safe here!\"\n\nWhen all the animals nearby go silent in a forest we become instinctually uneasy. Follow that up with dissonant note combinations, and you've got a problem."
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9rj0rj | how we know where our ancestors were from? | I understand that our genetics can show percentages of different peoples who informed our family tree, but how do we actually know their geographical location and anything about them from what our DNA says? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rj0rj/eli5_how_we_know_where_our_ancestors_were_from/ | {
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"Every generation of genetic code has 1/2 that reflects the mother, 1/2 that reflects the father, and a little random change. While people move around a lot now, that wasn't the case even 100 years ago. When your ancestors lived in the same place for thousands of years, they developed common mutation patterns. Some of those patterns are obvious, if your ancestors lived in Africa they likely share the genetic markers that code for dark skin color. Most are not.\n\nWhen DNA labs have millions of people for whom the genetic patterns and ancestry are known, they can identify which patterns are statistically most indicative of certain ancestries. Then they take DNA of unknown ancestry and see which group(s) it most matches."
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3uae51 | why special effects sometimes looks great on theater's screen but are terrible on tv? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uae51/eli5why_special_effects_sometimes_looks_great_on/ | {
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"TL;DR - Sometimes they release the theatre version to home video, and it's still calibrated for theatre viewing. Cinemas and TVs render color differently.\n\nLong version:\n\nIn order to make movies look their best on the home screen, they often have to be re-finished for home viewing. If they skip this step, the VFX may look bad, because the effects are an illusion that are calibrated to work in cinema color, not home video.\n\nThe way color and brightness are rendered on-screen in a cinema is different from the way they are rendered on a home TV. Part of this is due to color space.\n\nMany digital cinema projectors operate in 10-bit color space. This means that each of the Red, Green and Blue color channels are represented by 2^10 = 1024 values between no light and maximum light. Your home flat-screen TV, on the other hand, usually operates in 8-bit color space. That means only 2^8 = 256 values per channel.\n\nEach pixel has three color channels, so the total number of colors is equal to RxGxB. In your 8-bit TV, that's 16 million colors. In a 10-bit cinema, it's about 1.1 billion colors. The cinema image shows over 60 times the shades of colors available on your home TV.\n\nWhen you render gradual changes in color, like the light falling on Iron Man's curved armor, a high number of shades makes the armor look smooth and real. When you have fewer colors to express the same information, you get abrupt discontinuities in color commonly called \"banding.\"\n\nBanding is what makes the VFX look bad on home video. Since the CG is fake, they have to trick the system into showing you colors that look like curved metal. If they haven't optimized this for 16 million colors, the illusion won't hold.\n\nSometimes, movie studios save money by not doing a separate calibration for home video. Other times, they think they don't need to do it, or have found a way to calibrate for middle ground. The best looking movies on home video have been re-color corrected and re-rendered for the 16-million color space.\n\n\n\n"
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4y0f9t | what impact will aetna leaving most of its affordable care act states mean for the act? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y0f9t/eli5_what_impact_will_aetna_leaving_most_of_its/ | {
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"Hopefully that and other insurance companies abandoning it will provide the push needed to get a public option through Congress.\n\nThe ACA is not a solution to the problems the US has with health-care, it was a temporary measure that was ultimately intended to stop the runaway inflation of health care costs, which it succeeded at doing.\n\nThe US still needs massive health care reform.",
"It's bad news, in a sense. It was forecast to happen, and then it happened. News? The Obama administration constructed the timeline so that the \"out of money\" light would come on during the next presidency. If it's the Democrat, they just got elected with a mandate to keep ACA and Congress will have to give the insurance industry more $$. If it's a Republican, the ACA was probably repealed anyway, no problemo. It was always the savvy political play.",
"Probably not, Aetna offered an absolutely awful bare minimum qualifying plan to my company and no one took it because it sucked so bad."
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2wcn58 | what causes that feeling in your chest when someone "hurts your feelings"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wcn58/eli5_what_causes_that_feeling_in_your_chest_when/ | {
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" > According to a 2009 study from the University of Arizona and the University of Maryland, activity in a brain region that regulates emotional reactions called the anterior cingulate cortex helps to explain how an emotional insult can trigger a biological cascade. During a particularly stressful experience, the anterior cingulate cortex may respond by increasing the activity of the vagus nerve—the nerve that starts in the brain stem and connects to the neck, chest and abdomen. When the vagus nerve is overstimulated, it can cause pain and nausea. \n \n-Scientific American",
"Does it cause long term physical damage if prolonged? "
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[],
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6mdlyg | with snapchat's new function: ''our story'', how do snaps get regulated to prevent violence and nakedness appearing on the map? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mdlyg/eli5_with_snapchats_new_function_our_story_how_do/ | {
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"I am guessing that all the snaps that are going on the map for the general public get viewed by a Snapchat mod because I looked for boobs for hours and came up empty."
]
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||
ew6mie | agnatic primogeniture | Basically the title. I think I know what absolute primogeniture is but can someone explain the above term properly. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ew6mie/eli5_agnatic_primogeniture/ | {
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"**Primogeniture** is a law by which inheritance (usually of some noble title) is guaranteed to the firstborn, 'legitimate' child of the current holder of that inheritance. A \"legitimate\" child is just one that is born from marriage.\n\nSo, a King's firstborn son would be the primary heir of his Kingdom as an inheritance under primogeniture.\n\n**Absolute Primogeniture** just means that gender is *not* taken into account. Under this law, if the firstborn child is a woman they are given precedence over any later-born sons.\n\n**Agnatic** is a term that refers to tracing familial relationships through a *male* line. An **agnate** is a member of a family who shares a line with his/her fathers (i.e. the son, father, grandfather, etc. are each ***agnates*** of the same family line.)\n\nIn **Agnatic Primogeniture**, sons of male rulers are granted precedence over brothers of male rulers. This is because the *agnatic* line of inheritance is traced through the closest male ancestor (in almost every case, son- > father). In the case of no sons, the closest-born brother is the nearest agnatic relation and therefore has precedence in succession.\n\nFemales were traditionally excluded from agnatic primogenture.",
"I think this is almost easier to describe as pseudocode.\n\n* Choose the deceased person needing a successor as P.\n* Until you find an heir:\n * Is P alive? He's the heir.\n * Does P have sons we haven't looked at? Set P as the oldest son we haven't looked at.\n * If there are no new sons to look at, set P to be the father of our current P. \n\nThere's a lot of consequences of this method:\n\n* Older sons inherit before younger sons of the same father.\n* Sons of older sons inherit before their uncles and cousins. \n* If the deceased had no surviving sons, brothers or descendants of same, we look at progressively more distantly related uncles and the descendants of those uncles until we find someone who's living and can inherit.\n* Women cannot inherit and men cannot inherit through their matrilineal descent - sons of the deceased's daughters do not count."
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683di6 | why does " & " mean "and"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/683di6/eli5_why_does_mean_and/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n > The ampersand can be traced back to the 1st century A.D. and the Old Roman cursive, in which the letters E and T occasionally were written together to form a ligature.",
"It comes from the Latin word for \"and\", which is \"et\". If you combine the \"E\" and the \"t\" you get something that sort of looks like a modern ampersand. After years of use and changing cursive styles, we ended up with the modern ampersand. You can see how the form changed over the years in this picture: _URL_0_\n\nThe origin of the word \"ampersand\" is interesting too. The character used to be included at the end of the English alphabet, so it would be recited by schoolchildren. And people also used to say \"*per se* _____\" when referring to a letter that could also be a word. For example, you might say \"*per se* i\" so as to not confuse people that you're referring to yourself or that you mean \"eye.\" As a result, schoolchildren would say \"and *per se* and\" when they got to the end of the alphabet, which often got slurred to \"ampersand\" the same way children now often think it's \"Olive the other reindeer\" (instead of \"all of\") or they pledge allegiance to the flag and \"The Republic Forwhichistan\" (instead of \"for which it stands\").",
"Just to add to another dimension, in writing there are nuanced differences between \" & \" and \"and\" particularly in the area of attribution to works. The ampersand is generally applied with persons work in tandem with one another, where as the word \"and\" is used when different people worked on a project, but not as a collaborative effort. So, say Bob and Jim are writing a script for a movie, and then Chris comes along and does a rewrite, and Steve cleans it all up before final approval. The script writers would be listed as: Bob & Jim and Chris and Steve. ",
"In the time of medieval Latin, paper was super expensive, so to save space, there were many symbols which were used to shorten writing. Some for common endings or prefixes (like con-/com- or -ibus, which were actually the same symbol for some reason), some for whole words. Et was written in a single symbol, the Tironian et. This symbol was the ancestor of the modern ampersand.\n\nInterestingly enough, this is also the origin of the ˜ in both Spanish and Portuguese. The only difference is where exactly they put the mark (before vs on vs after the affected sound). Now in Spanish, it indicates palatalization of the consonant*, and in Portuguese, nasalization of the vowel.\n\n*Palatalization is sort of like adding a y before the vowel. It's very common in Russian, where any consonant can be palatized depending on the vowel after it. For a good example of palatalization, think either the Russian word for 'no': 'нет' /n^(j)et/ or any Spanish word with the ñ, I'm sure you can think of examples."
]
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2kn1zi | why do sweet foods spoil our appetite, but not sweet drinks like soda/juice. | . | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kn1zi/eli5_why_do_sweet_foods_spoil_our_appetite_but/ | {
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"They don't. That is just a saying parents use to limit the amount of candy consumption of their children. ",
"If you view appetite in terms of hunger, then solid food of any kind will spoil your appetite more than drinks - liquids typically go through the stomach faster.\n\nThe stomach can tell when it is distended, which is why you feel full after a meal, or even if you chug a bunch of water. When the distension resolves, the sensation of fullness goes away.\n\nAt the bottom of your stomach is a circular muscle which controls passage of stomach contents into your intestines. Things that are large and bulky cannot fit through this muscle; hence solids spend more time in the stomach than liquids, while the physical movements of the stomach break them up. Because of the physical volume in the stomach, this contributes to a sense of fullness/loss of appetite.\n\nAdditionally, food with lots of calories will spoil your appetite more than similar amounts of food with fewer calories. A study was done (I think in rats, but I can't remember) where they injected the same amount of milk and water directly into the stomach of the animals - the animals getting water were hungry before the animals getting milk, which suggests that the stomach may also be able to sense fat or sugar content and change the sense of hunger the person feels.\n\nTL:DR - solids spend more time in the stomach, and the stomach can sense high calorie foods.\n\nSource: resident doctor."
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1wimho | how can a program stay closed-source if a copy exists on the users computer? | Wouldn't it be trivial to access all the programs files and code? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wimho/eli5_how_can_a_program_stay_closedsource_if_a/ | {
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"Code can be obfuscated. \nIf(youCanReadThis) turns into A3@#diyw£?+6ghy\n\n(not exactly that, but it gets the point across) ",
"The source code is like the recipe, and the compiled program that runs on your machine is like the soup. \n\nIf you don't have the source, it's very difficult to find out how exactly the compiled program works. You would have to use tricks like disassembling it, which is not trivial-- it's like trying to figure out a soup's recipe by analyzing it in a high-tech chemistry lab.",
"first, a distinction: closed source and open source are legal fictions. They are a matter of license, not of computer code. Typically, open source licenses allow you to use, modify, and copy a program, while closed source allow you to use it within certain limits.\n\nNow for the hard part. A computer only understands object code, which is a sequence of numbers that, when interpreted by the computer, result in the expected behavior of the program. It is extremely hard for humans to modify a program in this state. Since a program can be made to protect itself (for instance by looking for a license file), and since it's hard to modify (or even read and understand) object code, this is used by software companies to prevent unauthorized use of their product.\n\nOpen source programs are distributed in source code, which is typically written in a high level computer language, something that humans can understand and manipulate. Source code, however, cannot be directly understood by a computer; it must first be translated into machine language, object code.\n\nSo typically open source allows you access to the source code, which makes easy to modify, distribute, copy the program, while closed source distributes only object code, which makes it very hard to do those things.\n\nRegardless of these technical differences, however, if a program's license says that you cannot modify, copy, redistribute it, then you legally are not allowed to do those things. Even if you gain access to their source code, it would still be illegal to do those things. Illegal, but easy, which is why many software companies close access to their source."
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3s5ysh | what is going on with the interest hike in the united states and what will happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3s5ysh/eli5_what_is_going_on_with_the_interest_hike_in/ | {
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"The U.S. Federal Reserve's job is to protect the American economy. This means they use a number of different tools to either cool off, or heat up activity so that inflation, or even worse, deflation happen.\n\nInterest rates basically tell you how expensive it is to borrow money. For nearly a decade now, the U.S. rate has been at near historic lows. Nearly free money. This means its VERY cheap for people to borrow money. Ideally this means businesses will take advantage of this to retool factories to make them more efficient and cheaper to run. Or it will allow people to buy homes (which creates a ton of spin-off spending, like new furniture or decorations/renovations).\n\nBut the risk to this is inflation. If more money is going through the economy, it means prices tend to rise (usually, we're in a very weird space economically). So, a rate hike is bound to happen sooner than later.\n\nLast week, the Fed Chair, Janey Yellen, says rates will rise soon. But it will be gradual since the U.S. economy still shows signs of weakness. The Fed will probably raise them by 025% a few times over the next year, or possibly longer. \n\nWhat will happen is this: any loan with a variable rate (most commonly mortgages) will start to be more expensive.\n\nFixed rate loans will be fine, until it's time to renegotiate. Some have a rate locked in for five-years. So, depending on when that expires, they could see more expensive rates as well.\n\nBasically, this is good for the economy on a number of levels. It shows there is a recovery, it shows that inflation in healthy, and it means the Fed can stop doing other things to keep rates low (that's called quantitative easing, and is a whole other more complex issue)."
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b9z48z | why do the flames off a shuttle launch or other forceful eruptions take the shapes they do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b9z48z/eli5_why_do_the_flames_off_a_shuttle_launch_or/ | {
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"That's called a shock diamonds, sometimes also known as a mach disk. They form when supersonic gas flow from a rocket or jet engine is below the pressure of the air around it. The pressure of the exhaust is determined by the shape of the nozzle. The shape of the nozzle of Space Shuttle main engines was such that at sea level, the exhaust was pressure was below the air pressure. When this happens, the surrounding air pushes in on the exhaust column from all sides, compressing it. It quickly reaches a point where the exhaust pushes back and expands again into a new expansion fan, and then it’s forced back together the same distance further along from the rocket at the next shock diamond, and so on and so on. Eventually atmospheric distortion and friction takes over, equalizing the pressure of the exhaust plume with the ambient atmosphere. Each visible shock diamond is the point where the outside air has forced the exhaust back in on itself.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;"
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bsehq9 | astronomers say there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on earth. how do they know how many grains of sand there are in the whole world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bsehq9/eli5_astronomers_say_there_are_more_stars_in_the/ | {
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"We can estimate both the volume and mass of the Earth. Take a bucket of sand, weigh it, measure its volume, then count the number of grains of sand in it. You now have an estimate of the number of grains per kg or per litre of sand. You can use that to estimate the maximum number of grains. We could assume the whole world were nothing but sand, take the mass of the Earth and multiple it by the number of grains of sand in a kilogram, and you’d have the maximum possible number of grains. Obviously the whole Earth isn’t made of sand, so we could be a little more careful.\nWe could assume the top km of the Earths crust was made of sand, and multiple that volume by the number of grains of sand in a litre. This would be closer.\nKeep repeating this process and you’d get a ballpark figure of the number of grains of sand on Earth. Not an exact number, but a reasonable maximum.",
"Follow up question. If there are seven quintillion stars, why is the night sky black and not white?",
"How do they know how many stars there are in the universe? It is an ever-changing number. As we see more distant galaxies we have to increase our estimation of stars.\n\nAccording to astronomers, there are probably more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable Universe, stretching out into a region of space 13.8 billion light-years away from us in all directions.\n\nAnd so, if you multiply the number of stars in our galaxy by the number of galaxies in the Universe, you get approximately 10\\^24 stars. This is a minimum value based on the observable universe.\n\nThe Universe could be much bigger. It’s even possible that the Universe is infinite. What defies belief though is that the game of chess still has more moves - 10\\^120, as shown by the [\"Shannon Number\"](_URL_0_)"
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4x6ick | perception of time in comas. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4x6ick/eli5_perception_of_time_in_comas/ | {
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"So what's your question? "
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3rkxkz | how do flying bugs land upside down on my ceiling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rkxkz/eli5_how_do_flying_bugs_land_upside_down_on_my/ | {
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"When they're flying close to the ceiling they \"grab\" the ceiling with their front legs, and momentum carries their body forward and now its upside down. They secrete a sticky substance on their legs so they actually stick to the ceiling, not gripping it. \n",
"I believe that David Suzuki did a research question on this. They do flip over when their front legs hook into the ceiling. I am pretty sure he got a research grant to study this for something like $100,000 to figure this out."
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8kxftm | how exactly does withdrawing a confession work? does it scrub it from the record? is it admissible in court? how are jurors given this information, so that it doesn't effect the fairness of the trial? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kxftm/eli5_how_exactly_does_withdrawing_a_confession/ | {
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"In what sense?\n\nGenerally speaking, in the US, you cannot \"withdraw\" a confession. Once you say something on the record you're stuck with it unless your lawyer can argue that it violates some rule that makes it unfit evidence for court.",
"The defense has to win a \"motion to supress\" during a preliminary hearing. If the judge agrees with the motion, the confession is never talked about to the jury. If the motion is denied, it can be used as evidence. Merely saying \"I no longer confess to this\" is not going to do anything. \nAs for \"how does it make into the public?\" Either the police or prosecutor released it after the trial.",
"There is nothing special about a confession, it is just another piece of evidence that can be used to prove your guilt. It is usually a really good piece of evidence, but prosecutors typically have to have more than just a confession to get a conviction. Also, people who confess are more likely to plead guilty and not have a trial, but those are two different things.\n\nThe fact that you confessed can be presented as evidence against you. However, like all pieces of evidence, there are circumstances where a judge might rule it is inadmissible. For example, a confession made involuntarily under coercion would not be admissible.\n\n"
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ch8u4y | if universe is infinite, it is possible to have a star or a planet as big as our galaxy for example ? | First of all, sorry for my english if I have some spelling mistakes.
So the title resume my question well, If the universe is infinite and we currently saw only a very small piece of it because of our situation in it and the lack of technology. It is possible that somewhere, very far from here, there is a planet that is big as our galaxy (Milky Way) ?
& #x200B;
And this mega-huge planet will be in another galaxy that is just too big that we couldn't even see it.
It is possible ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ch8u4y/eli5_if_universe_is_infinite_it_is_possible_to/ | {
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"Though in an infinite space even things with really low probability do happen, impossible things can not. Per definition. At a certain mass things get so much gravitational force they collapse eventually and form black holes. Im by no means an (Astro)physicist, but imho that cannot happen.",
"Stars can get pretty massive and there are some bigger than our solar system but there are limits to the size. If a star gets too big it collapses due to the shear amount of gravity. Depending on the type of star will depend on what it collapses into: white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole.\n\nPlanets can't get too big because once they hit a certain mass then they would have just formed as stars.",
"No. Let's step through it:\n\n1. A planet with the same diameter of our galaxy would have a volume of [500 trillion light years cubed](_URL_3_)\n2. With an average density of our planet at 5.515 g/cm³ we get a mass for this planet of about [2.445 x 10^(66) kg](_URL_1_), or 2.445 billion billion billion billion billion billion billion metric tons. For comparison, that would be the equivalent of 10 trillion times the [estimated mass of the observable universe](_URL_0_).\n3. The Schwarzschild radius, which defines if an object becomes a black hole, for this planet would be [4 x 10^(23) lightyears](_URL_2_)+*+(average+density+of+earth))%2F((speed+of+light+in+vacuum)%5E2)), which\n 1. is a smidge more than the planets radius, so it would collapse to a black hole\n 2. is in the ballpark of 100 trillion times the [diameter of the observable universe](_URL_4_)\n\nAnd we're not even talking about surface gravity or funny effects in the core due to the high pressure.\n\nSo no, unless the laws of physics aren't the same throughout the universe, such a planet would be impossible.",
"Eli5:\n\nTo remain stars, objects need to retain specific density. So while you could stretch a star to be that large, it would become less dense and stop being a star.\n\nIf you retained the density, you would add incredible amounts of mass to it, and it would gain mass much faster than it would grow in diameter.\n\nThere is a tipping point in the mass-to-diameter ratio when an object collapses and turns into a black hole. It's called the Schwarzschild radius.\n\nSo at some point while enlarging a star, it would stop being a star and disappear in speckles of stardust, or it would stop being a star and become a black hole."
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7rjoo8 | what causes the feeling of tightness/pain when you hold your breath for a few seconds? | Like, what's happening inside you in those few seconds without air that causes such an unpleasant feeling? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rjoo8/eli5_what_causes_the_feeling_of_tightnesspain/ | {
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"When you restrict oxygen, you cells have to do anaerobic respiration (an aerobic = without air). A byproduct of this is lactic acid, which stimulates pain nerve endings in the tissue. I believe mainly your heart is the most upset about a temporarily oxygen shortage. ",
"Your lung tissue has the ability to sense the proportion of CO2 in the lungs. When it gets above a certain level, a signal goes to your brain telling you to breathe.\n\nThis is why you can suffocate in rooms without Oxygen. For instance, a room filled with pure N2 (atmospheric nitrogen), will not trigger the pain reflex. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
6sddsn | how the moon missions could be powered by computers less powerful than a calculator and before the age of the internet | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sddsn/eli5_how_the_moon_missions_could_be_powered_by/ | {
"a_id": [
"dlbttdp",
"dlbtxl7"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"The Moon and Earth both move very predictably. Doing the calculations a week in advance, or a month, or a year is fine because things aren't going to change. The Moon isn't just going to wander off.\n\nBeyond that it is just measuring the appropriate amount of thrust, fuel, weight, etc. to get things to the right orbits at the right time. Fine steering was left to manual control which was why the crew was so highly trained.",
"They weren't \"general purpose\" computers like we have today, they were optimised for very specific calculations of orbits and the motor burns required. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
ef79ww | why does only my left nostril bleed when my nose starts bleeding? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ef79ww/eli5_why_does_only_my_left_nostril_bleed_when_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"fbyp9kq"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"A) Don't get medical advice on the Internet.\n\nB) See (A), it's important.\n\nI had a blood vessel in my right nostril that had a 90˚ corner in it. When it got dry, the corner cracked. My Dr explained this was just a malformation, nothing important. Then I woke up one morning and my bed looked like a murder scene. I explained to the doctor this was not OK, and they burned the vessel. It regrew in a different shape, sorta like a T in Tetris. This doesn't seem to leak. Your mileage will vary."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3e91aa | how are street signs kept track of | Like if someone were to just steal a speed limit sign or deer crossing sign, whose in charge of noticing and replacing the sign?
or do they just rely on good samaritans reporting it | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e91aa/eli5_how_are_street_signs_kept_track_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctcn9e6",
"ctcrb8l"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"No one in charge of noticing it. Good samaritan might report it, or officer driving by might notice. ",
"Yeah, they just rely on people reporting it. In fact, most towns don't even know how many of those signs they have; infrastructure (at least in the United States) is kinda installed and forgotten about most of the time. There isn't a single person in the United States who could tell you how many speed limit signs there are with any certainty."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
74tl15 | why are tuning forks...fork shaped? | There are lots of objects you can hit and produce a tone with. And many of those objects can have their size/shape changed to produce a different sound. Why is a two pronged forked the preferred shape? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74tl15/eli5_why_are_tuning_forksfork_shaped/ | {
"a_id": [
"do10s2z",
"do10toc"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"*\"The reason is in the acoustic properties of the shape - a U-shaped fork produces a much purer tone than other shaped resonators.*\n\n*Secondarily, when struck, the fundamental frequency of vibration has the two sides of the fork move alternately towards and away from each other.*\n\n*This motion cancels out in the lateral direction at the fork which means holding onto the handle doesn't cause its energy to be transmitted to your hand (which would quickly dampen the vibrations).\"* - [Yuan Gao, Engineer](_URL_0_)",
"I'm not sure I can ELI5, but the TL;DR is:\n\n\"The main reason for using the fork shape is that, unlike many other types of resonators, it produces a very pure tone, with most of the vibrational energy at the fundamental frequency. \"\nCredit to the [Wikipedia Article] (_URL_0_) on tuning forks. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.quora.com/Why-is-a-tuning-fork-U-shaped"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuning_fork"
]
] |
|
dzkcpo | voyager 1 is nearly 12 billion miles from earth and is still able to communicate and transmit data to earth. so how it's possible to lose cell connection by simply standing in the wrong part of a house it staggering. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dzkcpo/eli5_voyager_1_is_nearly_12_billion_miles_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"f883spm"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"There are antennas that are 70 meters in diameter listening for Voyager. There’s also not a bunch of buildings to block the signal. And there’s not 5000 other voyager probes competing for the same chunk of signal space."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
dyzufw | how do waterless urinals work? and if they work, why aren’t all new urinals waterless? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dyzufw/eli5_how_do_waterless_urinals_work_and_if_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"f84dro3"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"Great minds think alike. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: why aren't all urinals the \"waterless\" kind? ](_URL_3_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: is there anything special about a waterless urinal? isn't it just basically a urinal without the flush mechanism and scented cake? why not make all urinals waterless? ](_URL_4_) ^(_4 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: How do waterless urinals work? ](_URL_8_) ^(_4 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: how a waterless urinal works. ](_URL_0_) ^(_1 comment_)\n1. [ELI5: How does a waterless urinal work? ](_URL_5_) ^(_7 comments_)\n1. [How do non flushing or no water urinals work? ](_URL_6_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Waterless urinal ](_URL_1_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do some urinals have standing water? ](_URL_7_) ^(_2 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: What technology is behind a \"waterfree\" urinal as opposed to a bowl with a hole in it? ](_URL_2_) ^(_2 comments_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bh3h3/eli5_how_a_waterless_urinal_works/",
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16lerb/eli5_waterless_urinal/",
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g0wid/eli5_what_technology_is_behind_a_waterfree_urinal/",
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4z6tji/eli5_why_arent_all_urinals_the_waterless_kind/",
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56wpiq/eli5_is_there_anything_special_about_a_waterless/",
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29djmu/eli5_how_does_a_waterless_urinal_work/",
"http://reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/cwevqs/how_do_non_flushing_or_no_water_urinals_work/",
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7nwxx8/eli5_why_do_some_urinals_have_standing_water/",
"http://reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19b5d9/eli5_how_do_waterless_urinals_work/"
]
] |
||
1s0ftx | how do gauges work? | Like in a car...I've always wondered how they are calibrated to move the right amount of distance so that it's accurate to the display labels. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s0ftx/how_do_gauges_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdsxo93"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"For 40+ years, they are electric/electronic.\n\nThey have a sensor which varies its resistance based on the property presented to it.\n\nThey are engineered to provide a reasonably linear and accurate electric response to that physical variable. The gauge is has its scale printed to match the specs of the sensor. \n\nThe gauge is a magnetic coil and magnet (the same as on a needle type mulitmeter), or a one or pair of heating elements on bi-metal movement. The bi-metals fight each other to determine final position.\n\nBefore the 1970s, Oil and Water were measured with Bourdon tube gauges. \nWith those, a precisely engineered brass tube, curled in a way pressure uncurls the tube a bit, that uncurling coupled to the needle mechanism. Oil pressure is read from the oil system. Water temperature is a closed system, with a gas that boils at a temperature in the bulb that goes into the coolant. That gas pressurises based on temperature, and pushes its bourdon tube."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
4cn21u | how do long range forces (gravity, electric fields, magnetic fields) permeate through space? | My understanding is that it has something to do with gravitons and photons but that's about where it ends. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cn21u/eli5_how_do_long_range_forces_gravity_electric/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1jo3nc"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Without getting into quantum mechanics, you can just think of them as classical fields. A field in physics is just something that has a value (or multiple values) at every point in space and time. \n\nElectric and magnetic fields are vector fields, meaning that there are three components of each field at every point in space and time. \n\nThese fields exist everywhere, so if you put a charged particle at some point in space at some instant in time, it feels and responds to the local electric and magnetic fields."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2cwbst | why are subtle differences in frequency response such a big deal in headphones while human ear can only hear 16-20.000hz anyway? | It seems like a pretty important spec in the headphones world and it's often praised when a given model has a wide range there but is it really audible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cwbst/eli5_why_are_subtle_differences_in_frequency/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjjnht7"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Wait a second, back up.\n\nResponse is the dB level compared to frequency, commonly printed on a chart. Vertical axis is dB (volume level measured in decibels), horizontal axis is frequency, typically, 20-20,000hz.\n\nRange is separate, that's the highest and lowest frequency a speaker can play. 20-20,000 is common, like you said, there is really no reason for anything greater than that. In reality most adults can't hear much past 15,000hz, 15-20khz is typically lost by 30. Differences here (like a lower bound of 14 or 16 instead of 20, or an upper bound of 40,000 instead of 20,000) honestly make next to no difference, it's just marketing, or showing off in some cases.\n\nThat said, frequency response is important because it's a measure of the accuracy of a speaker. Ideally, from 20-20,000, it plays every single frequency at exactly the same volume. In reality, this is almost impossible, and even top-of-the line systems struggle to do it. Subtle differences here create DRASTICALLY different sounds. + or -2dB can be the difference between clear highs and tinny highs. The difference between booming bass and proper bass, etc.\n\nOn a side note, most of us think a scientifically flat response sounds like garbage, and prefer something that produces a response that is flat to our ears, taking into account the frequency response of our own ears and the transfer function of the space where the sound is played."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
61vfxo | what would be required if i were to attempt to start up an internet providing company in say a small town? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61vfxo/eli5what_would_be_required_if_i_were_to_attempt/ | {
"a_id": [
"dfhlbxb",
"dfhlmj4"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Permits and fiber optic cables or co-axel cables. You'll want to have a truck with a bucket lift to install cables across power lines or be ready to dig to lay it a couple feet underground.",
"You would also need a large enough network so the rest of the Internet would engage in a peering agreement with you. Otherwise you'd have to pay an arm and a leg for access.\n\nYou need a lot of capital, a lot if tech and the skilled people to make it happen."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
4rh7ua | why do usb sticks or sd cards fail so easily while built-in flash storage like in smartphones etc. seems to be indestructible? | It's basically the same technology, right? So why is my drawer full of dead cards and thumbdrives? I'm not talking about physical abuse, just regular use. Some of them haven't even seen more than one device. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rh7ua/eli5why_do_usb_sticks_or_sd_cards_fail_so_easily/ | {
"a_id": [
"d513c3b",
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"d5190z0"
],
"score": [
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2
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"text": [
"I would say it is because your phone uses quality (probably Samsung) flash memory and you have lower quality flash drives. Personally I have a box of 20+ flash drives all working and I have never had one fail on me. ",
"It's normally not the flash that fails in removable media, it's the connector. If you took those flash chips off of the media and put them onto a different one, all of your data is still present and easily accessible. \n\nFor your phone, the chips are going to be on a well connected board where the interface isn't going to break easily. ",
"flash drives and sd cards see a lot of wear and tear from being handled and plugged / unplugged so much. They are also generally made to be pretty cheap so it isnt the highest quality stuff. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
64gt1o | why is phi ( φ ) so important to math and the general world? the same goes for the golden ratio and the fibonaci code | i'd always been bad at math, i prefer subjects like history, literature, cinema, etc. i can barely do simple ecuations to find the x and things like that | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64gt1o/eli5_why_is_phi_φ_so_important_to_math_and_the/ | {
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"text": [
"Interesting question!\n\nUnlike pi, e, and i, φ is not as important in mathematics. φ is a symbol with different meanings/values, so I guess it depends on which one you're thinking of. Since you brought up the golden ratio and Fibonacci, I'm assuming you're thinking of φ as 1.61803398874989.., in which case it really is not all that important, it's just really cool.\n\nThe golden ratio is a relationship that pops up when dealing with the most basic/simple additive series. Start with 0, then the next number is 1. Add the number before 1 to 1. That's 0+1, which is 1. Now add 1 to 1, that's 2. Add 2+1, that's 3. 3+2 = 5, 5+3 = 8, 8+5 = 13, 13+8 = 21, 21+13 = 34, et cetera. That's the Fibonacci series. Any series that follows that rule will eventually lead to the golden ratio (look up Lucas numbers). \n[Fibonacci numbers](_URL_4_)\n\nAll 3 of the concepts you mentioned are deeply ingrained in geometry. Pentagons are literally just a shape of golden ratios.\n[Construction of a golden rectangle](_URL_5_)\n\n[Golden rectangle turning into a golden triangle, which turns into a perfect pentagon](_URL_1_)\n\nφ (1.6180339887) is also cool because if you take 1.6180339887 x 1.6180339887, you get 2.6180339887. If you take 1 divided by 1.6180339887, you get 0.6180339887. So φ squared is φ+1, and the inverse of φ is φ-1. Kinda nifty.\n\n[Here are the 5 Platonic solids](_URL_3_)\n\nI have found that the golden ratio is related to 4 of the 5 Platonic solids. I still haven't found it in the cube, but I could be wrong.\n[Golden ratio in dodecahedron and icosahedron](_URL_0_)\n\n[Golden ratio in unfolded tetrahedron](_URL_2_)\n\nAlso, Fibonacci numbers pop up in nature often. The number of petals on a flower is often a Fibonacci number. For example, a sunflower or daisy often have 21, 34, or 55 petals. Vinca, larkspur, and columbine have 5 petals. Coreopsis, bloodroot, cosmos, and delphinium have 8 petals. Marigold and ragwort have 13 petals. Chicory and aster have 21 petals. Plantain and pyrethrum have 34 petals. You will also usually see spirals on the bottom of pine cones (left hand spirals and right hand spirals) - the number of spirals is USUALLY a Fibonacci number.",
"since you refer to the Greek letter φ (phi) and \"the golden ratio\" separately, I just want to explicitly state that the \"importance\" of φ is that it's the symbol chosen to represent the golden ratio, which is the solution to x^2 - x - 1 = 0 (it's also used in some other things just as a variable, the same way x is. For example, [longitudes and latitudes are often represented as φ and λ, respectively](_URL_0_))\n\nPersonally, I think the \"importance\" of the golden ratio is overstated. It's a neat little constant that shows up in a few places, but some people seem to ascribe a supernatural significance to it. /u/1point6180339887 goes over the connection to the Fibonacci sequence and some interesting geometric facts (without getting into the \"woo\" side of things).\n\nEDIT: Whoops, got the polynomial wrong. Math is hard.",
"Phi is the golden ratio. And golden ratio is limit of the ratio between a number in fibonachi series and number preceeding it, when approaching infinite members.\n\nIt's not that important in math and general world. But it's a popular number and you can find some fun examples."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fMXHGIVpRgU/TVRrJrH81dI/AAAAAAAAAF8/AWCEha7OUts/s1600/Golden_Ratio_Duals.png",
"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P1gDjuZShWk/TVmAgFhIiwI/AAAAAAAAAIc/D1AYFyXRsic/s1600/Pentagon_Golden_Ratio.png",
"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RLNn8gw2EFM/TnKhgnNCZnI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/H0VS9rbxatk/s1600/Equ_Triangle_GR.png",
"https://www.technologyuk.net/mathematics/geometry/images/geometry_0185.gif",
"http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XM-St7MMijs/TVSJDQZhaDI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Wym_VTbv0DQ/s1600/Fibonacci_Spirals.png",
"https://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/e34651c1-5ded-4b8c-b164-e218856e2608/76a5541f731dd8950596a254a260be33.png"
],
[
"https://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Slatlong.htm"
],
[]
] |
|
6vo3ig | how do news outlets get a hold of the transfer fees and salary numbers of the (undisclosed) football deals? | For example, how did they find the Neymar deal's stats? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vo3ig/eli5_how_do_news_outlets_get_a_hold_of_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"dm1vnv4"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It is usually sources close to a team or within an organization that tips off a reporter, who then writes up the story which is used by the news outlets. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2142aw | the different types of makeup | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2142aw/eli5_the_different_types_of_makeup/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg9f00e"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"[Here's a nice list](_URL_0_). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmetics#Makeup_types"
]
] |
||
5g1jxu | how does vanta-black not get very hot when it reflects so little radiation? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g1jxu/eli5_how_does_vantablack_not_get_very_hot_when_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"daormys",
"daovcvf"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text": [
"Spontaneous emission of radiation, or as is unusually apt in this case, \"black-body radiation.\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"Vanta-Black is achieved by carbon nano tubes. Carbon nano tubes have one the highest known thermal conductivity of known substances. 6000 W/(m\\*K). In comparison, Copper used for Radiators only has ~300 W/(m\\*K). This means that Vanta-Black will disperse heat 20 times faster than copper and will heat the air around it much faster. So it actually gets very hot but it disperses the heat so fast that you won't notice it getting hotter. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation"
],
[]
] |
|
32is7u | why does hair tangle over time but never untangles over time? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32is7u/eli5_why_does_hair_tangle_over_time_but_never/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqblmfi",
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"score": [
8,
2,
7
],
"text": [
"It does untangle over time. However,the rate of tangling is higher. It's entropy at its best.",
"Entropy. The second law or thermodynamics states that all things in a closed system tend to disorder.",
"Ultimately, the issue is that there are more ways for your hair to be \"tangled\" than to be not tangled. \n\nImagine, instead of hair, you had a bunch of letters on your head. The letters, though attached, are pretty free to move around as you go about your day, get blown by the wind, etc . . . Sort of like some creepy, Skull-Boggle.\n\nIn the morning, the letters start in alphabetical order. But would you be surprised if, at the end of the day, they were mixed up? Sure, they might be mixed up differently each day, but there'd be a much higher chance that they'd be mixed up at the end of the day, then in the right order. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
11hnlu | el5 the difference between a highschool diploma and a ged? | To clarify , I live in AZ. I get varying answers ranging from their the same, to employers would hire someone with a diploma rather than a GED. I know they are equivilant academicaly but in the real world? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11hnlu/el5_the_difference_between_a_highschool_diploma/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6ml10m",
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"text": [
"A GED looks a lot worse but it's better than nothing. \n\nThe real world answer is that nobody checks high school transcripts. If you have a GED, just say you have a diploma. I'm talking private employers here, not colleges or government/military type work.\n\nIf you're a person deciding whether to get a GED or a diploma, stay in school. They are in no way equivalent and even though you can get into a community or state college, you will not be prepared.\n",
"GED = Good enough degree",
"If you go on to a college and get a 2 year or 4 year degree, no one will give a shit about GED vs HS degree. All they will look at is your collge experience. Colleges may look at the the GED as not as good as the HS degree when accepting you, but, if you kill your SATs or ACTs, they will over look that.\n\nAlso, if this is about graduating early, say you want to graduate at 16 and go to college, I wouldn't worry about it either. If you have the grades in HS + the SAT scores, go ahead and apply. Some colleges don't even require a HS / GED degree to go there. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
8hu1ge | what is the meaning of true positve ,true negative ,false positive and false negative? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8hu1ge/eli5what_is_the_meaning_of_true_positve_true/ | {
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"text": [
"Like, in a scientific perspective? It just refers to the validity of the result compared to the test’s result. \n\nSo if I were to get a scan for pneumonia, there’s a certain % chance that even though I *don’t* have it, I could still *test* positive for it. The test isn’t foolproof, which is why it’s not always run. \n\nSo a false positive means that the test shows I’m infected with x, even though I’m not. \n\nA false negative means I *am* infected with x, even though the test says I’m not. ",
"AFAIK, First value: observed, Second: expected\nPS: thanks /u/schnutzel \n\n1. True positive: Expected to be true, and was true.\n2. True negative: Expected to be false, but was false.\n3. False positive: Expected to be true, but was false.\n4. False negative: Expected to be false, and was true.\n\nFor example, the term 'false positive' is used by antivirus companies. False positive is when antivirus thinks that file is a virus, but in reality, it's not a virus (so it was true (expected by the antivirus), but was false (observed by humans)). In this context, I answered the question.",
"Imagine you are subjected to a lie detector test. You are innocent of the crime. When the examiner asks whether you committed the crime, you say “No.” But the needle jumps anyway. The examiner says, “AHA! You’re lying!” Even thought you are actually telling the truth. This is a false positive.\n\nThen they bring in the real criminal. They hook him up and ask if he committed the crime. He says, “No.” The needle doesn’t move. The examiner says, “You’re honest. That’s all we need. Have a nice day.” This was a false negative. The instrument failed to detect the lie, even though it should have.\n\nI use polygraphy as an example because it is really, really unreliable.",
"Anti-spam companies sell products which separate good email from spam. The programs (or services) look at an incoming email and asks itself, \"Is this spam?\" and then sorts the email into your inbox or the spam folder.\n\nTrue Positive: Program correctly identifies email as spam and puts it in the spam folder.\n\nTrue Negative: Program correctly identifies email as not spam and puts it in your inbox.\n\nFalse Positive: Program incorrectly identifies good email as spam and puts it in your spam folder\n\nFalse Negative: Program incorrectly identifies spam as good email and puts it in your inbox.\n\nWhy is this breakdown useful? Well, let's say you don't have any spam filtering and are getting tired of all the spam in your inbox so you look for an anti-spam solution. Company A says \"Only 1% of spam makes it past our filters!\" That's good, you think, and you start using it. And while it's true that only 1% of spam makes it past the filters (1% false negative rate), it is putting 25% of the good emails into the spam folder (25% false positive rate). That's not acceptable.\n\nCompany B claims that it almost never puts a wanted email into your spam folder. \"That's more like it!\" you think. So you switch to Company B's product and their claims are true - there are very few false positives. But you find that it has a 95% false negative rate - it almost never catches any spam and so practically worthless.\n\nSo now you're starting to see that you need to know the rates of true/false positives/negatives in order to know how well a product actually works. (And you need to know what your tolerance for false positives and false negatives are. For some people, missing a single email from a client could mean the loss of a contract, so they have little tolerance for false positives.)\n\n\nThis same scenario is in play when talking about medical diagnostic tests. A test which has high false negative or false positive results isn't very useful."
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3kbs7p | how did they know what the number one song was back when you could only buy albums? | Up until digital downloads like itunes you could only buy albums, so how did radio stations and Billboard know what the number one song in the country was? I know that artists would release singles that you could buy but that couldn't have worked for every song. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kbs7p/eli5how_did_they_know_what_the_number_one_song/ | {
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"You answered it yourself, singles. The number one song was, and still is, almost always a single.",
"Radio stations submitted playlists that they compiled themselves. Record stores submitted sales data they compiled themselves. Billboard did the job of compiling their numbers based on the lists submitted by radio stations and record stores. Now Billboard can grab information on actual airplay data and know exactly how many times a certain song was played on a certain radio station and grab more accurate sales data from downloads from places that sell music.",
"The singles charts used to be compiled by a combination of radio playlists and sales of 45 singles. As u/MyFinalAnswer said, these were made up by radio station program directors and record stores, respectively. How accurately these lists were created and maintained back in the day isn't known, you'd like to think that they were honest representations of music's popularity but there are ways they could have been influenced from the outside. Anyway, they reported them to Billboard, who used a secret formula to combine the data into the chart rankings each week. Sales of albums never counted into this formula, only the actual singles did... which was why a song had to have been \"released as a single\" in order to be eligible for the chart. The albums chart has always been separate. \n\nNowadays the distinction of a song also being a single is irrelevant, any song can be purchased online or if there's a video it can be watched on youtube. Any of the data from online sales, streams or youtube that are now included in the chart formula can be calculated automatically; the physical sales of CDs or vinyl are totaled by the scanning of barcodes; and the radio station data by an automated 'impression count' that can tell if at least a minute or so of the song played, combined with how many listeners the station is thought to have, so big city stations like NYC or LA count more than Podunk KY would. The singles charts now include all songs available for that week, not just the singles like they used to. Which is why Taylor Swift gets like nine new chart hits every time one of her albums comes out, since a lot of her fans will acquire each song separately and account for enough sales to chart all of them for a week or two, or why Glee has like over 100 chart singles to its credit (same reason, short-term online sales high enough to place them on the charts even if it's just for a single week, and even if no radio station anywhere played them).\n\nI'm late to your post because I don't come by this sub much, anyway just wanted to comment. Thanks."
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azkkyi | why are mercury and lead toxic while gold isn't? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azkkyi/eli5_why_are_mercury_and_lead_toxic_while_gold/ | {
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"Metals like lead and mercury are toxic because of their ability to make bonds similar to other elements that the body uses, like calcium for example. Your body doesn't know the difference between elements except for what bonds it can make, so it will put these metals instead of the elements that are supposed to be there, and that ends up making things like proteins and enzymes that don't work correctly or don't work at all because the wrong element is there. Pure elemental gold on the other hand doesn't fit into anything the body makes in a similar fashion. Your body can't use it, so if yo ingest it, it just passes out the other end unchanged. It's worth noting that this applies to metallic gold, but gold ions or gold compounds can be toxic.",
"Gold is actually toxic, it's just that metallic gold is very chemically stable and won't react with most acids or chemicals in general. So if you ingest metallic gold, you poop metallic gold. That last bit is true for mercury too, but there aren't many other compounds containing gold around, and mercury can vaporize easily and is toxic when inhaled. \n\nBut if you ingest some chemicals containing gold in their composition, you can become poisoned by it, but this is very rare. So much that there is an [episode of House](_URL_0_) about this.\n\nWell, apart from House the only good source I could find was this: _URL_1_"
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al9bad | why is a lower heart rate indicative of better health? | Obviously I know it can mean bad things too but I know that athletes and fit people in general have lower heart rates. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/al9bad/eli5_why_is_a_lower_heart_rate_indicative_of/ | {
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"It means that your heart is stronger. It can pump blood at a lower rate and still move as much blood as a weaker heart could at a faster rate.",
"The heart is a muscle and like any muscle when it is trained it works more efficiently which is measured by a lower heart rate.",
"The more you use something, the faster it wears out. Lower heart rate means you have less beats per minute, so less movement over all (over years and years) makes your heart last longer. ",
"A high heart rate indicates that your heart is having trouble delivering enough oxygen to all body parts, and therefore has to pump more. This can be due to a variety of factors, such as constricted blood vessels or defective heart valves. \n\nAthletes tend to have a lower heart rate because they have more red blood cells. Those are the cells that transport oxygen from your lungs to the rest of the body. When you're working out, you need more oxygen, which the heart compensates by increasing your heart beat. This also causes the body to increase the number of red blood cells, which results in an overall lower heart beat.",
"Heart volume and heart rate.\n\nThe bigger your heart (training, exercise) in volume, the slower it has to beat. \n\nIf your bpm is too low, you need to go to a doctor.\nRemember, too much good is bad."
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dndfqf | why do doctors ask you to take deep breaths when they listen to your lungs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dndfqf/eli5_why_do_doctors_ask_you_to_take_deep_breaths/ | {
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"They need to hear your lungs inflate properly. There’s a lot of different sounds your lungs can make (pretty much all bad sounds), and you need to inhale deeply in order to hear them.",
"If there's problems in the lungs they can be picked up by detecting abnormal sounds during breathing. Taking deep breaths exaggerates the movement of air so enhances the sounds.",
"Your lungs are like balloons. Sometimes your lungs get gunk in them. You need to blow the balloons up quickly so you can hear the gunk move around.",
"To add on to other responses it allows your lungs to fully inflate to more of your max capacity. When you get junk in your lungs it generally settles in your lower lobes and when the doctor or nurse goes to listen the sounds will either be absent, diminished, or bad such as crackly or wet. This helps them know what is going on so they can figure out what will make you better.",
"I want to know why my doctors sometimes move so quickly through this. They don’t wait very long at all",
"There’s a bunch of different sounds your lungs make!\n\nWe’ve categorized them down to about 5 really important sounds were listening for when we listen.\n\nWe ask you to take a deep breath so your lungs fully expand and we know you’re putting in full effort. The sound of how they fill and empty tells us a lot!\n\nFor example, if when you exhale we hear a high pitched slow noise over a longer period than your muscles functioned, that’s called a wheeze! This indicates something is obstructing the flow of air out of your lungs. Think along the lines of a slightly pinched tip of a balloon that you’re allowing to deflate. It’ll make that exact squeak! We’re just hearing it bounce of some flesh and bone too. In general your lungs can mostly be related to inflating and deflating a ballon. \n\nLet’s say instead of that though I hear some fine crackling? Your lungs are actually balloons Inside a larger bag that doesn’t really expand or change shape (inside of you), this is the pleural cavity. Those fine crackles indicate there’s fluid inside the pleural cavity. Outside your lungs but inside the bag. This is bad because remember how I said that bigger bag doesn’t change size like your balloons? That means the fluid is going to prevent your lungs from expanding to breathe! Sometimes if there’s a lot you’ll even hear a wheeze when inspiring as the fluid is moving around. When we have a wheeze on the inspiration and expiration, that indicates this fluid instead. This is actually a heart problem!\n\nSome other sounds we listen for are coarse crackles. They’re much louder than the fine crackles and they sound more defined with minor pops. It basically sounds like some loose junk. This means there’s probably some mucus and phlegm that’s on the stickier side down in your lungs! A solid cough will usually clear this for most people. Sometimes the sounds are also being reflected from a place higher on the body. Something actually in your lungs is usually from pneumonia (PNA).\n\nOne of the other things we listen for is how clear these sounds are. There’s only a few millimeters of stuff between your lungs and the stethoscope, which amplified the sound. It’s pretty easy to hear in there. The quieter it is usually just indicates other issues. Maybe your pleural cavity is so filled with fluid the lungs are compressed. Or maybe there’s a ton of fat there because your morbidly obese. Or maybe we’ve gone past wheezes and just no air is moving. We need to make a judgement call to determine what applies and if you need any help. \n\nIn general, a healthy person who starts having a breathing problem will be plainly symptomatic and REALLY be feeling it. Like, a minor punctured lung will put most people on the floor quickly. \n\nHope all this helps!\n\nSource: used to be a regional terrorist...I mean respiratory therapist!",
"Medical professionals need to hear the lungs working to observe their function. You can’t draw any conclusions or observations from the lungs if they aren’t doing anything. Think about equipment maintenance. It’s very common to turn it on or attempt to use to see what’s not working correctly. They have you to take a deep breath to listen and observe the lungs’ function. They’re listening for things that don’t sound right with the hope of identifying any problems.",
"This is like asking 'when a podiatrist looks at how you walk, why can't they look at how you walk without you walking?'. They're listening to your lungs work! For God's sake.",
"As you go down your throat to the lungs, the windpipe splits up into lots of little pipes (bronchioles). In a healthy pair of lungs, the air runs smoothly through these pipes with little turbulence. Listening to them through a stethoscope will sound fairly quiet and with a single smooth tone.\n\nSometimes these pipes become narrow or obstructed, either through a bodily reaction (e.g. swelling caused by asthma) or through foreign bodies or infection. This adds turbulence to the airflow and when listened to, extra sounds may be heard, such as 'musical' wheezes with several tones, and crackles (from the airways 'popping' open).\n\nTaking deeper breaths forces the lungs to pass more air through these pipes and proportionately increases the amount of turbulence, should the airways be abnormal. Hence the resulting sounds will be louder for the doctor to hear.",
"Doctors are listening for different sounds. \n\nThings that are not good and require further investigation-\n\nNo sound\n\nRales\n\nWheezes\n\nCrackles\n\nHyperechoism/hypoechoism\n\nOther sounds that shouldn't be there",
"To glom onto the responses already, your sounds are better heard if you take a deep breath with your mouth open.\n\nAlso, if you are sick or have a condition where your lungs need to be heard well, and your doctor (or other healthcare professional) listens through your clothing - consider asking to have it re-done. Proper auscultation (=listening) cannot be done through clothes.",
"It's just easier to hear. I don't usually ask people to take deep breaths unless I am on the road moving or I am having trouble discerning what the sound I am hearing is.\nEdit: Paramedic, not a doctor",
"EMT here. There are different lung sounds that help us diagnose respiratory issues. For instance, stridor is usually a sound found with an obstruction of the upper respiratory area whereas rales/crackling is usually fluid trapped in the lower airway. Plus sometimes cardiac (heart) issues can be related to lung sounds.",
"Also, as a nurse, people like to talk while you’re listening. And if you tell them to take breaths they tend to shut up, making the whole thing easier."
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47k3h1 | just finished watching silicon valley. are the key concepts of the pied piper compression algorithm a real thing? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47k3h1/eli5_just_finished_watching_silicon_valley_are/ | {
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"Sounds totally fake. The [site](_URL_0_) is clearly a joke.\n\nAnyway since you asked about compression I can tell you how it works. The idea is to somehow get rid of redundant data. There are two ways you can do this. One is lossy compression and the other is lossless. \n\nWith lossy compression you actually delete the things that you determine are not needed. It's usually used with multimedia files like images, videos and audio. So in the case of an audio file they did research and found out that there are some sounds we just can't hear so lets get rid of that in the audio file. \n\nLossless compression is finding repeating patterns in the data, removing them and replacing them with a summary that says add such and such a pattern at locations a,b,d and y. \n\nWith lossless compressoin you can recreate the original file bit for bit. But with lossy compression you can't do that because you are discarding the data entirely. So each type has it's area of use. For example you can't use lossy compression on a text document. You have to use lossless compression."
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a6kh94 | how can charities be used for money laundering? | I have been reading that charities can possibly be used to launder money, but how does that work?
Aren't charities heavily audited because of the nature of their activities? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a6kh94/eli5_how_can_charities_be_used_for_money/ | {
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"Make a charity, lets call it “make me rich”. Anyone can donate. They hand dirty money to normal people to donate to the charity. Now charity has money that is considered clean to spend on goal. \n\nThis is why they are looked at a lot for fraud",
" > but how does that work?\n\nSuppose I am going to launder money and I create a charity. I am going to only hire myself as well as some close family and friends to administer this charity, paying them a generous wage. (Yes, charities pay their employees, they are not always volunteers.) In fact it is so generous that 95% of the money taken in goes into employee wages!\n\nNow how do all these donations come about? Oh, they are just cash being dropped into donation boxes around the city. Not that there is any good way to determine if that is true or if it is illicit drug money coming in behind the scenes. But the wages paid to the members of the charity are now \"clean\" and considered legitimate income.",
"Take Donald Trump, for example. He has a charitable foundation. He also owns for profit businesses such as golf courses. At one point, his golf course was sued. He ended up having to pay a ton of money to some guy. Instead of using his taxable private money to sue, he used his tax exempt charity to sue. As such, he dodged a ton of taxes. Charities are subject to different reporting rules than private for profit companies. There are a ton of them, and it's tough for the IRS to keep track of all of them. This is why Trump was able to get away with doing this multiple times. The only reason he got caught was because he ran for president and bragged about his ability to avoid paying taxes, which spurred people to look into it and catch him.\n\nThere are a lot of ways to do it. This is just one way. Here the goal is to avoid paying taxes and reduce the risk of getting caught. But there's other ways. You can donate money to a front for a terrorist organization. You can make a go fund me and donate your dirty money to yourself, Walter White style. You can route money earmarked for charity to other people or for other purposes, etc.\n\nBesides the tactics of how it's done, the heart of your question is that how do you get away with it. The simple fact is that there are a lot of charities and it's hard to keep track of them all. So the trick is to be subtle and avoid getting caught."
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2ph7c2 | what is vat and why we pay for it | 1. What is Value-added tax exactly? Why we have VAT in every product and service we pay for? How different situation would be if goverment rase income tax and ban VAT?
2. As far as I aware, some commercial structure can pay for goods without VAT or get refund for VAT. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ph7c2/eli5_what_is_vat_and_why_we_pay_for_it/ | {
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"At least for 1:\n\nThe idea of a VAT is that each firm that touches a product pays for the value they add to the product (so a farmer pays tax based on the value of his grain, the baker pays tax based on the difference between the wholesale price of bread, and what he paid for grain, the grocer pays tax based on the difference in the retail and wholesale price of bread). \n\nRather than simply putting a sales or excise tax on bread, a VAT greatly reduces enforcement cost, because one side of each transaction wants to report the taxes paid by the other, because that's a deduction for them (remember the baker gets to reduce their taxes by the amount they paid for grain and the grocer reduces his taxes by the amount he paid for bread). "
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5qcygn | how does taxing mexican imports 20% to build a border wall not just pass the costs on to american consumers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qcygn/eli5how_does_taxing_mexican_imports_20_to_build_a/ | {
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"It doesn't. Companies would have pay the tariff or build a factory inside the US, either way, it's the consumer who pays in the end.",
"The government takes the 20% and puts it into the wall fund. The problem is, what happens when Mexico introduces is own tariffs and taxes?",
"This is exactly what will happen, unless US consumers boycotted the now-inflated Mexican goods to the point where the wall cost is not reimbursed. If that were to happen it means US taxpayers still paid for a wall that was never reimbursed.\n\nTrump's end goal here is to get US companies to move their manufacturing operations back to the US. For that to be accomplished, those companies would have to undergo major layoffs to pay for the cost of moving back. That doesn't help the lower or middle class of America. That helps Trump fulfill a campaign promise.\n\nImport tariffs don't work. 1920's Protectionism & Smoot-Hawley taught us that much.",
"It will pass on the cost to consumers. The idea being that now what used to be cheap Mexican goods are now more comparatively priced to more expensive American made goods so now, why wouldn't I just make my goods in America where I can have a higher quality of living thus bringing jobs back.\n\nWe all know that there's been a problem with outsourcing jobs to developing nations where you can pay slave wages. Applying tariffs to goods coming in from nations with slave wages and no labor protections is a way to even that playing field. I don't know if it is good policy or not. Unfortunately Trump's isolationist and protectionist policies haven't been debated much for being isolationist or protectionist. Instead they've been criticized for being \"racist\" or \"insensitive\", so IMO it's not like any debate has been settled about whether isolationist policies are decent. We just don't know.\n\nIt's also important to remember that this is only one aspect of his economic plan which will include regulatory reductions and is aimed at improving the business limits in America. Like it or not, Trump policy isn't like anything we've seen in my lifetime and quite frankly no one knows what to expect.\n\nI'm not a fan of the man. I think he's a bad fit for the job and I'm already alarmed. This was my attempt at being reasonable and impartial.",
"You need to consider what the imports are and whether there is an alternate source. From the US govt trade site we get the top export categories from Mexico. \nThe top export categories (2-digit HS) in 2015 were: machinery ($42 billion), electrical machinery ($41 billion), vehicles ($22 billion), mineral fuels ($19 billion), and plastics ($17 billion). \nNow interestingly, Mexico doesn't make a lot of this stuff internally. What happens is foreign manufacturers use Mexico as a cheap landing ground for NAFTA. \nSo what would happen if we taxed mexican imports 20% ? Without a full analysis of the total cost models it's tough to say. We can make a reasonable guess that the total value of exports would begin to drop off a cliff as customers looked to alternate sources, or suppliers re-routed their operations probably through Canada or possibly direct to the US. \nThis would have a small impact on us but a devastating one on Mexico, meaning it's a very effective threat. ",
"Another good question, does this violate NAFTA? And what do we lose if it does?",
"I think Krugman does a good job of explaining how similar tactics backfired in the 80s. He has a pretty good track record of predicting economic outcomes over the last 20 years. He believes that if implemented, the policies will harm more than help US manufacturing, and hurt most consumers.\n\n > So Trumpism will probably follow a similar course; it will actually shrink manufacturing despite the big noise made about saving a few hundred jobs here and there.\n\nOn the other hand, by then the BLS may be thoroughly politicized, commanded to report good news whatever happens.\n\nFull article:\n_URL_0_",
"The Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 wiki page without comment.\n\n_URL_0_",
"So let me get this straight. A tariff on Mexican goods will make Americans buy less Mexican goods and make other imported goods more competitive, making Americans by more of the slightly higher priced goods as opposed to the now-expensive Mexican goods.\n\nSo in the end, Americans lose because of more expensive goods, Mexico loses out because of decreased business, and the only winners will be whoever Americans buy from to replace the Mexican goods. Hopefully that will be American sellers, but it isn't guaranteed to be.\n\nAnd somehow that is \"making Mexico pay for the wall\"? Isn't it more like the US shooting itself in the foot then shooting Mexico in the leg and laughing about how it hurts Mexico more?"
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1nlog1 | how did cameras in the 1900s work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nlog1/eli5how_did_cameras_in_the_1900s_work/ | {
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"I'm assuming that you are referring to black and white cameras.\n\nPhotographic film is coated with silver-halide crystals that react when exposed to light. This chemical change causes them to darken. The film is developed using a series of chemical baths that turn the unchanged silver-halide crystals into a water soluble salt that is then washed off. This is called photographic processing. This creates a negative, which can now be exposed to light without ruining the photo.(If it is exposed to light beforehand, the entire photo will turn black.) It's called a negative because the parts of the photo that are supposed to be black, are white and vice-versa (and dark gray to light gray, vice-versa).\n\nThe negetive can be put onto photographic paper in a darkroom(because photographic paper also uses silver-halide crystals that can't be exposed to light) by reflecting onto the paper using a lamp which reverses the colors from black to white, and white to black. This is because light will shine through the light parts of the photo, darkening those parts of the photo paper, and not through the dark parts of the photo, leaving those parts unreacted, or partially reacted(gray). It essentially reverses the shades back to what they would look like in real life. \n\nThe photographic paper is then developed in a darkroom using similar chemical baths and can now be exposed to light."
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70s2ie | why did found footage movies become so popular in the horror genre? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70s2ie/eli5_why_did_found_footage_movies_become_so/ | {
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"I can't say for sure, but I do know that the first I remember it becoming a thing was after Blair Witch",
"Most recently because Paranormal Activity taught producers that you can make a fuck ton of money by creating an extremely low budget film that intentionally looks like someone shot it at home filled with jump scares.",
"Because reality scares people more. \n\nYou can tell me about aliens and ghosts and other scary things in a movie, and it wouldn't be half as scary as if I showed you real footage, because **reality scares people.**"
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