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wgnas | if no companies give out my email address then why do i get spam mail? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wgnas/eli5_if_no_companies_give_out_my_email_address/ | {
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"When a company goes bankrupt, or is bought by another company, the promises they made to you often are no longer valid or honored. \n\nThis is one of the concerns that people have about Facebook. What happens when something better comes along and Facebook becomes the next MySpace?"
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2mjifk | what's actually happening when you miss someone so much you can physically feel it? | Have you ever missed someone so much that it "hurts"? I'd really like to know how the biological aspect of it works.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mjifk/eli5_whats_actually_happening_when_you_miss/ | {
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"If you are looking for a biological explanation for emotions I think you need to wait a few more decades. Yeah we know a loss or excess of certain neurotransmitters cause certain effects but we are nowhere near understanding every component of an emotion. It's almost like you are asking for a biochemical breakdown of the soul. - It certainly exists but with our current understanding it's like going back to the ancient Greeks and asking how a cellphone works. ",
"i would also like to know, it's not just about missing someone, but just being extremely sad and lonely, the feeling of emptiness in the chest, causing almost physical pain, accompanied by need to hug, what's physically is happening to my body in such moments?",
"The threshold between mental anguish and physical pain is quite small. That's pretty much what it boils down to. Any emotional turmoil can inflict fairly severe physical effects as well. It's why grief runs rollercoasters over people.",
"Going through break up with long term SO right now.\n\nI know the feeling you are talking about. :(\n\nCurrently feels like I both want to puke, and at the same time want to eat food. Also all my muscles are very tense and are preventing me from comfortable sleep.\n\nPerhaps the brain is so active due to emotional stress that it assumes this level of activity must mean a lot is wrong and assumes the rest of the body must be causing it?",
"It all comes from an evolutionary trait that makes the emotional part of your brain connected with the physical pain part of your brain. Back in prehistoric times it was really important to stay with other people so if they left you, the brain evolved to make it so someone would feel aweful when alone. This is why when a friend moves away or you breakup with someone, you feel very real pain. ",
"Anxiety and stress can be both mental and physical problems. IIRC, severe anxiety or stress triggers the \"fight-or-flight\" response to either a minor or major degree, depending on the severity of the problem.\n\nThe \"hurt\" you might experience is likely either the overstimulation of nerves or the tightening of certain muscles. ",
"The part of your brain that regulates emotional reactions, the anterior cingulate cortex, may respond to stressful experiences (including missing someone) by increasing the activity of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve connects to the neck, chest, and abdomen. It's overstimulation can cause pain and nausea. [Source](_URL_0_)",
"Physical pain is still only felt through the brain, technically. All pain is controlled this way. I can't imagine it's that difficult for emotional pain to translate into physical pain in your brain. ",
"Hey there- not that im super qualified but I had a concentration in clinical neuro as an undergraduate-\n\nSpeaking to the emotional \"hurt\" being perceived as real/physical pain, there actually is some interesting data out there. Without getting heavily into stress hormone/HPA which is definitely a huge component I was taught about the importance of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC) \n\nIt turns out that the same area of the brain that gets activated by physical pain (e.g. burning your hand on the stove) becomes active when people experience emotional pain i.e. social pain \n\n_URL_0_\n\nTaken from the last paragraph:\n\n\"Research even shows that emotional pain can sometimes activate brain regions that normally process only physical hurt. One recent study of people who had just been dumped by a romantic partner found that intense rejection activated somatosensory brain regions once thought to be involved only with physical sensation.\"\n",
"One reason could be they trigger a rush of endorphins and other good-feel stuff. You could be in withdrawal.",
"I've always thought of it as a weak form of phantom limb syndrome.",
"This will end up a long way down and it may have already been said, but you can get addicted to someone. It's even possible to go through withdrawals when you can't be with them. It's called [codependency](_URL_0_), it's the same as being dependent/addicted to drugs or any other substance. "
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2k2fpa | why doesn't amazon always require you to return an item to them when you request a refund for it? | I recently ordered the wrong item from amazon, and somehow I got a refund and don't actually need to return it to them. Why would they do this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k2fpa/eli5_why_doesnt_amazon_always_require_you_to/ | {
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"They need to pay for the return shipping, the carrier doesn't work for free. If the item doesn't cost them enough to make that worthwhile then they let you keep it for goodwill."
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5fkzic | what is the different in 1-(800) and 1-(888) numbers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fkzic/eli5what_is_the_different_in_1800_and_1888_numbers/ | {
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"Simplest explanation. \n\n800 is essentially .com\n\n888 is .net\n\n866 and 877 are .info, .biz or country codes. \n\n > They all technically work the same, but from a marketing standpoint 800 is the king. 800, or 1-800 is more than just a toll free area code but it’s a brand name. That’s the real difference between 800 and 888 at this point, just the “brand name” value. It’s the industry default that the one the biggest advertisers use. "
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6c2s2e | how does facebook know what i've googled? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c2s2e/eli5_how_does_facebook_know_what_ive_googled/ | {
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"Facebook also allows advertisers to place a \"pixel\" on their website to track you and retarget you with ads. So, if you went to the airbnb website, you got retargeted by a pixel. "
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b1i23w | why is the quality of old music videos (usually pre-2010) bad on the internet? | If they were professionally filmed with high quality cameras, then the videos should also be high quality. However, on YouTube for example the quality is very low. How? Does this have to do with compression? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b1i23w/eli5_why_is_the_quality_of_old_music_videos/ | {
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"Most postings to YouTube are not being made by the people who filmed the music video. They are being made by fans, who might only have a VHS recording they captured off their cable TV signal. Nothings every going to make that look good.",
"If they were made to be shown on television, and not on a computer, they were likely made before HD was a thing, so at best they were mastered at 480i resolution. If the videos were made on film, they could be remastered to 4k (most film is incredibly high quality which is why you can take a 1940's film and make it 4K if it's in good shape). If they were shot on digital video or video tape, you're stuck with the original resolution."
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f4np3s | how does a cruise missile know where to go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f4np3s/eli5_how_does_a_cruise_missile_know_where_to_go/ | {
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"As a point of trivia, the original cruise missile (the V1 \"Flying bomb\") had a little propeller that spun until it reached a pre-set number of spins (like an alarm clock) at which point the whole thing just pitched down.",
"Maps and cameras!\n\nDepends on the particular missile, but it probably has GPS, an inertial guidance system and a terrain matching camera. It has a microprocessor onboard with a flight plan, waypoints and a map of the area and it flies the programmed route.\n\nIt might also have some other back-up systems or be steerable remotely.",
"There are lots of fancy systems as mentioned in other posts... including GPS, but the main component is the same as any other flying odject (include the ones that took us to the moon and back)... IGS or Inertial Guidence System.\n\nBasically it is a bunch of gyroscopes connected to measuring devices and a simple computer. You program in where it is starting from, and where it is going to, and its weight and so on... and then you let it rip. The IGS can tell by the amount force excerted in every direction and for how long, exactly how far the missile has travelled and in what direction. To give you an idea of how accurate it is... back in the 60's when it was developed, the very first test flight went from New York to LA with the windows blacked out and no other method of nav on board, and when they thought they were close they pulled off the curtains and found themselves within a couple of miles of LAX. Obviously it has improved since then.\n\nThe Cruise has another system that uses radar etc for tracking the profile of the ground so that it can fly really low... and a third system using cameras to track the target right at the end which they can use for both stationary and moving targets.",
"The missile knows where it is at all times.\n\nIt knows this because it know where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't and, arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was is now the position that it isn't. In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation; the variation being the difference between where the missile is and where it isn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it, too, may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was. The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows: because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is, however it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice versa. And by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error."
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23rnxw | does time stop in absolute zero? | I had this discussion with my coworker the other day. He tried explaining that if Absolute Zero (O Kelvin) is achieved that time would stop since there is no motion from any particle and time is relevant to light and gravity. He tried explaining it to me but I just don't agree with it. So what would really happen if absolute zero is achieved? Would Time stop? Would gravity not work either? Sorry if this confuses you, it confuses me too. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23rnxw/eli5_does_time_stop_in_absolute_zero/ | {
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"Well, the short answer is no depending on how you identify time.\nIn terms of chemical reactions or kinetic movement, yes time has stopped. But that isnt the only thing that happens in line with time passed.\nAbsolute zero is not a lack of any movement, it is when a 'minimum' has been reached. Electrons still work the same and so does radioactive decay. The universal structure that it sits on is still expanding and the atomic structure itself will still decay. So no, time works just fine at 0 kelvin.",
"I don't believe that it would ever be possible for Absolute Zero to be achieved.\nyou can get to o.oooooooo1 Kelvin just fine but never 0 due to that fact any particle at 0 K would have no energy and would be completely still (unlike everything else that is vibrating at molecular level) and that means that we know where the particle is and it's velocity ( 0 due to it having no energy ) and that breaks Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle ( think of it as a law of Quantum mechanics ) \n\n(If i got something wrong please correct me)\n"
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3hgjpt | where do artists get isolated music tracks for remixing? | I've seen a lot of YouTube covers and remixes where the new artists seem to have an isolated music track straight from the source. How do they gain access to these? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hgjpt/eli5where_do_artists_get_isolated_music_tracks/ | {
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"This I have always wanted to know! They get vocals to mess around with, without music, and vise versa. Upvoted you for visibility. Thanks for asking the REAL questions Gen4200.",
"These files, or \"stems\" are definitely online in random locations. Actual big name artists and some of their songs can be found with all of the .wav files. The actual studio files that were used in the commercial release. HOWEVER you will definitely need a program that can open .mogg files. Audacity will do this. PM me and when I get home I can point you in the right place to snag some.",
"Vocals can be isolated from a track fairly easily if you have an instrumental version. Line them both up in your DAW (music program) and invert the phase of the instrumental. The peaks and troughs will cancel each other out, leaving only the vocal. Of course, tho will only work if the instrumental is identical to the original, or you'll get some artifacts left over."
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32beai | what does middle finger sign actually mean? how did it originate? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32beai/eli5what_does_middle_finger_sign_actually_mean/ | {
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" > The middle finger gesture was used in Ancient times as a symbol of sexual intercourse, in a manner meant to degrade, intimidate and threaten the individual receiving the gesture.[2] It also represented the phallus, with the fingers next to the middle finger representing testicles;[3]\n\n_URL_0_",
"The gesture dates back from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, as a symbol reminiscent of sexual intercourse, and was often used towards a people as a reference to \"a male who submits to anal penetration.\" It's Latin name, *digitus impudicus* translates to the \"shameless, indecent or offensive finger.\" \n\nIt is said that it came to the United States via Italian immigrants, and was first documented being used in a baseball team photo when Old Hoss Radbourn flipped off the cameraman.\n\nTL;DR: It is used to symbolize anal sex and originated in Ancient Greece. ",
"Not an expert on the subject but I'm about 90% certain that back in the days of archery being used in war, captured archers would have their middle finger chopped off before being traded back to the enemy. This made it much harder to draw a bow. Flipping off the enemy, in short ment that the archers haven't been captured and that they could send their arrows farther and with better accuracy. This probably made the common soldier on the enemies side go *well. We are a bit more fucked then usual today*\n\nOr that could be a myth....",
"_URL_0_\n\nSeveral people are citing the 'Car Talk' segment that the French threatened to cut off the bowstring fingers of every English archer captured at Agincourt. The English surprisingly won, and taunted the defeated French with the English double-finger V-sign gesture and said \"(we can still) pluck yew!\", which evolved into \"fuck you!\"\n\nIt's utterly untrue, historically. The gesture and phrase long predate Agincourt. There is no historical record suggesting the archers did this, IIRC Car Talk was citing an Internet legend that dates around mid-90's or so. It's not impossible that an archer DID find it a clever pun to show the gesture and say \"pluck yew\", but there's no record of it. \n\nThe middle finger itself dates to Roman times at least, referred to as \"*digitus impudicus*\" (for real, the \"finger of indecent offense\"). \n\n\"Fuck you\", fuck originates from Germanic word for \"strike\"/copulate, German, Dutch, Swedish share similar words. It may go back to Latin *futuere*, basically meaning strike/copulate... fuck."
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24d746 | what is happening to my body when i listen to epic music and get the "shivers"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24d746/eli5_what_is_happening_to_my_body_when_i_listen/ | {
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"That shiver you feel is actually a release of dopamine (the feel good hormone) transferred throughout the body.",
"The shiver sensation one experiences when listening to exciting music or watching a dramatic movie, etc, is the result of what's called the \"sympathetic nervous system\" being activated. It's part of your nervous system (brain, nerve tissue throughout the body) that regulates things you don't have full (or any) conscious control of, such as startle responses (i.e jumping at a sudden loud noise), various basic emotional states, arousal, etc.\n\nOne of it's primary functions is to rapidly prepare your body for activity when you become excited, such as when you're frightened or when you're sexually aroused. This reaction prepares the body in many ways, including: increasing blood flow to muscles, increasing muscle tension, increasing circulating blood sugar (and other metabolic products), etc, etc. It also causes changes in brain activity; if the response is fear then the various neurochemicals involved in the subjective experience of fear are released in their relative areas (i.e the amygdala) to create the feeling. If the response is arousal, then neurochemicals involved in the feeling of pleasure and anticipation are released, mobilizing those respective emotions.\n\nSo returning to your question; in the case of listening to epic music or watching a dramatic scene in a movie, the \"shivers\" are likely the result of a mild arousal response; the subjective feeling most people experience is actually very similar to the feelings induced by sexual arousal, just without the conscious desire for sex, and usually without male/female erection (though not always, some people literally \"pop a boner\" at such things). The shivers are the result of the body increasing muscle tension and muscular sensitivity to movement signals from the brain, causing a brief shiver. People also typically feel a \"tingling\" sensation, which is probably a combination of blood vessels dilating/constricting as well as increased nerve ending sensitivity during this phase of excitement.",
"We have a sub for this /r/frisson :)"
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41tp0u | why do canals not freeze under bridges when they freeze elsewhere? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41tp0u/eli5_why_do_canals_not_freeze_under_bridges_when/ | {
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"Bridges are often pinch points where the water is compressed and the increased current makes it harder to freeze. They're expensive to build so they're often built across narrow points in the water. They often also have supporting posts in the middle.\n\nBoth the increased flow as the banks close in and the deflection in flow caused by the supporting posts cause increased turbulence and motion in the water, and calm water freezes much more easily than water in motion. So as a result the ice in that area takes longer to freeze and less time to melt because it's thinner.",
"No mico-climatologists to comment on this?\n\nI.e. something to do with colder air sinking, therefore the bridge acting as a 'shelter' of comparably warmer air than the exposed canal. \n\nI had an essay question on something similar in uni but can't remember the exact/correct answer. But it was assuming the body of water was still.",
"For the same reasons cars freeze over at night before other stuff does. Infrared radiation.\n\nAll bodies lose energy (get colder) by emitting infrared radiation. Different materials do this at different rates, which is why cars freeze over quickly and why the windows freeze over first, not the side panels or the hood.\n\nThe infrared light from the water is reflected back down from the bridge. Also, the light coming from the material of the bridge warms the water. The effect is not very strong, but coupled with shielding from wind that carries warmth away, it suffices to allow the water under the bridge to take longer to freeze over."
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1umvgu | can someone please help me respond to my boss when he says there is no such thing as global warming because it is cold outside today. | I have tried to research the topic a little, but there is so much information on both sides, I don't know what to believe. He is driving me nuts because he just keeps yammering on and on and I just want to shut him up for a while because, even though he is my boss, he doesn't seem to understand that I have work to do. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1umvgu/eli5_can_someone_please_help_me_respond_to_my/ | {
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"\"Global warming is a hoax because its cold, where you live.....today.\" - John Stewart\n\nGlobal warming is a misnomer, it's global climate change. Some places will become cold, winters will be harsher. Canada won't become Florida.",
"\"The weather is not the same as the climate.\" - My biology professor.",
"Global warming is more about trapping heat on the planet with the help of greenhouse gasses. Thinking of it as heat = hot isn't necessarily a complete picture, really it's more about trapping energy from the sun. That adds energy to our climate's existing energy so that results in hotter summers, colder winters, and more violent storms. Consider a pot of still water versus a pot of water on a flame, even before it starts boiling. The energy increases in the water, and things start moving a bit more than they did before.\n\nI'm no climatologist, but the scale of these effects aren't really appreciable in our lifetimes, but as I understand it that's still in dispute, as is the origins of warming.",
"daily local temperatures do not reflect yearly global averages",
"\"There's no such thing as 'getting hotter in the summer', because it's cold in your refrigerator.\"",
"Go to _URL_0_ and find his arguments among the list of common arguments against climate change. \n\nPrint out the \"basic\"-level rebuttals, read them, then go to his office with them. \n\nOn the way there, go ahead and toss the rebuttals in the nearest trash can and resign yourself to the fact that most climate change skepticism is emotionally driven and completely fact resistant. You aren't going to shift your boss's opinion with facts or argument. \n\nYou should tell him that climate change is kind of a political issue and you aren't comfortable discussing politics at the workplace. If he doesn't catch the red flag that you are putting up, he's an idiot boss. Go to HR if he keeps it up - most companies don't tolerate heated political discussions in the workplace because such discussions can lead to divisions in the workforce. ",
"Just smile and keep your mouth shut. ",
"Say, \"if only everything were that simple...\" Then look off into the distance.",
"It's called GLOBAL WARMING for a reason; it's not REGIONAL WARMING...",
"Is it important for your success that he understands this? I'd probably try not to convince him of stuff that's painfully obvious to anyone with 2 chromosomes",
"It really should be called climate change since some places will get warm some places get cold. The fact is, that in general the warm areas of the planet have been statistically increasing in temperature over the years. When you see a graph of it (you can google Zachos 2008 for a figure to show your boss) you see little wobbles up and down. They are seasonal fluctuations, like winter and summer. But the *general* trend is warming (in our part of the world). \n\nThis arctic blast actually proves global climate change more than anything since the prediction was for greater extremes in weather: so the seasonal fluctuations would be steeper and more extreme. I'd say 60 below is pretty extreme :) thankful I'm over on the west coast!",
"I'm going to quickly follow up with this: \nI am a geologist and we talk about climate a lot. Even after reading many papers and participating in many discussions on the subject, I still don't know if it's human caused or not. And frankly, I don't care. What *is* true is that climate change is happening. I'm not one who blames people about it, I'd rather figure out what we should do to stop or mitigate the problem. \n\nAnd in the big scheme of it, I'm not too worried. My focus is paleontology, so I do try to understand climate over long spans of time. Dinosaur age was much hotter than today (which is why Dino's and plants back then were so big). Ice age happened in the middle of the Quaternary, after the pan-Antarctic current developed. We are just now coming out of the ice age, so really, this global \"warming\" would just be a leveling off of the climate since the last ice age. \n\nThere are many theories as to *why* it is happening. My favorite is the position of our *solar system* (not just earth) in the Milky Way. The movement of our SS mimics a sine curve, so it moves in and out of the galactic arm. When we are out, it is cold, when we are inside of the arm, it is warm. The theory states that we are now moving back into the galactic arm. \nNot saying this is true, just a great way of explaining non-human induced climate change. ",
"Sorry, Zachos 2001, here:\n_URL_0_",
"Global warming refers to the continuing rise in Earth's average climate temperature over time -- not current temperatures. ",
"When the planet warms and ice (fresh water) melts and runs into the ocean, thermohaline circulation (THC) refers to a part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes.\nThe Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a northward accelerating current off the east coast of North America.\nChanges in the thermohaline circulation are thought to have significant impacts on the Earth's radiation budget. Insofar as the thermohaline circulation governs the rate at which deep waters are exposed to the surface, it may also play an important role in determining the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. While it is often stated that the thermohaline circulation is the primary reason that Western Europe is so temperate, it has been suggested that this is largely incorrect, and that Europe is warm mostly because it lies downwind of an ocean basin, and because of the effect of atmospheric waves bringing warm air north from the subtropics.\nIn 2005, British researchers noticed that the net flow of the northern Gulf Stream had decreased by about 30% since 1957. Coincidentally, scientists at Woods Hole had been measuring the freshening of the North Atlantic as Earth becomes warmer. Their findings suggested that precipitation increases in the high northern latitudes, and polar ice melts as a consequence. By flooding the northern seas with lots of extra fresh water, global warming could, in theory, divert the Gulf Stream waters that usually flow northward past England and Norway, and cause them to instead circulate toward the equator. If this were to happen, Europe's climate would be seriously impacted.\nTL;DR \"Ice caps melt, throw THC into disarray, gulf stream gets fucked causing extreme weather conditions (60 degree Centigrade heat in Australia, and the opposite in North Muricaaa\""
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j3cuc | - class a/b/c networks and how to id them | So I always wanted to know by looking at some IP address how to identify them, and what that all means. Any good explanations would be great. Added bonus question... what is a good practice to set up DHCP scopes with keeping in mind the scopes, and routing and things?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3cuc/elif_class_abc_networks_and_how_to_id_them/ | {
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"Look at the first number of an IP address (for example, 172.16.32.69):\n\n- if the first number is between 1-126, it's Class A\n- if the first number is between 128-191, it's Class B\n- if the first number is between 192-223, it's Class C\n- if the first number is between 224-239, it's Class D (multicast)\n\nWhere are 127 and 240-255? They're reserved, and not used on either public or private networks.\n\nBonus question response: best practice is to set aside 20 addresses from each block of 255 for routers, dedicated servers, etc. It's also a good idea to split up the remaining block (80/20 or so) and have DHCP servers back each other up for a given subnet."
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43fab0 | why aren't oil countries limiting production to counter the crash of oil prices? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43fab0/eli5_why_arent_oil_countries_limiting_production/ | {
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"I understand the crash is an intentional overproduction to cut oil prices to starve competing start-ups of funding for the future security of their oligopoly. ",
"Because the oil being produced now has already been sold, it was probably sold months ago. That's how futures contracts work. What you're seeing is the spot market, and possibly futures contracts that expire in the next few months. \n\nEven if they wanted to cut production, it couldn't occur for several months from now.",
"It varies from country to country.\n\nFree market economies like Canada and the US are simply unable to limit oil production. Once the permits have been set, those oil sources will pump until they run out. They'll slow down on making new pumps, but every individual pump owner wants to be the one to keep pumping.\n\nPetrostates like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela where a majority of the government's income comes from holding and owning oil production at a state level cannot afford to lower production. They might make more money per barrel at a higher price, but they have to sell fewer enough barrels that the country that cuts would take in less money than they do now - which isn't enough. All of them are desperate for someone else to cut so that they can get back to business as usual.\n\nThere was a time when petrostates were powerful enough and controlled enough of the oil market to engage in price collusion, setting a high price on gas by limiting pumping. Since the US shale boom, however, that has become impossible - there is now enough free market oil that they would lose money on a price collusion. With Iran entering the market again for the first time really in 40 years, another large supplier is entering the market who does not cooperate with the OPEC cartel. The cartel's power is broken now, and free market economies set the price of oil based on curves of supply and demand, and the wild imaginations of stock traders.",
"Everyone is complicating this too much. The fact is no single country or organization (like OPEC) can vastly change the oil price globally.\n\nShale oil in the US and oilsands in Canada are more expensive to extract, the current prices for oil reflect the \"old standard\" of Big Oil attempting to keep start-ups and companies that extract shale oil and oilsands from becoming competition.",
"Some money is always better than no money for many businesses. Its also important to look and see that even at current prices some companies and countries in the middle east are still making a ton of money. Just because the current price isn't sustainable in our countries, doesn't mean it isn't sustainable in other countries. North American oil is much more complicated and more expensive to produce in contrast to other places around the globe.",
"The price has already fallen. Saudi Arabia pretty much has oceans of oil under it, they are purposefully over-saturating the market in hopes that all different methods of getting oil from the ground (e.g. Between rocks/under the ocean) become unsustainable. This gives them the greatest market share and attracts more business towards them.",
"While there are many good points, market share also has quite a bit to play in this as well. Basically, the last time OPEC intentionally cut back oil production, Saudi Arabia lost quite a bit of market share. When demand revived, they lost out sales to other producers.\n\nSaudi Arabia's declining to reduce production then forced the rest of OPEC to keep producing at the same level in order to keep their market shares consistent. This has pushed the price even lower but assuming oil demand returns to the mean, they will continue to have their current agreements in place and will return to similar bulk sales and profitability.\n\n",
"There are only 20 comments in this thread, and several of them completely contradict each other. Most of them are written by people with absolutely no understanding of economics whatsoever.\n\nOP, you're going to have to research this question for yourself if you want real answers.",
"Although only the members or OPEC who are refusing cutbacks (mainly Saudi) know the real reasons, the theory below makes sense.\n\nBasically Saudi Arabia and Qatar want to export their Natural Gas to Europe, but need to build a pipeline through Syria first. The Syrian Regime (Shia Muslims) is not exactly friendly with Saudi and Qatar (Sunni Muslims) and so Saudi is essentially funding a war to topple them via ISIS. \n\nRussia, who supplies Europe with 40% of its Natural Gas, does not want to see another competitor in their market (Natural gas in Europe is about 2-3x more expensive per MMBTU than it is here in the US), and is backing the Syrian Regime to prevent this from happening.\n\nBecause Russia also produces around 10 Million barrels of oil per day, which accounts for a lot of the government’s revenue, a significant drop in oil prices will make it harder for them to continue to back Syria, thus allowing a Saudi, Qatar pipeline.\n\nThe article below gives a lot more detail.\n_URL_0_"
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d3l2v2 | is there a reason that we are compelled to poke at our wounds or things that hurt on our bodies? | For example, if I have a small cut on my gums, I can’t help but poke at it constantly with my tongue, even though it hurts. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d3l2v2/eli5_is_there_a_reason_that_we_are_compelled_to/ | {
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29bwe4 | it's there really any difference between what company i buy gasoline from? | I understand the difference between the octane of gas, but does it really vary from company to company?
Edit: So far the answer I mainly see is that there really isn't a difference in the gasoline aside from some additives which won't make a world of difference. The biggest difference comes down to how well kept each individual gas station is i.e. how clean the tank is, although the gas is usually filtered anyways.
Edit2: Apparently the gasoline:additives ratio is about 10000:3 gallons (thanks /u/5400ARS). Most of the things you should pay attention to are cleanliness of the store/gasoline, and the ethics of the company (if that concerns you). Mom 'n Pop shops don't have corporations hounding them and may tend to have less clean gasoline/ business practices than bigger companies. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29bwe4/eli5_its_there_really_any_difference_between_what/ | {
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"nope, it all comes from just a few refineries. ",
"Only from a humanitarian point of view. For example, [shell is a totally awful company](_URL_0_) that funds extremist groups in nigeria to keep the population there from throwing them out of the oil rich country. ",
"Here, it's all the same. I've data logged enough different fuel companies to verify.\n\nIn other parts of the world it can make a difference. Where are you? ",
"Haha! Great question.\nNo, it makes no difference. Big oil doesn't make money selling gas to end users (people at pump), refineries create the product then sell it to stations (that is an ELI5 answer). So that gas at the Exxon station...probably came from BP or Shell. And the gas from the Shell station, probably came from ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil sold off almost all of their gas station a while back. Why? Because there is not enough smart-money in that business. \nThis is also why you will find two gas stations almost side by side or right across from each other selling the same 87,89,93 octane gas but one is selling it for more money. Why would they do that? Because when that station purchases that fuel they sell it at THAT current market rate at time of purchase + profit increase, and since there is no alternative for fuel, they know that you MUST/WILL buy that fuel and therefore there is no reason to drop their price to compete with the station across the street. Once the station across the street sells all of their \"cheaper\" gas, they will purchase more, which probably will be slightly higher than what they are now selling it for.\nSource: former XOM (ExxonMobil) employee",
"There most definitely is a difference in what company you buy gasoline from.\n\nWhile it is true that the gasoline companies source their gasoline from the same refineries, it's what the different companies do to the gasoline after they get their hands on it before they distribute it to their gas stations that makes a difference.\n\nAll the good gasoline companies put their own proprietary additives such as Chevron's Techron or Shell's V-Power. \n\nCompanies like Chevron and Shell add MORE additives and detergents to the government mandated minimum amount of additives and detergents that is required of all gasoline sold in the United States. \n\nMost of the major car manufacturers have always suspected that \"Cheap\" gas causes engine failure but have never been able to prove it so a few of the big car manufacturers got together and tested all the gasoline available in the United States and gives a recommendation of where you should buy fuel from. They call fuel from these stations as \"Top Tier\". \n\nThe list can be found here. _URL_0_\n\nThe home page of that link will describe in detail what I am talking about.\n\nA few years ago, the list of gas stations on the Top Tier gas list wasn't as big as it is today which means that places like ARCO and Costco have upped their game and added more robust additives and detergents to their fuel to meet the Top Tier standard.\n\nI bought my car new in Dec 1997 and I still drive it today. It has 246,000 miles on it and it still runs like a champ and it still passes SMOG even though it still has the same old 16 year old Catalytic Converter and O2 sensor. One of the things I attribute to my engine's longevity is the fuel I put into it. ",
"There actually is a difference. Yes the fuel comes from the same refineries, but some companies put detergents and other additives to their fuel to help engine performance. \n\n_URL_0_",
"As a number of folks mentioned, the difference is mainly in the additives. I work at an oil refinery and we put our gasoline in the same lines as our sister refineries so its pretty uniform spec prior to blending which occurs at the terminals. That said, the general consensus at our lab is that additives are mainly a function of marketing and provide very little performance difference.\n\nThe biggest difference is made by the quality of how the distributors and gas stations store and manage their product. Some independent distributors in my area are notorious for delivering fuel that came from dirty tanks and those can fuck up an engine pretty badly. In general I try to buy gas from stations which have gas delivered by the major companies because I know their storage and handling methods are generally top notch.\n\nEdit: I also wanted to say that the best gas you can find is the stuff that doesn't have ethanol blended in, which can potentially damage the engine over a long time period. Usually you can find the non-ethanol blends at stations that sell to agricultural customers (sorry, city slickers!).\n\nEdit 2: Here's a site that has a listing of ethanol free stations in the US and Canada\n_URL_0_",
"I once had lunch with BP's head of Chemical Engineering for NA and asked him the exact same question. The guy said no. The so called additive various companies put in their gas is 90% marketing and 10% maybe it works a little bit. In the tests they ran, they concluded that the additives are slightly beneficial in older engines but had absolutely no effects on modern engines. ",
"Former Gulf Shores Alabama resident and My family WILL NOT buy gas from BP for obvious reasons regardless of additives.",
"Reading this thread, it seems like nobody knows, and I don't think we'll ever find a conclusion..",
"Another thing to note is, it doesn't really matter what the brand is on the station. All those 'Boycott BP, Exxon stations, etc' is pretty moot. Very few branded stations are owned and operated by the parent company. Most are just people licensing the name, branding, marketing stuff. \n\nAlso, the branding really has nothing to do with what refinery the station gets its fuel from. There are no 'Exxon' refineries near me, yet there are still Exxon stations. So they are getting their gas from the local Sunoco refinery or whatever is nearby. ",
"So which gas station is best to get gas from?",
"I work for a company that takes custody of fuel and transport it through our pipeline, then holds it for gas stations to come get. \n\nIt all goes through the same pipe and gets mixed up in our tanks. The difference is what additives the gas station wants in the fuel when the truck picks it up. Also if it's diesel for farms it must have red see in it because it's taxed less than regular diesel. (Big fines if your truck has red diesel on a road) ",
"Yes & No. \nThe base product is the same, most companies get the same gas from the same big tank. However, every company has their own formula, so when they fill their trucks, they get their own set of additives in the proportion they want. \nThe additives have a very limited influence on the performance of your car and it's not worth it to buy premium brands. \nSource : Engineer at Total.",
"I build fueling stations for every major gas company in the US. I have seen some dirty dirty gasoline and diesel from your \"bargain\" stations but have also seen it at your \"5x the additive, will keep your car running forever\" stations. Lots of fueling sites I maintain have a living creature in the fuel called a Hydrocarbon Utilizing Microorganism or HUM bug. These critters live in the tank and poop what looks like sand, except it sticks to everything it possibly can. Metal, plastic, you name it and it will stick to it. BUT: the big kicker here is no matter how shitty the gas in the tank is, there is a final 10 to 30 micron filter in the bottom of the dispenser that will not let any of that shit go in your tank. The filter might clog up in a week instead of a year, but it will still slowly pump clean gas into your vehicle.\n\nTLDR; get a Prius \n",
"You have to boycott the one that is responsible for the most recent environmental disaster that upset you. I've been boycotting Exxon for 28 years now. Got 'em on the ropes!",
"There are fewer refineries than gasoline distributors, so, the vendor doesn't matter that much as far as the base fuel goes. Name brand trucks and generic brand trucks often fill up at the same place.\n\nBut, each vendor, Shell, Exxon, etc., do have different additives, so, the vendor does matter as far as the additives go.\n\nAnd, each station is maintained individually and the storage tanks may or may not be in good condition, so it is possible that the tanks are old and degraded or have a buildup of crap in them at one station and the one across the street has tanks that are solid and clean.\n\nAaaaand, some stations get more business than others and this can affect the rotation of the fuel in the tanks, so a station that has fresh fuel coming in frequently will, generally, have better quality fuel.\n\nAaaaaaaaaaaaand, some stations don't get fuel delivered until the tanks are low, so those that wait until then can have a buildup of condensation (water) in the tanks, plus the alcohol can separate affecting the fuel/additive/alcohol/water mixture. You can put some gas in a glass jar and let it sit for a while to see how this happens.\n\nMy advice: When near home choose a few local stations that you get good results from and support them. When on the road, go with name brands at busy stations.",
"Well.. I work at the gas station at Costco. I would say we do have superior gasoline because we do put in additive into the fuel when its dropped from the trucks. We usually only put in about 3+ gallons of it. Our trucks at my location always at least drop 8500 gallons of fuel. Seems like a drop in the bucket though. ",
"I work for BP (hate me), the only difference I'm aware of is that the large oil company's fuel (shell, BP, Exxon, Texaco etc) has your engine care additives included in the fuel at the pump, injector cleaner, redex etc. whereas the very very cheap supermarket fuel from tescos has none and you have to add it yourself, but alot of people dont, resulting in faster degrading engine components.\n\nThats the only difference I know of at my pay grade, and in the UK, idk about anywhere else.",
"It is what every high ranked comment has said, it makes no difference.\n\nThe only difference, whichever you pick you will hurt someone, so you could find out which company hurts whom. It's going to hurt someone, somewhere on the globe. It's basically shit.",
"I work for one of the major oil corps. and started out in the refinery and have worked my up. I now am in a position in which I mange supply through pipeline, barge, and ships. \n\nI can back up what others have said in that all gas is pretty much the same. In a pipeline their may be 200,000 barrels (1 barrel is 43 gallons) and some of that could be BP's, some Chevron's, and some Shells. It all must be created and blended to a particular spec. What I will say however is not all gas is created equal. Different areas of the country have different gas specs. In California for example ethanol must be blended into the gas. In Portland OR. all DSL must be 5% bio. So the gas you buy in CA can be different then the gas you buy in TX. So if you ever hear someone claiming company X \"waters\" down their fuel or something like that that is just plain false. \n\nThe other major difference is the additives. High tier gas producers like Exxon/Chevron/Shell all have their different kind of additives that they add to the fuel that they claim add value. I have been to our lab and seems some pretty impressive tests and results from my companies additives. So unlike some I do think they make a difference and can be worth paying for.\n\n",
"Piggy-backing with a semi-related question:\n\nIs there any company at all, anywhere, that offsets the gas they sell with meaningful carbon credits so that you're not making things quite so much worse when buying petrol?",
"The short answer is no. The long answer is nooooooooooo.",
"I drive fairly nice cars and have done some research on this topic. Net: Be consistent. Buying your gas from the same place is more important that which one (given they are one of the \"name brands\").",
"Exxon mixes it's gas with the souls of the unborn",
"The additive packages are either different or non-existent depending on whether you buy from a name-brand place or from your local grocery/walmart station. That's actually why grocery/walmart gas is so cheap: they don't have the detergents that the big guys have. HOWEVER, with the amount of ethanol in the gas these days, its not as important as it used to be. ",
"no, I worked at a costco gas station for a while and we got deliveries from 3 different refineries. Most gas stations are the same. They just buy the cheapest gas. You could be buying texaco gas from a shell station (depending who owns it). ",
"Gasoline is \"fungible\". Branded additive packages (BP, Shell etc) are added to the fuel as it is pumped into the tank truck at the tank truck fuel stands (TTFS/gasoline terminals). TTFS are sometimes stand alone or located at refineries. ",
"My uncle works for chevron and he told me the additive tecron is just for marketing and the purpose of it is so chevron can identify if the gas in the tanks at stations is bought from them",
"I have a friend who has a friend, who delivers gas to gas stations for a living.\n\nThe refinery where he gets the gas has many huge tanks owned by 5 different players.\n\neach player charges different prices for their gas.\n\nThe places he told me to fill up my high compression Mitsubishi engine have made many problems disappear to date.\n\n1.\nMy car no longer randomly stalls when idle at red lights.\n2.\nMy car stopped making \"Diesel\" engine noise for the first few min upon startup.\n3.\nWhen I turn my car off and the gas meter is at a certain level, when I start it up the next morning its at the same level, instead of something lower (because the gas is not oxygenated).\n4.\nYES there is a huge difference if you have a high performance engine in your car, VW is a good example, using AUDI engines made for the European or Japanese markets, where in the USA TRUE European/JAP engines will stall on the diluted 15-30% American stuff, what they dilute it with, makes the difference.\n\n\nI also want to make special note, about car OIL, this is the main reason why engines die early.\n\nDont change your oil at a 15-20$ place, for the love of everything that is sacred.\nGo to walmart or one of those large chains and buy a 5 gallon jug of oil guaranteed for 10,000 or more miles (synthetic is best for newer engines). it will cost you 20-30$ for 10-20K GUARANTEED oil.\nBuy a high performance Oil filter, guaranteed to the same mileage for your car, its simple, walk into the store, go to where the filters are look at the brand names and on your smartphone simply google your make/model/year of car and oil filter from the company!.\n\nTake all of this to almost any car repair and ask them if they will change the oil and filter you brought in for that same 15-20$ on the spot.\n\ndecline all offers of \"other\" repairs that their trying to upsell.\n\n--Source:\nMe, iv taken several engines apart, with only help of taking them out and putting them back in, not to bragg, but iv learned a thing or 2 over the years, more then your average newbie car mechanic that's for sure.",
"Nah, doesn't matter. As long as there is an oligopoly, it's all the same. Sadly, scarcity rules. And we must accept. ",
"Nice edit. Stops me having to read through loads of replies for an explanation. ",
"Used to deliver gas to gas stations.\n\n All gas comes from the same place ( Refineries ). Out of the refinery it is called \" clear \" gas. Once it gets to the local distribution point ( Rack ), where it is loaded into the trucks that take it to the gas station, each brand adds its own additive. Shell has one formula, Esso another, etc, etc. Some gas stations sell \"branded\" fuel ( additive of one company or another ) as their own. You might buy gas at mom 'n' pop gas station and get Shell gas, or you might get Arco gas.\n\n The additives have nothing to do with Octane rating. Octane ratings are very important for your car, always use the recommended octane level for your engine.\n\n The additives themselves have different formulations of different chemicals, but something to note is that their are NO major engine manufacturers out there that reccomend one formulation or another. From that I infer that most of these additives are borderline as far as their worth.\n\n The other interesting point is the amount of additive that is added to the clear gas. For a Super-B tanker holding upwards of 10,000 Gallons of fuel, the additive amount is less than 3 Gallons. \n\n \" But, But, But, it is super-concentrated wizard juice! \" you say. \n\n I've watched them handle this stuff manually with a pail and a pair of work gloves, pouring it into the tanker from the top when the injector system breaks down on the loading system. Hardly wizard juice methinks.\n\n I suspect, somewhere along the lines, some corporate lawyers advised the big gas dealers to \"brand\" their fuel so they could make all kinds of claims in their advertising to sway you to buy their product instead of the other guy. Another corporate lawyer advised them on the Minimum Content required so that they could claim their fuel was different from the other fuels. It might be blueberry juice for all we know.\n\n Oh, the only \"brand\" differences I pay attention to is how a gas company maintains their equipment and the cleanliness of the dispensers and facility. A large corporate outfit will actually adhere ( for the most part ) to best practices and spend money to make sure they don't kill your car. A mom'n'pop has no regional corporate auditors to tell them to take better care of their tanks, etc.\n\nTL;DR Buy the right Octane level gas, ignore the additive/advertising claims, judge a gas station on its cleanliness and equipment quality.\n\n ",
"When I was in college studying chemistry, I had an out-there professor who wanted to check his suspicions. A he stated, he had gone to almost every gas station in the area and collected a tiny gasoline sample from the station and left. He conducted NMR and mass spec on all the samples and found that they were identical. By identical i mean there weren't any differences in special additives, they were the exact same thing. He also went as far as following the delivery trucks back to their station, and they were all coming from the same supply depot. \nIf you live in the north east USA, chances are, there's no difference between any of the gasoline at any of the stations.",
"People seem to get all into this. They get vouchers and fuel cards and every company claims there flammable shit is somehow cleaner and better than every other companies flammable shit. I could just be an arsehole (I am), but I literally couldn't give two flying fucks. I just stop at one when my tank is about to run out, and I avoid any kind of voucher bullshit because all I want to do is get where I'm going with the minimum of fuss. \n\nI hate those people in the queue who have like a million cards and have to get receipts or type fucking odometer readings into the keypad, or have to order twelve very specific coffee orders. You are bad people.\n\nJust pay for your shit and leave, and give them the minimum amount of money you have to, but be nice to their staff since they get paid shit. \n\nI used to work in one, so I'm traumatized. ",
"I've always seen gas companies as the same as fat food restaurants. They all use a different recipe, but it's still all the same as the others and it can kill you faster.",
"There's California gasoline, then everything else.\n\nThey're both the same, but California has a bunch of hippie chemical laws so we gotta mix stuff in",
"In Europe there really is no difference as there are strong standards here every refinery has to stick to. Second, not all companies have their own refinery in all areas so that let's say in one area BP sells to Aral, some independent petrol stations, where in other areas independent refineries sell to all petrol stations in that area. \nEverything else is pure voodoo which people like to belive in. ",
"This is kind of unrelated I used to work at a place with a lot of scales and the weights and measures dude would come in once a week to make sure we weren't ripping anyone off. Any way we were talking this one day and he mentions wawa(a convenience store in the Philadelphia area). \n\nHe told me that he personally will never but gas from anyone who isn't wawa. He said that a lot of the privately owned gas stations will change their pumps so they release less fuel i.e. It says 1 gallon but you actually get .80 or something. He told me about this mobile station he caught doing that. He fined them went and got a coffee then went back and they had already changed the pump back to less than a gallon. \n\nI only get gas at wawa now."
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dyn2ur | how come calls to ban smoking are not as widespread as calls to ban vaping? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dyn2ur/elif_how_come_calls_to_ban_smoking_are_not_as/ | {
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"Money. The smoking industry is large and has been around for a long time. They have the money to deflect accusations, pay for studies that benefit them, lobby against smoking regulations and do the exact opposite of those to competitive industries like vaping.",
"Smoking has already been banned in public spaces. The calls to ban vaping are mostly calls to have their use match the restrictions on cigarettes. \n\nThe calls for total bans of vaping are limited and misguided reactions to people getting sick from black market vaping liquid."
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1a16hk | why does everyone hate the new sim city? | I used to play Sim City 3000 back in the day on the PC. Haven't played the new one yet, but it sure is not very popular among gamers right now. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a16hk/eli5_why_does_everyone_hate_the_new_sim_city/ | {
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"It comes down to Digital Rights Management (DRM), which is essentially pirate protection software.\n\nThe developers decided to use \"always on\" DRM, which means you have to have an internet connection and a server connection to do anything on the game.\n\nFurthermore, the game is stored on the developer's \"cloud\", so you can't save the game on your computer.\n\nThese factors combined essentially mean that you are borrowing the game from the developer, instead of owning it, and no longer will be able to play it once the allocated server space is shut down. \n\nedit: Also, since these servers seem to not be working well, a lot of players have spent more time waiting to play than actually playing.",
"(Sung to the tune of Julie Andrews - `My Favourite Things')\n\nservers are laggy and shit's just all crashing\n\nthey said, \"not our shit man\", \"it must be your systems\"\n\nfinally too many people complained..\n\n*These are a few of my least favorite things!*\n\n\nMy little fake people, they just keep on freezing.\n\nthe lag is increasing, how can we be *the* problem?\n\ndon't those guys know how to cluster their shit?\n\n*These are a few of my least favorite things!*\n\nWhen the game sucks, when EA blows\n\nWhen I'm feeling sad, \n\nI simply remember \n\nmy favorite things (like CoD Black Ops, and Going Outside!)\n\nand then I don't feel so bad!",
"Well, why don't you try playing it? Oh wait, you can't. Just like the people who bought it!",
"To expand on this, I'll create an analogy I hope works.\n\nSay Sim City is actually a shovel. You've been waiting YEARS for this super awesome, advanced shovel, to hit the store shelves. Eventually it comes out and it cost you $80. It's a hike but you manage the coin and you get your new shovel. You can't WAIT to start digging. But there's a catch.\n\nYou've come to realize that you didn't actually purchase a physical shovel that you can use to your hearts content wherever you are. You just purchased the ABILITY to use that shovel, IN A SPECIFICALLY DESIGNATED SANDBOX. Let me explain.\n\nInstead of being able to dig in your backyard, you can only use your shovel in EA's yard. You can come dig whenever you want, but you can ONLY dig in EA's yard. Not a big deal you say? \n\nWell as we saw on release date, EA's yard was awesome for the first few hours, when only a few people were there digging. But the traffic increased. So much to the point where people got stuck in the gates. Now no one can go dig in EA's yard. Did I mention that EA keeps your shovel in their yard too?\n\nSo now you own an AWESOME SPECTACULAR shovel, that you've waited a long time to play with, and you can't use it because you can't get into the only yard you are allowed to play with your shovel in. And one day, EA is no longer going to have that yard. They will shut it down and move on. At that point, your shovel goes with them and you are left with nothing. But you still bought you say! Sorry. Therein lies the rub of \"always-on\" gaming.\n\nThis analogy makes more sense than you realize. Though Sim City IS a game, it's still a physical item. It used to be that, when you purchased a game, the disk included the entire game on it. All the code, all the levels, all the simulation coding, all the pictures and cut-scenes and characters, EVERYTHING. Sim City, on the other hand, contains only a shell. EA has set it up where you have your shell, but you need the guts from EA servers to run. Kinda like buying your shovel, but receiving only the handle. You need EA to lend you the head in order to do ANY digging.\n\nKeep in mind that digging in EA's yard is the coolest thing since sliced bread, and when it works, its magical. So what if it ALWAYS works? There are pitfalls there too. \n\nSay you are digging in EA's yard and you have the most awesome hole you've ever dug, bare none. This is the Sistine Chapel of holes and your blood sweat and tears are evident in each carefully crafted swipe. Suddenly, EA's yard is flooded out because they built their yard next to a river. You get washed out of the yard and sit there stunned. When you finally get back in the yard, you find that your hole is GONE. NOTHING left. Welcome to EA's yard, they say!\n\nSay you are busy crafting the Taj Mahal of holes and man does it rock. But you need more space to REALLY get this baby going. Sorry, you've reached the limits of the space accorded to you in EA's yard. If you want to continue digging, you must fill in portions of your hole to redig them, or you can move to a brand new plot and dig fresh. BUT you can't connect your two holes and make one huge hole, nor does your original hole continue digging while you are at the new hole. Sorry. Rules are rules.\n\nDoes this make sense?"
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1fbb6f | why do almost all life forms have to eat another form of life to survive? why can't we survive off of non-living organisms? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fbb6f/eli5_why_do_almost_all_life_forms_have_to_eat/ | {
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"I'm not sure I know what a non-living organism is. \n\nBut to answer the question, most life on Earth needs pretty much the same stuff to survive. Certain chemical compounds, namely fats, proteins, and carbs, are used to create the energy we need to power our cells and stay alive.\n\nSo where would one animal find something that it can eat that contains relatively concentrated amounts of everything an animal needs to survive? Another animal would probably work. Plants also contain certain nutrients that animals find useful, so they can eat plants as well.",
"Survival requires a constant energy input, and most non-living things cannot provide that energy input. They just don't have enough accessible stored energy.",
"Plants survive by synthesizing carbon dioxide in the air and energy from the sun into sugars they need. There are other types of organisms that feed themselves, including [chemoautotrophs](_URL_0_) (organisms that make food from chemicals; these guys usually hang out down around thermal vents deep in the ocean).\n\nHeterotrophs (organisms that eat other organisms or organic matter) exist because it's a very effective strategy.\n\nIt's resource intensive to sit around synthesizing food all day, and you're limited because you have to live in conditions favorable to food synthesis. (Plants need sun, for example.)\n\nA heterotroph can live anywhere it can catch food; for omnivores, that means anywhere plants live (for example) AND anywhere other animals live.\n\nPlus, edible organisms have already invested the energy necessary to organize those resources into useful materials; amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids, that can be used as-is or readily broken down into a form that can be exploited for energy.\n\nTL;DR:\n\nWhy would I spend the entire summer and fall walking back and forth into my cellar packing food away (and wasting energy to do it), when I can just find someone else who did that, kill them, and have *their* cellar *plus* ~ 150 + pounds of meat.\n\n(That example sounds sociopathic, but it's a decent analogy for the heterotroph strategy.)",
"\"Life forms\" includes all life, both plant and animal (actually there are even more, but lets just simplify it to these 2).\n\nAccording to wikipedia there is around 1,000x times more plant life (by mass) than animal life, so actually most life forms *don't* eat other life forms to survive.\n\nNow if your question is why do animals need to eat other life forms, it's because moving around and being active requires a lot of energy, more than it's possible to get from the sun alone. [XKCD did an interesting piece on this](_URL_0_), and calculated that if a cow could photosynthesise it would only get 4% of its daily energy from the sun.\n\nIf you think about it, grass spends weeks growing and constantly soaking up the sun, then an animal comes along and eats all that weeks worth of sun energy in one go.\n\nThat's also why plants aren't moving around like animals are, they just don't get enough energy to do anything other than grow.",
"non-living organisms...? dafuq!",
"Ummm you might want to reword your question... there is no such thing as a \"Non-living\" organism. By definition a organism is a living thing.\n\nSee: _URL_0_\n-- An individual form of life, such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protist, or fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life.\n",
"Because sunlight doesn't provide enough energy for humans to be powered by sun alone. Plants get by because they don't need huge amounts of energy; with a few rare exceptions, they have no moving parts. They can afford to be patient.\n\nHumans use an average of 2000 kilocalories per day - about 100 watts. Peak sunlight provides 1000 watts per square meter. Humans are nowhere near a square meter, even lying down - rough guesstimate, we're probably about 0.25 square meters lying down, and a fifth of that standing up. Still, if we were solar-powered we'd need \"leaves\" to collect the solar energy, so let's pretend we have those and they bump us up to 1 square meter.\n\n1000 watts is at midday on a cloudless day. In a 24-hour span you'll get on average about a quarter of that, less if it's cloudy. And photosynthesis only converts about 3% of that light into useable energy.\n\nSo, rough guesstimate: you'd get about a tenth of the energy you need to live from sunlight. That's with giant leaves growing out your back - otherwise it drops to 2-3%.\n\n(And sunlight is really the only viable energy source on Earth, barring undersea vents.)"
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6k49l8 | why do commercial airliners seem to "travel faster than sound" when they appear in one spot in the sky but sound like they're in another? | When viewed from the ground, why does a plane sound like its in one area but appear visually in another? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k49l8/eli5_why_do_commercial_airliners_seem_to_travel/ | {
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"Because the speed of light is about 300000 times faster that the speed of sound. So the image of the airplane reaches you much much faster than the sound of the airplane",
"A typical commercial airplane (let's say a 747) flies about 7 miles high. So if it is straight up above you, that's the closest it will be. If it's off at an angle it can be much further away.\n\nThe speed of sound is about 767mph. That means the fastest the sound could get to you from 7 miles up is 7/767 hours or around **32 seconds**. While you're waiting for that sound to get to you, the plane is still moving at about 570mph. In that 32 seconds it will travel **5.2 miles away from where you are hearing it**."
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70w8uk | why is it that, when taking "magic mushrooms" or lsd type substances that people often report feeling that "everything is connected"? | PS: Ive been thinking about this for a few months now and finally decided to ask the question. A few months ago, I was randomly stopped at a red light and was watching the adjacent traffic move. Then, all of a sudden, and for a fraction of a second, I felt that everything was connect on the planet and that time was rolling along. The feeling quickly subsided and I have not been able to tap into it again. When I concentrate, I can still bring up the feeling, but its not as intense as it was initially. Note: I was not on anything, and have never tried the substances mentioned in my title.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70w8uk/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_taking_magic_mushrooms/ | {
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"Give it a try, it helps to understand. It won't always be the case, but when it is, it's amazing and peaceful. Mind you, people can come about this feeling on their own, through meditation, but these naturally growing substances definitely aid in reminding the mind what life's truly about. ",
"Well for starters, everything *is* connected. We are all \"moving along\" in the same set of dimensions, space and time. When high or euphoric, people often make many types of obvious statements, suddenly realizing what has been in front of them all along, but they never stopped to take notice. \n\nThe overproduction or release of seratonin in your brain from using drugs is similar to the release when making social bonds, so one can be misconstrued for the other, e.g. \"being high on love.\"\n\n\"Magic mushrooms\" (psilocybin) and LSD both have strong time perception/dilation effects, and this might be why those drugs, in particular, have a reputation for the connected feeling you are referring to.",
"Hallucinogens make parts of your brain communicate that don't normally communicate. Since your perception of the world is a total manifestation of your brain activity, more connected brain activity feels like a more connected world and environment. Also everything really is connected, it's just one of those things that people tend to really really focus on while tripping.",
"I'm not a neuroscientist but hopefully the following isnt too wildly innaccurate as an ELI5.\n\nBrains work by having 'connections' / pathways between neurons, as you learn and age these become more solidified.\n\nLike maybe there are 30 possible routes you could drive between your home in Springfield and your friend's home in Shelbyville but you only ever take 1 or 2 out of experience and habit.\n\nAlso rather than having all your 'routes' in one giant network, you sort of 'nest' them. So maybe you remember the way from your friend's house to their nearest vendor of beer, the Shelbyville 7-11. And the way from your house to your local vendor of beer, the Springfield Kwik-E-Mart. But your mental map of the area doesn't have a route from the Kwik-E-Mart to the 7-11. Because either you're at their house, and you load your Shelbyville map, or you're at your house, and you use your Springfield map, you never deal with both at the same time. So even if you suddenly had to go between the two stores for some weird reason, you'd probably just go from the Kwik-E-Mart (nearly) to your home to pick up your usual house-to-house route, rather than plan a new more direct route, right? Because you know the way.\n\nAnd let's say you've also got a park in the region where you go for lunch sometimes with your mother, and that's also in a totally different part of your brain, the well-behaving, not drinking part :P\n\nPsychedelics (partly) work by encouraging neural connections outside of the usual routine. So suddenly you find yourself thinking \"what if I wanted to go from Kwik-E-Mart straight to the 7-11.... _by bike_?\", a new route you'd never pondered before, linking two previously 'separate' branches of your knowledge. \n\nAnd you realise actually if you were on a bike you could take a shortcut through that park, and you go, _holy shit dude, everything is so connected, if I went direct from the 7-11 to the Kwik-E-Mart I'd go through that park, wow that's crazy, I never realised that the park I go to with my mother is_ deeply, intrinsically _linked to the places I buy beer with my buddy_.\n\nYou always knew, deep down, the relative locations of the places, but you never \"knew\" they were linked by bike before, because, well, you don't have a bike, so your brain never made those connections. But taking psychedelics made your brain take all these new pathways like, hey, what if I have a bike. And surprised itself at the connections it found. Obviously this is a kinda stupid example because even a sober mind would probably recognise their basic local geography but you get what I mean hopefully. In reality it's more like _holy shit, worms and trains are really the same thing_ or whatever, like your pattern-matching brain is suddenly spotting all these metadata or taxonomical or abstract conceptual similarities between things in previously, notionally separate compartments of your brain. Because it's getting buzzed with literal physical connections, and eagerly pattern-matching is what it does.\n\nFrom an actual scientist -\n\n > Dr Carhart-Harris explained: “Normally our brain consists of independent networks that perform separate specialised functions, such as vision, movement and hearing – as well as more complex things like attention. However, under LSD the separateness of these networks breaks down and instead you see a more integrated or unified brain.\n\n > “Our brains become more constrained and compartmentalised as we develop from infancy into adulthood, and we may become more focused and rigid in our thinking as we mature. In many ways, the brain in the LSD state resembles the state our brains were in when we were infants: free and unconstrained. \n\n_URL_0_\n\ntl;dr you think things are \"connected\" because your brain is literally making connections between different areas that normally don't connect that represent those things",
"Because everything is connected... \n\nthe word \"psychadelic\" literally means bringing out the true mind, which is what these substances do. The revalation that everything is connected is simply a deep truth of the neural net.",
"While not dismissing the other reasons stated, I am always suspicious of any \"feelings\" under drugs. It is human nature to find connections - this is a very useful adaptive trait. e.g. I hit toe on rock, toe hurts, ahhh connection, must avoid hitting rock with toe. However it can easily go too far e.g. Obama has a foreign name, Muslims have foreign names, Obama must be a Muslim.\n\nI suspect the part of the brain that looks for and analyses connections goes haywire under psychedelics and stops working so well. It starts finding connections on weak or non-existent premises. This is a type of creativity and one job of of an artist is to show a connectivity between new things.\n\n"
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9xfzu8 | how do ketamine infusions work for those with chronic pain and ptsd? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xfzu8/eli5_how_do_ketamine_infusions_work_for_those/ | {
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"The research is still ongoing. There are a lot of theories. Simply put nobody currently knows how ketamine works to produce lasting changed in the brain. It's most famously catching on as a treatment for depression. "
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3pn8hf | phase velocity of light vs speed of light (c) | Thanks everyone! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pn8hf/eli5_phase_velocity_of_light_vs_speed_of_light_c/ | {
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"If you picture light as a particle tracing out a sine wave, the particle's forward velocity is the speed of light, and its location in the sine wave is the phase (if it's at the top, middle or bottom). \n\nFor a single photon, there isn't much difference. The interesting effects start happening when you have a bunch of photons traveling together. Every photon in the group travels at c, if they are all the same wavelength (if the sine waves they trace are equal) then the phase velocity will just be c, because they all trace the same wave over and over( lasers use this property. They set the photons up so they are all tracing the EXACT same sine wave). \n\nPhotons with different wavelengths (different length sine waves, stretched or compressed like a spring) then it is possible to line the photons up so the at the peaks of the sine waves line up for a moment, but then they diverge into random squiggling. The moment they line up and draw a single peak, they are \"in phase\" \n\nIt is also possible to set them up so that the single sine wave appears to \"move\" in the direction the photons are moving. It's really just an illusion, nothing is actually moving, other than the point where all of the wavelengths line up. So the phase velocity is how fast the point where all the photons are in is moving. The actual velocity is how fast the individual photons in the stream are moving (c). \n\n\n"
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mqbvu | why do your fingerprints get pruney when submerged in water for too long. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mqbvu/eli5_why_do_your_fingerprints_get_pruney_when/ | {
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"I read recently (I apologize for no citations, I forget where) that it is an evolutionary design to help grip in wet conditions. It's similar to treads on a tire that help keep traction on the road when it rains. The pruney fingers create ridges and paths for the water to leave the surface as your fingers grab onto things. ",
"One thing that's not been addressed, however, is why your fingers wrinkle when they get wet. This happens because the outermost layer of your skin absorbs more water than the layer just below it. The places where the two layers join most tightly don't wrinkle, while the rest of the skin swells outward. ",
"I read recently (I apologize for no citations, I forget where) that it is an evolutionary design to help grip in wet conditions. It's similar to treads on a tire that help keep traction on the road when it rains. The pruney fingers create ridges and paths for the water to leave the surface as your fingers grab onto things. ",
"One thing that's not been addressed, however, is why your fingers wrinkle when they get wet. This happens because the outermost layer of your skin absorbs more water than the layer just below it. The places where the two layers join most tightly don't wrinkle, while the rest of the skin swells outward. "
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4ahgz1 | what happens to the body when sleeping only once every 2 days? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ahgz1/eli5_what_happens_to_the_body_when_sleeping_only/ | {
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"The most sudden effects of sleep deprivation occur in the eyes, night vision and pupil dilation speed are noticeably reduced after only 18 hours awake. Also eyes become bloodshot.\nNext to go is long term memory, as long term memory is mostly solidified during deep sleep. \nIssues focussing on tasks and short term memory loss come next, usually shortly followed by \"fragmentation\". Which is characterized by paranoia and severe issues focussing and recalling even the most basic and engrained facts (such as your birthdate or the names of common objects).\n\nDifferent people have different susceptibilities to sleep deprivation, but overall we sleep for a reason, so get an adequate amount if possible. ",
"Not greatly understood why, the brain needs to restore and recharge itself once a day. It needs time to process the new information, and cannot adequately do this while actively receiving new information from being awake.\nIf you don't allow it to, first your controlled functions such a cognitive function and memory retention do not process correctly. If continued, you start to lose innate brain processing functions such as eye sight and hearing. \n",
"I get a funny \"second wind\" after the right amount of sleep deprivation. I worked 23 hours yesterday, started again for just 4 hours this afternoon and will do another 3am start, long day tomorrow.\n\nThere are some hard times. Driving home sucks and requires a lot of attention. But there is a point where you seem to just go hard, even though you're running on fumes.\n\nI crash hard after this kinda crap though. Last week I slept for the better part of 18 hours after a long shift.\n\nLongest shift was about 36hrs. I think it was a few days before I felt human again after that.",
"I go through occasional periods of time where I only sleep every other day for about 1-2 weeks. I don't really notice much out of the ordinary aside from the obvious (\"Oh hey, it's morning again. Guess I didn't sleep.\"), but if it gets to the 36-48 hour mark, I start feeling a little loopy. Perhaps a little similar to being drunk but much more on the thought/focus aspects than the motor skills aspect which kicks in more past 48-60 hours (as do mild hallucinations) if I'm in one of these every-other-day sleepless high modes, but they start sooner if I'm not experiencing one of those periods and just chose to pull an all-nighter and not sleep until the following night for whatever reason.",
"When you sleep, your body and brain do internal housekeeping where they (via macrophages, neutrophils, and phagocytes) clean up chemical byproducts (waste). When you don't sleep, the housekeepers don't come and your brain is literally swimming in waste (or fecal matter, if you prefer). That's why you're groggy and not functioning properly. ",
"When you sleep, your body goes through a process that reduces the stress and usage by 30%-35%. All body processes slow. During this period of reduced usage of your body....healing is greatly increased. Another interesting thing to note is that when you sleep your brain cements memories or things that you have learned the previous day. By not sleeping, your are preventing your body from healing, creating memories, and reducing the usage of the body. So basically, you are causing yourself to die earlier. "
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374ea6 | if fifa is a horribly corrupt entity, why don't the players and countries stand together to create a new association that actually is "for the good of the game"? | I've heard all manner of reports about corruption, bribery, human rights violations, etc. What I don't understand is that if the system is so inept, why not replace it with something new? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/374ea6/eli5_if_fifa_is_a_horribly_corrupt_entity_why/ | {
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"Because it's been entrenched for years, almost literally a century at this point, and the player/leagues are making millions upon millions so they have no incentive to change it.",
"The current system actually is \"for the good of the game\" if by \"the game\" you mean making money for the players, owners, and organizations. The corruption has, thus far, not impacted the quality of play or ability of folks to make money, so it won't go away anytime soon. It would take conscientious boycotting by players and sponsors to bring about any change, and most players are not getting paid millions, so they take what they can get."
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3ywgsc | why is it so much more difficult to inflate (with your mouth) a straight (sausage-shaped) balloon versus a traditional-shaped balloon? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ywgsc/eli5_why_is_it_so_much_more_difficult_to_inflate/ | {
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"Assuming the balloons are equal in other respects (made of the same material, same thickness, etc...), the surface area of the skinny balloon will change more rapidly with respect to a change in volume than a round balloon's. For each breath, you'll have to apply more force to get that air in the skinny balloon as a result.",
"The larger balloon has, in effect, greater gearing. If you introduce say 10cc of air, it only increases the circumference by a small amount in a large diameter balloon, but by proportionately much more in a narrow balloon. The work done is related to how much you're stretching the rubber - very little with a big balloon, a lot with a narrow one, but all with the same size breath. "
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5a6w9l | why do stimulants tend to be appetite suppressants? | I was thinking about this when giving my girlfriend cold medicine with ephedrine at work today. Once I started thinking about it I remembered "skinny drugs" being a big deal in highschool (cocaine and Adderall). Is it only the few I'm currently thinking of or is it a characteristic of the effect they cause? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a6w9l/eli5_why_do_stimulants_tend_to_be_appetite/ | {
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"Amphetamines work by increasing the amount of dopamine released in the brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, involved in many important functions such as movement and motivation. It also sends the signal that you are satisfied -- which has significant implications when it comes to appetite. In fact, research released in February 2001 in \"Lancet\" suggested that dopamine deficiency may contribute to obesity. On the flip side, people taking Adderall have a reduced appetite because they have higher dopamine levels."
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78yc60 | how do things like the perpetual stew stay edible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78yc60/eli5how_do_things_like_the_perpetual_stew_stay/ | {
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"Sourdough pretzels and bread are much the same, but the \"return\" batch doesn't sit around long enough for it to be an issue, and is such a low quantity in the \"new\" batch that it's negligible. ",
"Most of the bacteria/mold/etc. that spoil food only thrive at moderate temperatures. So if you keep the pot of stew hot enough at all times, they won't grow and the stew won't spoil."
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1tksn1 | why is san francisco and oakland two distinct cities, yet so close to each other? in essence, why are "twin cities" developed, such as minneapolis and st. paul? | I feel like one could easily be the suburb of the other or something. I view San Jose as a suburb of San Francisco and/or Oakland. I'm just confused by the proximate development of twin cities. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tksn1/eli5why_is_san_francisco_and_oakland_two_distinct/ | {
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"The cities were much smaller when they were first founded. If you look at old maps of cities, most of them occupy the area that would be considered \"downtown\" today. So the neighboring cities/towns just keep growing and growing until they \"meet\" in the middle. \n\nOther times, cities will \"merge\" or smaller ones will be absorbed. For example, New York City used to be five cities--New York (Manhattan), Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island. Now these five cities make up one city (still comprised of the same five boroughs). ",
"I've lived in both San Francisco/Oakland and Minneapolis/StPaul-- the stories are pretty similar. \n\nBefore cars, it took a fairly long time to get from Oakland to San Francisco (either you had to take a boat, or go South through San Jose). Their economies were always relatively intertwined, but they developed independently and competed for resources. With bridges and subway, San Francisco, Oakland and the whole Bay Area are relatively intertwined but there's no incentive for the richer cities to adopt and pay taxes to poorer ones (and no one wants to lose sovereignty) so they stay independent.\n\nSaint Paul was the last port town. It was the farthest North boats could easily travel on the Mississippi river. It was founded as an outpost near a frontier fort. Later, during the industrial revolution, Minneapolis grew because the waterfall in the Mississippi river allowed for flour milling. \n\nLong story short: when they developed, they weren't physically touching--",
"Typically, many small cities develop in the same area develop as separate entities. As they grow, they run into each other. Often, one large city comes to dominate, and the rest take on a subordinate role, like in Chicago, Boston, or Houston. \n\nOther times, some of the cities are far enough apart (Dallas/Fort Worth) or separated by a natural boundary (Minneapolis/St. Paul, San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose) that they are able to maintain a distinct identity."
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1rv1km | what are the rules of naming a certain software version? like 1.0.3. | Does it have something to do with the amount of changes?
Bonus question: What do you do when you have reached 1.9. I mean like when minecraft reaches that point, and aren't ready to release a version 2. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rv1km/eli5_what_are_the_rules_of_naming_a_certain/ | {
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"No rules. It is just easier for everyone to understand.",
"You're close, it's usually for the significance of those changes. It's more of a guideline than a universal rule, but usually the first number is for major software changes, the second for minor changes, and more numbers are even fewer changes. From 1.9 they would most likely go to 1.10. It helps to think of them as multiple separate numbers instead of one long decimal.",
"Whatever the developer wants, this stuff works by convention. So what I'm about to say only applies if the developer is being sensible.\n\nIn most normal circumstances the first number is only increased for major changes and new features. the second number is for smaller changes, often just fixes rather than new features. Beyond that you're into numbers which are really only useful for programmers. The third, fourth etc numbers can usually be traced back to a particular set of code files from a particular time/date and are used when tracking bugs/issues in the software.\n\nAs for your Minecraft example; the numbers are read as separate numbers not decimals. So the version after 1.9 is 1.10.",
"X.Y.Z\n\nX = Edition change (Major change in software). Often adds/subtracts/changes functionality to the software\n\nY = Large change, which usually changes but does not add/subtract functionality, but not a complete edition change\n\nZ = Small change, often adjustments, like \"patches\"\n\nSo, over the course of a software you will see:\n\n1.0.0 > 1.0.1 > 1.1.0 > 1.1.1 > 1.2.0 > 1.2.1 > 2.0.0\n\nKeep in mind the \"release\" edition can be any number, not just the X.0.0. because they will often have several patches to fix unexpected \"things\" before release. So you may see 1.1.3 or 2.5.6 as your \"release\" editions.\n"
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jhkup | base numbers (differences between binary, base 16, etc.) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jhkup/eli5_base_numbers_differences_between_binary_base/ | {
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"**ELI5:** A number system is like a big grid. In each square of the grid you can put different colors. Depending on the \"base\" of the number system each square can have any of a different amount of colors in it. In base 5 there are 5 different colors available, in base 29 there are 29, etc.\n\nDifferent patterns in that grid can be used to represent different things, like a value, or a *number*, as you know it.\n\n**ELI12:** A number system is like a table, with only one row. Each column has a value. The right most column's value is always 1. Then, each column, off into infinity, has the value of the column to its immediate right multiplied by the number system's *base*.\n\nSo if our number system had the base of 2, the right most column would have the value of 1 (it's always 1, no matter the base, remember), and the column next to that would have a value of the previous column (which is 1, remember) multiplied by the base (which is 2), and therefore that column has the value of 2. The column *next to that* will have the value of the base (2) multiplied by the value of the previous column (2), or 4. The next one will have 4 multiplied by 2 (the base), or 8 as it's value.\n\nNow, in each of these columns is a quantity less than the base. A number is like a big sum where you add the sum of each quantity multiplied by the value of the column it's in.\n\nLet's imagine our base is 10 (you know this base very well, it's the one we use in everyday life). Let's imagine our number is 40,726.\n\nSo, perhaps our table looks like this:\n\n A B C D E\n Value: 10000 1000 100 10 1\n Quantity: 4 0 7 2 6 \n\nYou'll notice that E - the left most column - is the value 1, like always. The next one - D - is the value of E (the column to the right of it) multiplied by the base - 10. The result is 10. 1 x 10 = 10.\n\nThe next column - C - has the value of the value of D (the column to C's right) multiplied by the base, or 10 x 10 = 100.\n\nThe pattern continues off to the right, for ever, if we need it to.\n\nNow let's add up the values.\n\nSo in the E column quantity we have 6. That means we have 6 of E's value, or 6 x 1. So the total so far is 6.\n\nIn the D column we have 2, or 2 of D's values, or 2 x 10 = 20. We add 20 to our total, which now becomes 26.\n\nNext column is 7 x 100, or 700. The total is now 700 + 26, or 726.\n\nNext column has 0 x 1000, or 0. Add 0 to 726, we have 726.\n\nNext column is 4 x 10000, or 40000, to which we add 726, for 40726.\n\n40726 is our original number, but that's easy, because we all know how to use base 10.\n\nLet's try base 16 - hexadecimal\n\nIn hexadecimal (or hex), we have 16 possible numerals. They go from 0 - 9, and what is called 10 in denary (base 10) is called A in hex. 11 is B, then it's C, D, and finally 16 is E.\n\nLet's imagine the hex number 7C1. The values of each column, going from right to left are 1 (as always). 1 x 16, or 16. And 16 x 16, or 256.\n\nWe have 1 of the value 1, so our total is 1. We have C (which means 12, remember) of the value 16, so the total is now 12 x 16 = 192 + 1, or 193.\n\nWe have 7 of the value 256 (I'm getting out my calculator), which is 1792. Add the existing total of 193, and our new final total is 1985.\n\nThe hex number 7C1 is the same as the denary (base 10) number 1985.\n\nBinary is base 2. The columns in binary, from right to left, go 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and so on.\n\nThe binary number 10100, will have no 1s, no 2s, a single 4, no 8s, and a 16. So that's 16 + 4, or 10100 in binary is the same as 20 in denary.",
"For normal counting, we use up to 10 different digits until we decide to add another digit; when the number becomes too large to be represented by just a single digit on its own. We use 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.\n\nWhen we add another digit, the original goes back to it's lowest value and a new digit is added which represents \"stacks\" of the previous digit. So if we take the numbers 10, 20, 30 etc.. the digits 1, 2 and 3 represent stacks of \"tens\" because 10 is the next number after 9, but cannot be represented in just a single digit.\n\nWhen we use other bases, like binary (only 0 and 1) or hexadecimal (0 to 9, then A to F) we are simply saying we will use more or less individual digits to represent values. In hexadecimal, we choose A to be the next digit after 9. So in actuality, A represents \"ten\". We don't need to add another digit until after F (which represents fifteen), so the 1 in \"10\" in hexadecimal actually represents the next number after F... which is 16.\n\nThis is how all number bases work.",
"Remember when you learned to count? You would hold up one more finger for each new number, until all your fingers were up. Then you had \"10\", and if you needed to keep going you would put all your fingers down and keep going, but you would remember to add the \"10\" again at the end. If you got to \"10\" ten times, you would need to remember to add \"100\" at the end as well. Since you have ten fingers, this is called base ten.\n\nNow imagine that you had sixteen fingers. Everything would be the same, but now when you had ten fingers up you wouldn't put them all down again. You would keep going until all sixteen fingers are up. To make things easy, let's call having ten fingers up \"A\", eleven fingers \"B\", right through fifteen, \"F\". When you finally had all sixteen fingers up, you would now have \"10\", put all your fingers down, and keep going. Seventeen fingers would be \"11\", eighteen would be \"12\", twenty-six would be \"1A\", twenty-seven would be \"1B, thirty-one would be \"1F\", and thirty-two would be \"20\". If you get to \"10\" sixteen times, you would have \"100\", or two hundred fifty-six.\n\nNow imagine you only had two fingers. Everything's the same as before. One finger is one, and all two fingers are two, or \"10\". Put them down, and keep going. Another finger is three, or \"11\", and all fingers again is four. Since you only have two fingers, two \"10\"s is \"100\", or four. If you keep counting, five is \"101\", six is \"110\", seven is \"111\" and eight, being two \"100\"s, is \"1000\".\n\nNow imagine you had any number of fingers, and this method still works. It doesn't matter if you imagine three fingers or twenty-seven fingers or a billion fingers, it still works.",
"Imagine you want to tell your uncle how many sheep you have but because he lives a long way away you need to tell him by mailing him a letter.\n\nOne way to convey the number would be to use a system of tallying: for every sheep you own you make a mark on the piece of paper. This seems like a good plan so you begin. The first sheep passes by \"|\". Then another \"||\". Then another \"|||\". And so on. Things are going really well but by lunch time you've filled up your sheet of paper with marks and there are still many sheep left to count. This isn't going to work at all - you need to write down too many symbols/tally marks.\n\nYour next attempt is to try to find a single symbol which will convey the number of sheep. You start walking past the sheep again, thinking of a new symbol with each sheep you pass: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, ... , x, y, z, !, @, #, $, ... , *, (, ). At this point you get stuck: you can't think of any more symbols and there are still many sheep left to count. This isn't going to work at all. You don't know enough symbols and even if you did, how could you remember them in the right order?\n\nFeeling a bit depressed you head back home for lunch. While you eat your bowl of rice you think about the issue some more. It strikes you that when you brought this rice at the market the shopkeeper didn't count out each individual grain. Instead she filled two little brown sacks and sold those to you instead. You realise that this might help you to solve your counting problem. Maybe you could try to combine break the sheep up into groups of the same size. Then you'd only have to deal with a smaller number of groups of sheep rather than a larger number of individual sheep. That would make things simpler.\n\nWhen you get back into the paddock you decide to break the sheep into groups of ten. After all, that's as many fingers as you have on your two hands so it will be easy to explain to your uncle the group size. You work steadily through the afternoon, separating the sheep into groups of ten until all that remain are three left over sheep. You have some number of groups of ten sheep and then three more individual sheep. (Some number + 3 x Individual sheep)\n\nYou then look at the groups of sheep. There are fewer groups than sheep but there are still so many groups left. It has all been for nothing.\n\nYou are feeling pretty depressed about this when suddenly a flash of inspiration hits you. Perhaps you could form groups of groups of sheep. That would reduce the number even further!\n\nYou set about this work again, combining the groups of ten sheep ten at a time. By the time you have finished you have seven groups of ten sheep left over. So in total you have Some number of sheep + 7 x Group of ten sheep + 3 x Individual sheep.\n\nLooking back at the paddock you can see you have five groups of ten groups of ten sheep. At last a manageable number and just in time too as the sun is going down. In the fading light you write down that you have 5 x Group of ten groups of ten sheep + 7 x group of ten sheep + 3 x Individual sheep.\n\nThe problem seems basically solved but you're going a bit cross-eyed trying to keep track of writing down \"groups of ten\" and \"groups of ten groups of ten groups of ten\" and \"groups of ten groups of ten\" and whatever else it might be. Instead you decide to eliminate those phrases all together and just let the place of the number symbol denote the level of nesting of the groups of ten. The number on the right will represent the number of individuals left over. The number second on the right will be the number of groups of ten. The number third on the right will be the number of groups of ten groups of ten. The number forth on the right will be the number of groups of ten groups of ten groups of ten. And so on.\n\nAt last you write to your uncle that you have 573 sheep. There are 3 individual sheep (3 x 1), 7 groups of ten sheep (7 x 10) and 5 groups of ten groups of ten sheep (5 x 10 x 10). You've used some new words in your letter so you write down an extra explanation on the bottom: \"1\" is this many \"|\", \"2\" is this many \"||\", \"3\" is this many \"|||\", ... , \"9\" is this many \"|||||||||\" and \"ten\" is this many \"||||||||||\".\n\nYou mail off your letter and retire to bed. It has been a long days work and you are pretty tired. Just before you fall asleep however, a thought strikes you. Even though you used groups of size ten, as many as you have fingers, you didn't need to do that. Your friend down the road had two fingers cut off in a freak farming accident. If he had been figuring this out he might have decided to use groups of size eight and just the symbols 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Then the number would have been 1 group of eight groups of eight groups of eight, 0 groups of eight groups of eight, 7 groups of eight, and 5 individual sheep. Or 1075 in your place value system, with the understanding that we are using groups of size eight not ten.\n\nThis turned out to be a useful insight as years later humans invented machines they called computers. This machines were very fast at doing mathematics to add and multiply numbers but they only had two fingers. So while in the first system we could write 12 to represent 1 group of ten and 2 individuals, the computer had to think of the same number as 1 group of two groups of two groups of two (1 x 2 x 2 x 2), 1 group of two groups of two (1 x 2 x 2), 0 groups of two (0 x 2) and 0 individuals (0 x 1), or 1100 in the place value system, again noting that we are using groups of size two.",
"[Here](_URL_0_) is a transcript of a guy teaching a third grade class about bases.\n\nHis point was to test out the Socratic Method (teaching by asking questions, not lecturing, etc.) and he just used numerical bases to do so. It's not very mathy, but provides a very solid explanation of bases. Even if you already get bases, I think you'll find it interesting how these kids minds work.\n\n",
"Others have covered the ELI5 angle rather well, I just wanted to point out something that I think makes it easy. Imagine the number 1024. What we really have is:\n\n4 \\* 1 (or 4 \\* 10^0 ) + \n2 \\* 10 (or 2 \\* 10^1 ) + \n0 \\* 100 (or 0 \\* 10^2 ) + \n1 \\* 1000 (or 1 \\* 10^3 )\n\nBinary and all other bases work the same way, you just substitute the \"10\" for whatever base you're using instead. 11011?\n\n1 * 1 (or 1 * 2^0 ) + \n1 * 2 (or 1 * 2^1 ) + \n0 * 4 (or 0 * 2^2 ) + \n1 * 8 (or 1 * 2^3 ) + \n1 * 16 (or 1 * 2^4 )\n\nTa-da, 11011 adds up to 27 in base 10.\n\nWhat's really mindboggling, is that *every* base is base 10. < /brain trolling > ",
"**ELI5:** A number system is like a big grid. In each square of the grid you can put different colors. Depending on the \"base\" of the number system each square can have any of a different amount of colors in it. In base 5 there are 5 different colors available, in base 29 there are 29, etc.\n\nDifferent patterns in that grid can be used to represent different things, like a value, or a *number*, as you know it.\n\n**ELI12:** A number system is like a table, with only one row. Each column has a value. The right most column's value is always 1. Then, each column, off into infinity, has the value of the column to its immediate right multiplied by the number system's *base*.\n\nSo if our number system had the base of 2, the right most column would have the value of 1 (it's always 1, no matter the base, remember), and the column next to that would have a value of the previous column (which is 1, remember) multiplied by the base (which is 2), and therefore that column has the value of 2. The column *next to that* will have the value of the base (2) multiplied by the value of the previous column (2), or 4. The next one will have 4 multiplied by 2 (the base), or 8 as it's value.\n\nNow, in each of these columns is a quantity less than the base. A number is like a big sum where you add the sum of each quantity multiplied by the value of the column it's in.\n\nLet's imagine our base is 10 (you know this base very well, it's the one we use in everyday life). Let's imagine our number is 40,726.\n\nSo, perhaps our table looks like this:\n\n A B C D E\n Value: 10000 1000 100 10 1\n Quantity: 4 0 7 2 6 \n\nYou'll notice that E - the left most column - is the value 1, like always. The next one - D - is the value of E (the column to the right of it) multiplied by the base - 10. The result is 10. 1 x 10 = 10.\n\nThe next column - C - has the value of the value of D (the column to C's right) multiplied by the base, or 10 x 10 = 100.\n\nThe pattern continues off to the right, for ever, if we need it to.\n\nNow let's add up the values.\n\nSo in the E column quantity we have 6. That means we have 6 of E's value, or 6 x 1. So the total so far is 6.\n\nIn the D column we have 2, or 2 of D's values, or 2 x 10 = 20. We add 20 to our total, which now becomes 26.\n\nNext column is 7 x 100, or 700. The total is now 700 + 26, or 726.\n\nNext column has 0 x 1000, or 0. Add 0 to 726, we have 726.\n\nNext column is 4 x 10000, or 40000, to which we add 726, for 40726.\n\n40726 is our original number, but that's easy, because we all know how to use base 10.\n\nLet's try base 16 - hexadecimal\n\nIn hexadecimal (or hex), we have 16 possible numerals. They go from 0 - 9, and what is called 10 in denary (base 10) is called A in hex. 11 is B, then it's C, D, and finally 16 is E.\n\nLet's imagine the hex number 7C1. The values of each column, going from right to left are 1 (as always). 1 x 16, or 16. And 16 x 16, or 256.\n\nWe have 1 of the value 1, so our total is 1. We have C (which means 12, remember) of the value 16, so the total is now 12 x 16 = 192 + 1, or 193.\n\nWe have 7 of the value 256 (I'm getting out my calculator), which is 1792. Add the existing total of 193, and our new final total is 1985.\n\nThe hex number 7C1 is the same as the denary (base 10) number 1985.\n\nBinary is base 2. The columns in binary, from right to left, go 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and so on.\n\nThe binary number 10100, will have no 1s, no 2s, a single 4, no 8s, and a 16. So that's 16 + 4, or 10100 in binary is the same as 20 in denary.",
"For normal counting, we use up to 10 different digits until we decide to add another digit; when the number becomes too large to be represented by just a single digit on its own. We use 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.\n\nWhen we add another digit, the original goes back to it's lowest value and a new digit is added which represents \"stacks\" of the previous digit. So if we take the numbers 10, 20, 30 etc.. the digits 1, 2 and 3 represent stacks of \"tens\" because 10 is the next number after 9, but cannot be represented in just a single digit.\n\nWhen we use other bases, like binary (only 0 and 1) or hexadecimal (0 to 9, then A to F) we are simply saying we will use more or less individual digits to represent values. In hexadecimal, we choose A to be the next digit after 9. So in actuality, A represents \"ten\". We don't need to add another digit until after F (which represents fifteen), so the 1 in \"10\" in hexadecimal actually represents the next number after F... which is 16.\n\nThis is how all number bases work.",
"Remember when you learned to count? You would hold up one more finger for each new number, until all your fingers were up. Then you had \"10\", and if you needed to keep going you would put all your fingers down and keep going, but you would remember to add the \"10\" again at the end. If you got to \"10\" ten times, you would need to remember to add \"100\" at the end as well. Since you have ten fingers, this is called base ten.\n\nNow imagine that you had sixteen fingers. Everything would be the same, but now when you had ten fingers up you wouldn't put them all down again. You would keep going until all sixteen fingers are up. To make things easy, let's call having ten fingers up \"A\", eleven fingers \"B\", right through fifteen, \"F\". When you finally had all sixteen fingers up, you would now have \"10\", put all your fingers down, and keep going. Seventeen fingers would be \"11\", eighteen would be \"12\", twenty-six would be \"1A\", twenty-seven would be \"1B, thirty-one would be \"1F\", and thirty-two would be \"20\". If you get to \"10\" sixteen times, you would have \"100\", or two hundred fifty-six.\n\nNow imagine you only had two fingers. Everything's the same as before. One finger is one, and all two fingers are two, or \"10\". Put them down, and keep going. Another finger is three, or \"11\", and all fingers again is four. Since you only have two fingers, two \"10\"s is \"100\", or four. If you keep counting, five is \"101\", six is \"110\", seven is \"111\" and eight, being two \"100\"s, is \"1000\".\n\nNow imagine you had any number of fingers, and this method still works. It doesn't matter if you imagine three fingers or twenty-seven fingers or a billion fingers, it still works.",
"Imagine you want to tell your uncle how many sheep you have but because he lives a long way away you need to tell him by mailing him a letter.\n\nOne way to convey the number would be to use a system of tallying: for every sheep you own you make a mark on the piece of paper. This seems like a good plan so you begin. The first sheep passes by \"|\". Then another \"||\". Then another \"|||\". And so on. Things are going really well but by lunch time you've filled up your sheet of paper with marks and there are still many sheep left to count. This isn't going to work at all - you need to write down too many symbols/tally marks.\n\nYour next attempt is to try to find a single symbol which will convey the number of sheep. You start walking past the sheep again, thinking of a new symbol with each sheep you pass: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, ... , x, y, z, !, @, #, $, ... , *, (, ). At this point you get stuck: you can't think of any more symbols and there are still many sheep left to count. This isn't going to work at all. You don't know enough symbols and even if you did, how could you remember them in the right order?\n\nFeeling a bit depressed you head back home for lunch. While you eat your bowl of rice you think about the issue some more. It strikes you that when you brought this rice at the market the shopkeeper didn't count out each individual grain. Instead she filled two little brown sacks and sold those to you instead. You realise that this might help you to solve your counting problem. Maybe you could try to combine break the sheep up into groups of the same size. Then you'd only have to deal with a smaller number of groups of sheep rather than a larger number of individual sheep. That would make things simpler.\n\nWhen you get back into the paddock you decide to break the sheep into groups of ten. After all, that's as many fingers as you have on your two hands so it will be easy to explain to your uncle the group size. You work steadily through the afternoon, separating the sheep into groups of ten until all that remain are three left over sheep. You have some number of groups of ten sheep and then three more individual sheep. (Some number + 3 x Individual sheep)\n\nYou then look at the groups of sheep. There are fewer groups than sheep but there are still so many groups left. It has all been for nothing.\n\nYou are feeling pretty depressed about this when suddenly a flash of inspiration hits you. Perhaps you could form groups of groups of sheep. That would reduce the number even further!\n\nYou set about this work again, combining the groups of ten sheep ten at a time. By the time you have finished you have seven groups of ten sheep left over. So in total you have Some number of sheep + 7 x Group of ten sheep + 3 x Individual sheep.\n\nLooking back at the paddock you can see you have five groups of ten groups of ten sheep. At last a manageable number and just in time too as the sun is going down. In the fading light you write down that you have 5 x Group of ten groups of ten sheep + 7 x group of ten sheep + 3 x Individual sheep.\n\nThe problem seems basically solved but you're going a bit cross-eyed trying to keep track of writing down \"groups of ten\" and \"groups of ten groups of ten groups of ten\" and \"groups of ten groups of ten\" and whatever else it might be. Instead you decide to eliminate those phrases all together and just let the place of the number symbol denote the level of nesting of the groups of ten. The number on the right will represent the number of individuals left over. The number second on the right will be the number of groups of ten. The number third on the right will be the number of groups of ten groups of ten. The number forth on the right will be the number of groups of ten groups of ten groups of ten. And so on.\n\nAt last you write to your uncle that you have 573 sheep. There are 3 individual sheep (3 x 1), 7 groups of ten sheep (7 x 10) and 5 groups of ten groups of ten sheep (5 x 10 x 10). You've used some new words in your letter so you write down an extra explanation on the bottom: \"1\" is this many \"|\", \"2\" is this many \"||\", \"3\" is this many \"|||\", ... , \"9\" is this many \"|||||||||\" and \"ten\" is this many \"||||||||||\".\n\nYou mail off your letter and retire to bed. It has been a long days work and you are pretty tired. Just before you fall asleep however, a thought strikes you. Even though you used groups of size ten, as many as you have fingers, you didn't need to do that. Your friend down the road had two fingers cut off in a freak farming accident. If he had been figuring this out he might have decided to use groups of size eight and just the symbols 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Then the number would have been 1 group of eight groups of eight groups of eight, 0 groups of eight groups of eight, 7 groups of eight, and 5 individual sheep. Or 1075 in your place value system, with the understanding that we are using groups of size eight not ten.\n\nThis turned out to be a useful insight as years later humans invented machines they called computers. This machines were very fast at doing mathematics to add and multiply numbers but they only had two fingers. So while in the first system we could write 12 to represent 1 group of ten and 2 individuals, the computer had to think of the same number as 1 group of two groups of two groups of two (1 x 2 x 2 x 2), 1 group of two groups of two (1 x 2 x 2), 0 groups of two (0 x 2) and 0 individuals (0 x 1), or 1100 in the place value system, again noting that we are using groups of size two.",
"[Here](_URL_0_) is a transcript of a guy teaching a third grade class about bases.\n\nHis point was to test out the Socratic Method (teaching by asking questions, not lecturing, etc.) and he just used numerical bases to do so. It's not very mathy, but provides a very solid explanation of bases. Even if you already get bases, I think you'll find it interesting how these kids minds work.\n\n",
"Others have covered the ELI5 angle rather well, I just wanted to point out something that I think makes it easy. Imagine the number 1024. What we really have is:\n\n4 \\* 1 (or 4 \\* 10^0 ) + \n2 \\* 10 (or 2 \\* 10^1 ) + \n0 \\* 100 (or 0 \\* 10^2 ) + \n1 \\* 1000 (or 1 \\* 10^3 )\n\nBinary and all other bases work the same way, you just substitute the \"10\" for whatever base you're using instead. 11011?\n\n1 * 1 (or 1 * 2^0 ) + \n1 * 2 (or 1 * 2^1 ) + \n0 * 4 (or 0 * 2^2 ) + \n1 * 8 (or 1 * 2^3 ) + \n1 * 16 (or 1 * 2^4 )\n\nTa-da, 11011 adds up to 27 in base 10.\n\nWhat's really mindboggling, is that *every* base is base 10. < /brain trolling > "
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36k0ul | [economics] why does the united states not have a socialist safety net, a nationwide "living wage", nor an updated set of laws governing workers' rights, but we still bring home less money after taxes than some of our labor counterparts in regions like the eu, australia and canada? | Just for some clarity, what I mean with the "socialist safety net" is stuff like single-payer universal healthcare, subsidized college/university education or technical education, better unemployment benefits, et cetra.
I've been trying to educate myself on this issue, but I feel like I'm missing something.
Edit: Changed "secondary" to "college/university" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36k0ul/eli5_economics_why_does_the_united_states_not/ | {
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"I think part of the reason is because you wasted a ton, and I mean a TON of money on wars you couldn't afford and now the tax burden that would have been able to be spent on great social supports (which also create a return on GDP growth much greater than the amount taxed) instead goes to servicing the interest on that debt."
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1s00sm | why does the mpaa get so much criticism? | And I'm talking beyond the documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated, as I feel that that film only focused on a small part of a larger issue. What about the interactions among the big movie studios and the MPAA draws criticism? I hear the words trust and monopoly get thrown around. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s00sm/eli5_why_does_the_mpaa_get_so_much_criticism/ | {
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"Because they are not a very pure system.\n\nThere is plenty of evidence that the MPAA is easily corrupted by the larger studios. They are able to \"buy\" the rating they want on a movie and hurt smaller (but well made) movies by getting them rated more harshly.\n\nSo the single organization that controls movie ratings (a monopoly) takes actions that are negatively impacting the business of movies (by hurting smaller less wealthy studios)."
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155b4f | why songs can get stuck your head and seem normal when repeating lyrics, but when you repeat a word over and over in your head it starts to sound stupid? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/155b4f/eli5_why_songs_can_get_stuck_your_head_and_seem/ | {
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"The phenomenon of repeating a word and it sounding weird is called [Semantic Satiation](_URL_0_)\n\nWhy does this happen? Well, no one really knows... though the idea is that when you repeat a word, say \"temple\" the ending of temple \"ple\" get's added onto the beginning of temple....so it then sounds like pletem pletem pletem pletem....\n\nWhen you're repeating lyrics you're saying a phrase of words. Not one word. The words make sense as you're saying words."
]
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202al5 | eli26: how does the russian military stack up against the u.s. military? what would an all out wwiii be like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/202al5/eli26_how_does_the_russian_military_stack_up/ | {
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"Both sides have sufficient nukes to destroy the other within 90 minutes max.",
"Not well. \n\nRussia certainly has a potent military, but the US is currently in a league of its own in terms of the naval and airforce power. \n\nOther than that it's hard to say, since the location would play a major factor. The US logistics is possibly their strongest advantage, so any war where they both have to leave home, the US would be much better equipped to keep their military supplied.\n\nI can't see a scenario where we tried to invade russia proper, but that would be russia's best chance at success, fighting from home.",
"An all-out WW3 is extremely improbable today if just because of modern technologies - in WW1 and 2, land-based forces could be transported across the sea without being instantly destroyed because of the relatively short ranges of air-to-ground weaponry. But today the United States can fire cruise missiles at ships at a distance of up to a thousand kilometers. Against that kind of capability, there can be no sea-based transport of men or munitions.\n\nRussia's armed forces can be used offensively against other countries, but not against the United States, save for ICBMs and submarines.",
"[Nice summation here](_URL_0_)\n\nThe US is dominant in nearly every category. Russia does have more tanks and basic artillery but many of those are older equipment that wouldn't last long against a modern military. Consider what the US did to Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm for a look at T72 vs Abrams. Russia would put up a fight but they don't even have the naval capability to invade the US. Russia would do some damage to our allies in Europe but once The US started rolling we would return Russia to the stone age pretty fast.\n\nRussia does have nuclear weapons and the ability to deploy them against the US. On the other hand the US has the ability to create a missile defense system capable of stopping the Russians within a matter of months. We have the technology but have not produced the necessary number of missiles and radar installations because of nonproliferation treaties with Russia. If Russia wants to go nuclear they have to do it in the first 2-3 months of the war to truly be effective. Casualties would be incredibly high but probably not the end of the world scenario that most people assume.",
"Wars of today's age and the future will deal more with deterrence through strategically placed anti-balistic missile systems, economic superiority, and breakthrough technologies.\n\nRussia ranks second to the US as far as military might goes, but you also have to take into account positive and negative externalities such as allies joining, home front advantage, etc.\n\nRussia can match the US for boots on the ground as far as armored vehicles are concerned, but America has a superior air force and naval power. The US has 10 Aircraft Carriers as opposed to Russia's 1. Controlling the Pacific would be paramount to victory in this situation, and the US is well suited in defending it's borders. \n\nFor the most part America and Russia have been in an arms race since WWII, checking each others military advances in a paper rock scissors-esque manner. For example, the US developed the first nuclear capabilities during WWII, then Russia spies access the know-how and develop their own. The US then counters this by developing \"Star Wars\" and other anti-ballistic missiles. Russia can't stop America from placing defenses for \"humanitarian\" reasons all while villainizing Russian military strength. That's what is happening at this very second in time: America seeks to undermine Russian influence in Ukraine by disposing of the puppet government and supplant their own, thus having their camps/anti-missile systems in Russia's backyard. \n\nWWIII will be unlike any conflict seen before. I personally believe space conflict will play a huge role in the control of information and satellite interface, after all we are living in the Information Age and whoever can control what is said and done wins the war. All of it is moot if one side presses the \"big red button\" in which case we'll probably not see the war, only a hot flash, but if we do, both sides have already lost and we'll have to figure out another reason to keep killing one another.",
"The biggest problem for the US is simply running out of smart munitions, as it stands a hellfire or similar is used to destroy a tank, against hundreds of tanks those supplies will run down very quickly indeed.",
"Obligatory Einstein Quote: \"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.\"",
"Currently the USA (counting everything related to the military) has the largest military in the world, so assuming our leaders smartened up and didn't get us all wiped out with nuclear war, the US should be able to easily beat the russians. (Assuming we didn't attack during their winter)\n\nexplains what US has vs Russia-\n\n_URL_0_",
"nice try, Obama"
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2xotz8 | why are smartphones coming out with a 64 bit processor but < 4gb ram? | Does it have any other benefit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xotz8/eli5_why_are_smartphones_coming_out_with_a_64_bit/ | {
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"Having more RAM is only one benefit of 64bit processing, and it's one worth ignoring because it's honestly difficult to use that much RAM on a phone unless you just carelessly leave all of your apps open draining your battery. And its best to just prepare for 64bit to be necessary so that old apps still work when 32bit is phased out.",
"Well if you've already hammered out your 64bit support before you need it for the RAM that's always nice, of course.\n\nThere are some other advantages, though none I would imagine are Earth-shattering. 64bit CPUs would also generally use 64bit registers, which means you can potentially keep more useful information in the CPU at a time. ",
"The new features in 64-bit cores (like ARMv8 AARCH64) are also used in non-phones along with the addressing.\n\nSo you might have a server with > 4GB of ram using the same ARMv8 architecture as your phone even if they physically have different CPUs.\n\nSome of the added features typically found on 64-bit processors\n\n- Ability to manipulate 64-bit values in a single cycle. Handy for public-key crypto\n- More general purpose registers\n- Usually feature wider and deeper SIMD register files\n- Usually feature crypto instructions (AES, hashing, GFM, etc...)",
"Absolutely! CPU's also link to memory-mapped files (MMF because I'm lazy), not just RAM. So what's the difference? RAM is used for the active process, MMFs are used to store background processes. So to apply that to a phone: You're browsing Reddit on your phone and get a picture sent to you on Snapchat. If you switch apps from the browser to Snapchat, Snapchat takes over the RAM and your browser's information is put on hold in a MMF. When you switch back to the browser, the process reverses and Snapchat goes to a MMF and your browser resumes using RAM.\n\nNote that MMF is also known as \"virtual ram\"."
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ap326o | how do supermarkets not detect your stuff as stolen if you buy multiple of them? | Sorry if the title is a bit hard to understand. I know goods have anti-theft tags that get deactivated upon scanning, but sometimes when I buy a number of the same item the clerk would just scan one of them and enter the amount to get the payment (i.e. Only scanning one of the three Nutella jars,...). | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ap326o/eli5_how_do_supermarkets_not_detect_your_stuff_as/ | {
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"Most products like that don't have security tags. Honestly, the only food product I've seen with a security tag is meat.",
"The Nutella jar doesn’t have an anti-theft tag. Usually only high value items have such a thing, like razor blades and electronics. \n\nIf the item has an anti-theft tag, just scanning the barcode doesn’t deactivate it, they have to deactivate it with something else. In this case they have to deactivate each item. ",
"On a normal till, the cashier is the judge of the amount you have, on a self service, the bagging area is a scale and is programmed with how much stuff should weigh. If you scan one but put 3 down, it will detect excess weight. Some people steal things by weighing everything in as onions or other produce because that doesn't have a barcode. That's why the self service are staffed by one or two employees.",
"Anyway the barcodes themselves aren't different for each jar of Nutella. The machine can't tell if you are scanning ten different jars or the same jar ten times. It makes perfect sense to scan one jar and say \"times ten\".\n\nAssuming you like hazelnuts.\n\nThis has nothing to do with antitheft tags. If present, they are deactivated with a different system. And Nutella won't have the tags.",
"OP, the next time see how they handle multiple stuff that have rfid tags on them (the in-built kind, not the reusable detachable type).\n\nI'm not sure but I doubt they secure stuff like Nutella with rfid tags.\n\nedit1: Don't roast me but I did some minor shoplifting as a kid. Stuff like fancy pencil sharpeners. I was never caught but I self-corrected cause it pulled on my conscience as I got a bit older."
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64rcoa | why hydraulic presses are so strong. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64rcoa/eli5_why_hydraulic_presses_are_so_strong/ | {
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"Hydraulic presses have very large mechanical advantage. When you have gears, connecting one gear to another that's twice as big gives you twice as much force. To get a lot more force, you need a pretty bulky mechanical contraption. \n\nIn a hydraulic press, it's the ratio of the area of the big piston to the area of the little piston. Area is the square of dimension, so a piston that's 5 times bigger applies 25 times more force. That lets you apply a lot of force with a smaller gizmo."
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1jnhjw | how do extremist terrorist groups keep gaining new members? | How does the indoctrination of youth or young adults into the ideologies of muslim extremism or other terrorist groups work? Do terrorists raise children and brainwash them? Do they kidnap children and put them in training programs? Is it simply cultural habit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jnhjw/eli5_how_do_extremist_terrorist_groups_keep/ | {
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"the united states kills their leaders with drones, which makes them seem like martyrs to the community and gains them sympathy, while also building their hatred for america"
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11kbgj | the work of the 2012 nobel prize in economics winners. | 0_o | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11kbgj/eli5_the_work_of_the_2012_nobel_prize_in/ | {
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"The prize is for their work in matching. Basically, if you have a completely standard good you don't really care who you get it from - only that you get it. When you buy electrical power for your house, for example, the actual power itself doesn't really matter - only the price, customer service, convenience (etc) matter. As a result, anyone can offer you basically the same deal, if they want. To get what YOU want, you only have to find a deal. You don't have to find a deal AND a special type of seller who can offer it.\n\nIn contrast, there are a lot of matching problems that are - subtly - economic in nature. The biggest one I hear about regularly (I'm an economist) is the \"school choice\" problem. It's very difficult to come up with a good mechanism* for getting kids to the schools (or universities) they want to go to while also letting schools choose which kids they admit. Shapley's theories help address these hard matching problems, especially by describing what solutions look like. Roth's work is more empirical - it consists of experiments and implementations of Shapley's theories.\n\n* A mechanism, in this context, means some way of giving the schools and/or students a way to express preferences (about who they get matched with) as well as a way of translating those preferences into actual sets of matches. This is all done while keeping in mind that people may try to report their preferences strategically, so they really end up with who they want to end up with rather than who they *said* they wanted to end up with. \n\nFor example, one mechanism is to have students rank their preferred schools in order. Whichever one is most frequently given the top ranking gets a random drawing of students who most-prefer it. Then this school is removed from everyone's lists and the next school gets a random drawing of students who now most-prefer it (and so on until you run out of schools). This mechanism really, really sucks. Schools don't get any choice in the matter, and which ordering you give of schools might depend heavily on the order everyone else does. One important challenge is to come up with better mechanisms."
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65lu0e | goals and methods of international cyber-warfare | When I think of 'hacking', I think of small-scale operations on poorly-secured networks, done for mischief or limited financial gain. For example, the Life-Lock data breach, or the PlayStation Network being DDoS'ed for a relatively short time.
I can't seem to wrap my head around entire *countries* being able to gain access to other country's information, like in the case of China hacking the USA. The NSA probably has the best minds in the world working there; It seems like it would be impossible to try and hack government databases and the like.
I took an 'Intro to InfoSec' course in college, so I can understand some basic technical terms, but that's it. Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/65lu0e/eli5_goals_and_methods_of_international/ | {
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"No network is completely secure. The US Military as of 2008ish no longer allowed thumb drives onto their networks. Prior to this they were quite commonplace. Allegedly, all though this is just a rumor I heard a number of years back, this was because Chinese agents sprinkled a handful of thumb drives around the parking lot of the Pentagon that were infected with Malware. All it took is one employee at the Pentagob picking one of them up, sticking it into his computer to see who it belonged to, likely in an attempt to return it to its owner, and BAM, the entire network is now compromised. It can really be that simple."
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zzjqe | the huge craze over gangnam style. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zzjqe/eli5_the_huge_craze_over_gangnam_style/ | {
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"Probably the same reason there was so much hype over dubstep recently. If youre into that style of music, its pretty fun to listen to.",
"Because its a Korean man doing crazy stuff to a catchy song. That's the perfect formula for popularity. ",
"oppan gangnam style"
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2ehn8b | why do we instinctively breathe using the top half of our torso when using the abdomen is apparently healthier? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ehn8b/eli5_why_do_we_instinctively_breathe_using_the/ | {
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"It's not actually 'wrong'. You 'use' the top half of your torso because it makes space for your lungs to expand. \n\n'Using' your abdomen means that you are consciously focusing your breathing movements on your diaphragm, which is what actually draws your lungs in and out for you to breathe. This can be healthier because it can compress your lungs more, allowing you to push out more CO2 by emptying out your lungs more and therefore slightly increase the concentration of O2. \n\nUsing the top half of your torso is intuitive because it allows you to intake more air if necessary (by expanding your chest, giving room for your lungs to expand), such as when exercising. \n\nYour body prioritizes air intake in that situation over a marginal increase in O2/decrease in CO2, because the gas ratios won't matter if you can't actually exchange the gases fast enough. It's intuitive because your body can't switch between reflexive behaviors. ",
"I instinctively breathe using my abdomen.\n\nMy biology teacher told me that men are more likely to use their abdomen to breathe than women, but that athletes noticeably favor abdomen breathing less (either gender)\n\nSo my guess is that abdomen breathing is easier, but less efficient."
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1sscz2 | what happens to people who attempted to commit suicide (in your country)? | Again I saw a picture of a man getting safed while trying to commit suicide. [Example](_URL_0_)
What happens with people like him, after getting safed? Do they get psychological help, or may they have to go to court/jail, and maybe get punished for attempted suicide?
Please ELI5.
(and sorry my english isn't very good, i'm from germany) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sscz2/eli5_what_happens_to_people_who_attempted_to/ | {
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"In the US, a person who is suicidal is placed under watch in a hospital for supervision and later a psychiatric ward for a period of time. They receive a diagnosis and counseling. After a report from a psychiatrist they can be released into the custody of family members while receiving weekly counseling. ",
"Taken in by the police for a psychiatric assessment, most likely put under a Form which allows the doctors to hold them against their will for a certain duration.",
"USA here. I know of a teenager who took a whole bunch of her medication to end it so her mom took her to the emergency room. They stablized her and then after she was better they sent her home. They told the family not to scold her and suggested that she should be sent to a psychiatric hospital. They ended up not admitting her to one and had her go to a psychologist. They were told to hide her medication and give it to her on a scheduled basis.\nEDIT: She is fine now. It's been like a year and a half. She still goes for counseling.",
"Jail and police torture for failed suicide attempt in india. \n Section 309 of IPC-Dhara 309-Attempt to commit suicide\n\nSection 309 of IPC-Dhara 309-Attempt to commit suicide:\n\nWhoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for term which may extend to one year 1 [ or with fine, or with both].\n\nCLASSIFICATION OF OFFENCE\n\nPunishment—Simple imprisonment for 1 year, or fine or both—Cognizable—Bailable—Triable by any Magistrate—Non-compoundable.\n\nCOMMENTS\n\n'Attempts to commit suicide' as under sections 306 and 307\n\nA person who jumps into a well in order to avoid and escape from her husband and subsequently comes out of the well herself, cannot be convicted under this section if there is no evidence to show that she wanted to commit suicide; Emperor v. Dhirajia, AIR 1940 All 486.\n\nRight to die vis-a-vis Right not to die\n\nThe Supreme Court has set aside its earlier judgment in P. Rathinam/ Nagbhushan Patnaik v. Union of India, JT 1994 (3) SC 392, wherein the Court had struck down section 309 as unconstitutional. In a country where one-half of its population still live below the poverty line, the right to die by suicide cannot be granted to any person. Article 21 of the Constitution, which gives right to life and personal liberty, by no stretch of imagination can be said to impliedly include right to death by committing suicide. The section is also not violative of article 14. There is no requirement of awarding any minimum sentence. The sentence of imprisonment or fine is not compulsory but discretionary; Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, JT 1996 (3) SC 339.\n\n----------------------------\n\n1. Subs. by Act 8 of 1882, sec. 7, for \"and shall also be liable to fine\"."
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db4jn1 | what prevents plants from biodegrading while they are alive? | Also, can one conclusively decide when a plant has gone from "alive" to "dead"? It doesn't seem as clear-cut as it is for animals. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/db4jn1/eli5_what_prevents_plants_from_biodegrading_while/ | {
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"Plants have a sort of immune system. Just as with animals, this prevents their rotting while it's working.\n\n_URL_0_"
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3v1ye6 | why doesn't higher camera megapixels not always translate into better camera qualities? | For example, the iPhones stayed on 8 megapixels for a while but still outclassed 12 megapixels cameras. Some 12 megapixel cameras still outclass 18 megapixel cameras. What do manufacturers do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v1ye6/eli5_why_doesnt_higher_camera_megapixels_not/ | {
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"Because pixel count is only that: pixel count. \n\nImagine a 400Megapixel camera that always took pictures that were grey and colorless. You'd have a lot of pixels, but it wouldn't overcome the lack of color. Lots of pixels just means very *detailed* lack of color.\n\nThere are a ton of other things that are important for a picture. Color accuracy, noise, distortion, speed, sensitivity, etc. The goal is to produce the best possible compromise. Enough pixels to be detailed, but not so many that they overwhelm other design considerations. \n\n"
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6k3g53 | how is it cheaper to hire a third party contracting company to hire employees rather then just hiring someone internally? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k3g53/eli5_how_is_it_cheaper_to_hire_a_third_party/ | {
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"You only hire staff you think you will need long term. The contractor is responsible for time off, benefits, and training, and can be terminated easily (do not renew contract). \n\nThis makes sense for short-term staffing increase needs (say, building a building - you contract that to builders, you don't staff up your company to include carpenters, plumbers, and electricians). This can become a problem when, for some reason, management's assumptions about workload prove inaccurate."
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699q59 | how is it we can often accurately guess a person's ethnicity by their voice alone, regardless of where in the world they are from? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/699q59/eli5how_is_it_we_can_often_accurately_guess_a/ | {
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"You mean accent? \n\nIt's because learning English as a second language leaves traces of your mother tongue. Certain pronunciations are distinct, requiring years of practice to smooth out. Some grammar and diction choices are strong tells as well, as other languages may use pronouns differently or have different sentence structure. Attempting to translate directly into English often leads to identifiable idiosyncrasies in these areas. \n\nSome people never become 'perfect' English speakers, despite years of immersion. "
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13jhmj | are records better than cd's? why hasn't a higher quality format for cd's been introduced?
downloads. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13jhmj/eli5_are_records_better_than_cds_why_hasnt_a/ | {
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"There has been a [better quality CD introduced](_URL_0_). It's been around for a decade and nobody's started using it because CDs are good enough.\n\nIf you think about it, everyone was buying iPods when they had *worse than CD quality sound*. The majority of consumers don't care about quality as long as it's \"good enough\".\n\nAs for records, it's a funny area. CDs are technically better than records & don't degrade as you use them but the music they've generally had put on them has been of worse quality. I'm not saying that \"modern music is crap, the old stuff is better\" but modern music recording techniques have tried to make things \"louder\". Look around for things on the [loudness war](_URL_1_).",
"At a certain point the quality of sound is limited not by the recording and playback medium, but by the quality and fidelity of the playback equipment. If you rate sound quality on a scale from 1-10, the reality is that the vast majority of people probably don't own a playback device capable of reproducing anything over a 5. The vast majority of people could also probably not tell the difference between a 7 and 10, either. \n\nThis doesn't provide a very compelling argument for the industry to implement a widespread change in technology that a very small minority of people would actually notice and/or pay a premium for. "
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4mc865 | why do striped clothes go crazy on cameras? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mc865/eli5_why_do_striped_clothes_go_crazy_on_cameras/ | {
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"In short it's something called the \"moire effect\" where to sets of lines interfere. \n\nIf you take one piece of screen and slide it across another this effect is apparent. In your example the first set of lines is the clothing, the second is the resolution.\n",
"It's called the moiré effect. It's a bit difficult to explain but it happens when the stripes on the clothing is as fine as the pixels on the cameras sensor. The stripes of the clothing doesn't hit the sensors pixel dead on but it's a bit of. So the camera can't make a right stripe of it. And so when the person or the camera moves the lines seems like they are moving because sometimes the sensor sees them the way they are and the next picture it's just off again. "
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1n2w5r | how do corporations and wealthy individuals minimise their tax? can a 'regular joe' use the same techniques? | Kerry Packer (at one time Australia's richest man) once said to a governmental enquiry:
"I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now of course I am minimizing my tax and if anybody in this country doesn't minimize their tax they want their heads read."
How do the wealthy and big corporations minimise their tax? Are these same techniques available to everyone else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n2w5r/eli5_how_do_corporations_and_wealthy_individuals/ | {
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"They do so by exploiting older laws regarding source of income, taxation, and place of business. One such arrangement is the double irish, with several variations.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nFrom the wiki:\n > It is called double Irish because it requires two Irish companies to complete the structure. The first Irish company is the offshore company which owns the valuable non U.S. rights. This company is tax resident in a tax haven, such as the Cayman Islands or Bermuda. Irish tax law provides that a company is tax resident where its central management and control is located, not where it is incorporated, so that it is possible for the first Irish company not to be tax resident in Ireland. \n\n > The first Irish company licenses the rights to a second Irish company, which is tax resident in Ireland, in return for substantial royalties or other fees. The second Irish company receives income from exploitation of the asset in countries outside the U.S., but its taxable profits are low because the royalties or fees paid to the first Irish company are deductible expenses. The remaining profits are taxed at the Irish rate of 12.5%.\"\n\n\nI don't know how to explain the setups very well, but heres a very simplified example explaining the concept:\n\nAccording to law in delaware and in new hampshire, there is no sales tax. On small orders, who cares? But on big orders, it can be a substantial amount of money.\nIf you are buying a ton of stuff and want to save money, you can setup your business in delaware and not pay sales tax. If you are not based in delaware you can't take advantage of this.\n\n\nSo imagine theres a set of laws that dictate what is taxed based on where and how income is generated, and where something is officially incorporated. One can theoretically set up a system to minimize taxes by navigating the laws. \n\nOne such company: \n_URL_0_\n\nIkea has some strange scheme whereupon the \"main\" company is owned by some small charity, and taxes are based on the charity as a \"non-profit\" organization:\n\n > The parent for all IKEA companies—the operator of 207 of the 235 worldwide IKEA stores—is Ingka Holding, a private Dutch-registered company. Ingka Holding, in turn, belongs entirely to Stichting Ingka Foundation. This is a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt, non-profit-making legal entity \n\n\nThe main thing is that these setups are only really beneficial with extremely large amounts of money, and can only be established with a fairly large amount of money to begin with. \n\n\nDoes the average joe have enough money to establish an office in ireland and the caymans? Doubtful.\n\nIn short, no, the average joe cannot implement these methods without being charged with some sort of fraud, nor would they be very effective anyway. \n\nThat is one reason many people are so angry at these corporations, because on paper they pay as much tax as the government asks of them based on their arrangement, and it is not illegal to do, whereas other smaller companies pay greater taxes because they do not have the capital or know-how to establish this sort of thing.",
"Yes, a regular Joe can do the same thing. The law in the US, at least, is same for everyone. However, you would need to redefine your relationship with the law. \n\nCitizens, earn money, pay taxes on those earnings, spend what is left over. \n\nCompanies, earn money, spend as much as they can, pay taxes on what is left over. \n\nAll you have to do is become a company and you can do the same thing. In Texas, you can do so by registering your company with the county records office for a whopping $11, at least that was the price 10 years ago, it may be more now. \n\noperating a 501c3 charity is another method you could use as well. Then you would just donate your salary to the charity and write it off your income taxes. There would be other things you would need to have in place to make it work out for you but a tax lawyer or accountant would be the best persons to advise you further. \n\nIn the USA setting up a company can be done very cheaply. The downside is the paperwork you would need to maintain in order to qualify for less taxation. If you are not willing to do that yourself then you have to hire a person to do it for you. So instead of having your money taxed away, you could wind up spending it away on legal structures designed to reduce taxation. It is still quite doable and I have known several persons who are doing it successfully, and have participated in it myself\n\nI made the mistake though of getting interested in the charity aspect and loving the charitable work more than the tax benefits. So that is how I spend my time and money now. ",
"Tax attorney here, experience in large financial institutions.\n\nNot the same as corporations; they utilize all kinds of tax code provisions unavailable to individual tax payers (even operating through partnerships, LLCs, etc.). You're not getting away with double irish/dutch sandwich (which I assume is delicious). The thing is there's a tension in the Code: you are under no obligation to pay maximum taxes, bit you can't do tax transactions for the primary purpose of generating tax benefits. So where's the line between efficient tax planning and tax evasion? We've been trying to figure that out for 80+ years.\n\nThere are unique shelters that were \"sold\" to high net worth individuals by banks and accounting firms (KPMG loved this shit), but that's sort of slowed down. Check out BOSS, Son of Boss, and SILO/LILO (those were popular among rich guys). The IRS is absolutely crushing it taking ERRBODY to court lately, so the advisory firms are trying to keep a low profile. Not to mention since the passage of FATCA the IRS has deputized the world's financial institutions to help it catch Americans avoiding their taxes, so the era of hiding your wealth overseas is coming to an end.\n\nTL;DR - nope, regular people can't really do the exotic shit. Best you can do is move somewhere cheap or vote Republican.",
"Start a religion and build a church. Run your business in the name of your god. Tax free for eternity",
"In theory it's possible. In practice setting up various offshore companies with complicated contractual relationships requires various regulatory and professional service fees that likely would make it a losing proposition for someone without high wealth or income.",
"Others have given you an answer, but not very good, concise answers... \n\nEveryone can, and does, minimize their taxes. A great many individuals donate cars, clothes, etc, and take those donations as deductions against their taxes; that is tax avoidance, just the same as companies do. \n\nThe difference is that companies and wealthy people have much larger sums of money with which to play. \n\nThere are several individual tricks which are only available to certain taxable entities (corporations and partnerships). A person in a partnership, for example, can turn almost all of his income into capital gains and therefore greatly reduce his tax burden. Capital gains rates have been modified recently, but they used to be 15% whereas a wealthy person could be paying around 40% in income taxes. When we're talking about millions per year, that is a great savings. \n\nBut doing this is all completely provided for in the tax code, it is a feature, not a bug; therefore it is not a loophole but mere, legal, avoidance. \n\nGenerally, how partners in a partnership can characterize their income as capital assets is: all the income, according to the law, passes through the partnership to the individuals. Then, and this is the \"trick,\" the individuals loan that money to the entity which then pays the individuals payments on the loan; those payments are characterized as capital investments of the individual and not regular income. ",
"I'm not going to describe how the cooperations avoid tax, because it's already described well enough. But I have a simple example on how to take on the second question (How does a regular joe get the same benefits?)\n\n\nBasically you stop being a regular joe and turn into a company instead. So instead of receiving a salary, paying tax and buying a car from the remaining cash, you need to start a company, sell your service as a consultant, buy a car in the company, and then pay company tax. Basically keeping as many of your costs in the company as the law allows.\n\n\nThis involves a fair amount of paper work, so you'll need to hire an accountant and pay various other company fees. This makes the company model seem more expensive than just running a regular joe household. However the trick is that these extra costs are somewhat fixed amounts, so if your income is big enough the savings in tax can make up for it.\n\n\nThere are other risks to it as well, so it's not a magic formula. It's more a question about figuring out if the risk is worth it. For most regular joes it is not, but if you're in doubt: hire an accountant to figure it out.",
"The answer is yes and no. A lot of tax \"loopholes\" are deductions and credits for businesses So someone who just has a job can't take advantage of many of the benefits that \"rich people\" do because most rich people own businesses. There are however many things that rich people do that everyday people can do, its just the scale and types of tax deductions and credits you can qualify for and capitalize differ drastically if you have money than if you don't have money. For example, one of the largest write off anyone can have is the mortgage interest deduction which is available to anyone who owns their own house. Someone with a larger mortgage has more interest to write off than someone with a relatively smaller loan and for people who rent they can't take advantage of this at all. As far as tax credits, the types of tax credits available are extremely different if you have money vs not having money. For example A middle class person may receive a tax credit (which is different from a tax deduction) on a solar water heater or a photo-voltaic system for their house, but a rich person can afford to put up a solar farm and reap a much larger tax credit (because the government wants to incentivize people to help create alternative energy sources) and also make money by selling the power to the electric company thus making more money.\n\nTL;DR Some of the things are just not possible for middle class people and things that middle class people can do, rich people can do at a much larger more effective scale.",
"I figured one day my experience might be useful to someone.\n\nI used to work in a 'Tax Haven', namely Guernsey. I was a senior administrator for one of the large, but local [wealth management firms](_URL_1_).\n\nMy day to day duties involved spreading and transferring large amounts of funds through different Limited Companies and Trusts that were either set up within Guernsey/Jersey/BVI etc. for the purpose of tax planning/minimising.\n\nI'm leaving a brief explanation of how this system works below, but to answer you query regarding regular folk (usually with a net worth under £1/2mil), this isn't a viable option due to the costs involved to set up the structures needed and pay the firms who manage them\n\nIt gets a little bit complicated when I say Limited Companies as the companies are what you could call shells. They were registered with the local authority and submitted all appropriate tax returns etc. and were totally legal. However they didn't actually trade in anything, they had no employees, however they did have Shareholders (usually the rich kids) and a set of Directors, who worked for the wealth management firm.\n\nThese companies were sometimes owned by Trusts. Trusts are a bit like companies, but can't engage in trading or business but can own assets and bank accounts etc. They do not have shareholders or directors, but beneficiaries and trustees.\n\nTo put it as simply as I can: Rich Kid owns a tonne of shares in a big clothing company in the UK. Rich Kid is about to recieve [Dividends](_URL_0_). Rich Kid will have to pay tax on all his income from these dividends in accordance with UK law.\nHowever, on Guernsey, there is a 0% tax rate on income from Dividends. So Rich Kid approaches Wealth Management firm and asks them to make it so he can take advantage of the 0% tax rate in Guernsey.\nWealth Management firm agrees and offers to help Rich Kid, for a fee of course.\nSo Rich Kid agrees, and the fee will be taken out of the share dividends.\n\nWealth Management firm sets up (in Guernsey): Company A and Trust A\nCompany A has all its shares owned by Trust A\nCompany A's board of directors are all employees of Wealth Management Firm\nTrust A's beneficiary is Rich Kid\nTrust A's Directors are all employees of Wealth Management Firm\n\nRich Kid has transferred all all his shares ownership to Company A. Rich Kid no longer has any stake in Clothing Company and is not taxed on any dividends gained from those shares.\n\nClothing Company pays out dividends to Company A - It is exempt from income tax in the UK as it exists outside its boarders. Company A pays 0% income tax on dividends in Guernsey.\n\nWealth Management firm extracts its fee from the dividends received by Company A (as the WMF has employees as Directors, it has executive power to transfer funds for payment, usually written on the accounts as 'Consultation')\n\nCompany A directors then pay out dividends to Trust A (this will be the sum of the dividends received from Clothing Company minus fee).\n\nTrust A now decides that Rich Kid is ready to receive some money, so this is transferred in to a bank account in Rich Kids name (probably in the UK, but most likely in another offshore jurisdiction)\n\nRich Kid now has access to the funds that were originally from the Clothing Company's Dividends. As Rich Kid has received these funds from a Trust, he does not have to declare them as Income, and will pay a heavily reduced if not 0% rate, when the funds are received back in the UK.\n\nThis is all possible because the offshore jurisdictions (Guernsey, Jersey, BVI etc.) are not under any obligation to reveal the accounts of Trusts or Companies that are registered there, to the UK, US etc. The only time they would, is if there was the possibility of criminal activity being involved along the way.\n\nNone of the above is illegal. It happens every day and is known by every regulatory body. But, they way in which laws are written, those who can afford to plan for tax, can do so with shocking efficiency.\n\nIt's a LOT LOT more complicated than all that, usually involving multiple layers of companies and trusts and bank accounts all over the world. It is intended to make it is difficult as possible to trace the origin of monies transferred to the UK.\n\nI'm sure I've missed some major points here, but with these services ranging from £2000 per trust/company a month, you can see that you need significant income/liquid assets to be able to afford it. The only thing stopping regular people is the cost.",
"Multinational corporations like McDonald's for example, avoid paying taxes in tax-heavy countries such as the scandinavian countries by purchasing their own suppliers so they can control the price of what they buy. So for example, they will acquire an argentinian meat producer and charge the McDonald's division in a tax heavy country absolutely absurd prices on meat, and in that way they rearrange their revenue to whichever part of the world they will pay less taxes in, ultimately resulting in them paying practically no taxes in some countries as they will have 0 revenue in that country.\n\nThis is of course very simplified and only one little trick to tax minimization that global corporations will have in their arsenal.",
"ITT: Advice worth every penny paid. If you want to minimize tax, seek a professional.",
"The TL;DR version is that you \"minimise\" your tax by paying an exceptionally good accountant and in most cases an exceptionally good tax attorney to tell you how to do it without breaking the law and more importantly to defend you if/when the IRS questions your actions.\n\nRegular Joe's can certainly do this too, but given that the cost of a really good accountant, a really good tax attorney and the processing fees to do the stuff they tell you to do will add up more than most people actually pay in tax and instead of that money going to provide valuable services it will go to provides a new boat for the attorney and/or lawyer. It's not really worth it.\n\nIn terms of what Packer was saying he means that anyone who knows they are able to claim something against their tax and doesn't is probably nuts. Of course in Packer's world wanting to pay your fair share towards the common good instead of making somewhat questionable claims on your taxes would be considered insane so take it with a grain of salt.\n\nGenerally speaking, about the only thing that any ordinary Joe can do to make a significant dent in his tax liability will cost more than that tax liability and is only really worth it if you really hate the government that much that you'd rather spend more money to avoid funding it. If that is indeed the case, you're probably better off trying to find a government you don't hate that much and going to live where it is in power.",
"You can also hire some guy to sit in a rented office in a country with a really low tax rate and then just claim that you earned your profits in that country, paying pennies to the \"host\" government and completely avoiding the taxes in your own country. Does that sound like money laundering...? _URL_0_",
"One huge thing that I don't feel that has been adequately explained here, when it comes to special entitities like corporations, is that you as a regular citizen Pay taxes and then spend whats left. A corporation on the other hand, only pays taxes on whats left after they spend their money. The spend money then pay taxes. In this way, a corporation limits their tax exposure by maximizing their expenses and limiting their end of year assets and cash on hand. "
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1b818d | what is so bad about regressive taxing? | I was reading a /r/Futurology post about taxation and such, and repeatedly people were saying that regressive taxing is bad. I looked it up because I wasn't too sure what it was, and I thought it sounds fair, but what's so wrong about it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1b818d/eli5_what_is_so_bad_about_regressive_taxing/ | {
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"Generally things that hurt poor people more than rich people are considered bad, as most people aren't rich.",
"Because 5% of 10,000 affects the spender a hell of a lot more than 25% of 10,000,000.\n\nYou can get by on *only* 7.5 million.\n\nIt's difficult to get by on 10,000 before 5% is taken away. The 5% gone is just a kick in the teeth.",
"Regressive taxing means people with less money are hit with a higher tax rate. Here is a simple example using a tax on food, which is an example of a tax that is often regressive in its impact. \n\nLets say we decide to tax milk so that every gallon of milk you buy, you pay $1 in tax. On the surface this can seem very fair because everyone pays the same. Your family buys a gallon a week and pays $1 in tax, and your friend Susie's family also buys a gallon a week and pays $1 in tax. Equal, right? \n\nBut let's say your family only has about $10 in income per week. That $1 you spend on milk taxes represents 10% of your income. Susie's family makes a lot more money, like $1000 a week, but with their money they don't typically buy more milk (and therefore pay more milk tax). Instead they they buy a lot of other things like toys and dance lessons and trips to the zoo, things that dont have that milk tax. So that $1 tax that they spend on milk only represents one-tenth of one percent of their income. \n\nWhenever you tax basic things that people tend to need to buy, like food, or gas, then you have this effect. This wouldn't happen if people with more income tended to spend a lot more on those taxed goods. That is, if Susie's family used their extra money to buy 100 gallons of milk each week, then the effects of the tax would stay more even. But you know familiues only buy so much milk! Instead, people tend to use extra income to buy a more diverse mix of things.",
"Everyone else has done a good job explaining it, but you seem a little stuck. Look at it this way...which is worse for society:\n\n* One-hundred families go without dinner.\n* Bill Gates has 1 fewer Ferrari.\n\nSo that's the one society chooses. If you got this question wrong there's probably not point in discussing the issue any further."
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1hc9hk | why don't we have clear (or hd) pictures of the moon landing sites? | Don't get me wrong. I'm not some conspiracy theorist. Just the opposite actually. I really enjoy astronomy and looking at the universe. But why are the only pictures we have of the landing sites poor quality ones from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hc9hk/eli5_why_dont_we_have_clear_or_hd_pictures_of_the/ | {
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"[These](_URL_0_) were taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2012. Not exactly high-res, but pretty impressive considering how small the target is. You'd need either a whoppingly impressive HD camera, or a much closer flyby in order to get higher detail shots of such a small site.",
"I don't want to overstate the obvious, but every crew that landed on the moon had a large number of cameras with them. There is little scientific need for HD pictures of the lunar landing sites from miles away...because we had many HD cameras just feet away....while it was happening."
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4xvjhj | what is the societal differences between a republic and a federation? | ARE*
Edit: What *Are* the differences... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xvjhj/eli5_what_is_the_societal_differences_between_a/ | {
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"Someone else might be able to answer, but I think I need some clarification here. In the United States (for example) we are both a republic and a federation. Our leaders are elected under republican (the concept, not the party) principles, and the federal government is legally a federation of the 50 states.\n\nAre you thinking of a specific example?",
"The two ideas are not mutually exclusive.\n\nA federation is a nation where a bunch of (somewhat) self-governing states are united under a central government. Like Canada, the USA, Australia, Germany, etc.\n\nA republic is a nation where political power is controlled by elected representatives of the people. Most democratic nations are republics. There are also a number of constitutional monarchies in the world, which are essentially republics because their monarch's powers are limited by convention (or by the constitution). So even though the United Kingdom isn't actually a republic, for all intents and purposes, it acts like one.",
"They refer to different aspects of a country's government. It's possible for a country to be both, neither or any combination.\n\nIn its broadest definition, a republic is a country which does not have a monarchy. So most countries are republics. There's also a more specific definition that says a republic is a country governed by representatives of the people.\n\nA federation is a country which doesn't have a single, supreme government. There is a main level of government that is in charge of the country as a whole, the federal government, and the governments of individual states within that country (or provinces, or federal subjects, different countries call them different things). The important point of a federation is that the federal government's power over the states is limited in some way. The constitution guarantees the states certain rights that even the federal government can't (in theory) overrule.\n\nThe opposite of a federation is a unitary state. A unitary state can also have regions with their own governments, but the central government retains the power (in theory) to overrule them.",
"I think a Swiss Redditor should weigh in. Switzerland's probably one of the best examples of a \"pure\" federated republic there is."
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6oba3n | what role does oxytocin play in one night stands or causal hookups? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6oba3n/eli5_what_role_does_oxytocin_play_in_one_night/ | {
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"Oxytocin's effects of increasing trust and intimacy only kick in if you have a positive or neutral opinion of a person to begin with. If you distrust them before oxytocin exposure, the oxytocin won't change that. \n\nAlso, it takes more than one exposure to really kick in. So for most one night stands, oxytocin most likely plays no effect. But if you've ever heard a story of \"friends with benefits, until one person developed feelings for the other\", you can bet oxytocin had something to do with that."
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4adzby | if i had £1b cash and burnt it would it bring the currency down at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4adzby/eli5_if_i_had_1b_cash_and_burnt_it_would_it_bring/ | {
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"Not really.\n\nWe measure the current amount of \"cash\" in the money supply using a metric called M1. Currently, M1 for the USD is about $3 trillion. Getting rid of a few billion wouldn't impact it at all, and that impact gets even lower when you figure all of the currencies around the world.",
"Not a measurable amount, but yes.\n\nIf there are fewer pounds in circulation, the remaining ones become relatively more expensive. However, any amount of money you possess (unless you happen to be a billionaire) wouldn't even be a rounding error."
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13crec | when i light a burner on the stove, why do i have to wait a few seconds to ensure the flames stay? | If I let go of the gas button straight away the flames disappear, but if I wait a few seconds and the let go they stay. Por qué? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13crec/when_i_light_a_burner_on_the_stove_why_do_i_have/ | {
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"Your burner is equipped with a heat sensor that will shut of the gas if the burner goes out. You must get the heat sensor hot before the burner will stay on. The button is an override of the sensor. "
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293mfi | when they say movie x is the highest grossing movie when adjusting for inflation what stats are they adjusting? | Gone With The Wind is the highest grossing film when adjusted for inflation. But aside from money and box office revenue what other stats (if any) are being adjusted? Do they take into account time spent in the theaters or the fact that there are more movie goers now and more screens, etc? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/293mfi/eli5_when_they_say_movie_x_is_the_highest/ | {
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"No, because they aren't important to the statistic. It's all box office revenue.",
"A dollar today is not the same value as a dollar 60 years ago.\n\nWhen they say \"adjusted for inflation\" they are taking the gross dollar amount from X year and converting it using historical inflation data to 2014 dollars. That way we are comparing apples to apples.",
"If they only say \"adjusted for inflation\", they should only be adjusting for the relative worth of the dollar, nothing else."
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ccuj57 | how does my soda contain so much dissolved sugar? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ccuj57/eli5_how_does_my_soda_contain_so_much_dissolved/ | {
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"Heat the water and it’ll dissolve more sugar than when cold. Even when you chill it, it’ll still stay in solution."
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9owfvo | why is key copying and shoe repair often done in the same store? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9owfvo/eli5_why_is_key_copying_and_shoe_repair_often/ | {
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"One tool is used by both and that is a rotary grinding type tool. For the key, it is used to grind the shapes needed on the blank. For shoes it is used to shape soles and heels and roughen surfaces prior to glueing.\n\nThis seems tenuous at best and would be glad to know if there is a better suggestion.",
"I can't help but wonder if this might be more subtle than just some equipment being used for both... I bet number of shoe repair shops and key copying shops are about the same for a given neighborhood at the Pareto equilibrium... so it was sustainable for a store doing one to do the other..",
"In the 60s non leather shoes were becoming more the norm. To fill in business they did a bunch of things, sell hose, stocking and also started cutting keys as ironmongers were disappearing.\n\nIronmongers sharpened your knife and scissors.\n ",
"Combining them allows you to split the operating costs of rental, wages and utilities. Being low margin businesses, they're not economically viable alone if you have to pay rental, wages and utilities for each business separately. They also require little floor space, allowing you to squeeze them together which you can't do for many other businesses. \n\nThe skill threshold for both jobs is also pretty low and easily trainable, not requiring skilled workers. \n\nSource: Used to be a small businessman ",
"The key copying machine is easy enough to operate and doesn't take a lot of space, so it's a good product for supplemental income in a shoe repair shop. The biggest problem with the key cutting machine is making sure you have enough of all the different blanks to be able to duplicate any key that comes in. With the chip keys for cars, that gets harder. \n\nI can't imagine cutting keys on shoe repair equipment. I guess it's technically possible, but wouldn't be easy. The key cutting machine uses the existing key as a guide. Without that guide, trying to cut a key would be difficult. I suppose you could rig up a device to do that with shoe repair equipment, but, at that point, you're better off just getting a key cutter.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSource: am former shoe repairman.",
"In India, the store that buys old newspapers from you by weight to send for recycling also usually sells you coconuts.",
"Mostly from competition. The other shoe guy got a key cutter so we got a key cutter. We got an engraver so he got an engraver. And so on. \n\nThey're all fairly low space requirements and easy to jam it all into a kiosk. I've worked in one for near on 10 years and we keep adding services. We do all the car keys and remotes, garage remotes, phone screen repairs, watch repairs and servicing, knife sharpening and minor jewelry repairs. It's all income with mostly a low equipment cost (except the car gear, to get the proper gear for all of it is a fortune) and you start to get a reputation as the fix it people so more people come in. Its worked. My kiosk alone has nearly tripled its income in 5 years."
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8fm4kr | how does the internet know someone's net worth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fm4kr/eli5_how_does_the_internet_know_someones_net_worth/ | {
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"There are reporters whose job is to estimate this stuff. Some people want to show up in \"richest people\" lists, so they will show the reporter what they own. There are stories of Trump calling up reporters and arguing with them because he wanted to be higher up the list. Other people don't want to be on the list, so they will try to hide their assets. Even then, the reporter can make a guess based on things that are public, like what a sports contract was going to pay them, or what real estate they own.",
"The term \"net\" in \"net worth\" means the total of your assets (savings, houses, vehicles, investments, and technically anything you own that has a monetary value) minus all of your expenses and bills.\n\nThis is the same idea as your paycheck when you have net, and gross pay. Your net pay is your earnings minus all of your taxes and expenses.\n\nSo you can easily figure out your own by totaling the value of your bank accounts, investments, and property, and then add up all of your bills (morgate, student loans, car or credit card balance, etc.. ). The resulting number is your \"net worth\".\n\nWhen people calculate this for celebrities they can easily use public information to figure out the assessed value of the persons houses, and cars. For pro athletes, and actors their salary is always reported, and isn't too hard to track down. The only somewhat tricky thing to track down would be the value of their investments, and savings.\n"
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jngr7 | why not to outsource? | I understand that it's great for America as a whole since it'd create jobs on the domestic front, but from a business standpoint, what are the drawbacks of moving my factories to a foreign land where labor is substantially cheaper? (If there's any explanation about trade tariffs and their effect on exports/imports to supplement, that'd be awesome!) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jngr7/eli5_why_not_to_outsource/ | {
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"Outsourcing seems so inevitable, when you put it like that.",
"In many cases, the old saying \"You get what you pay for\" applies. Some companies are actually moving back to the United States because they have found that the quality of work they're getting overseas isn't up to their expectations.",
"There are huge tradeoffs. \n\n1) Someone has to manage all those people, remotely. That's a bitch and can be a problem when you have an issue that's time sensitive\n2) Items produced for less are often of lesser quality\n3) If you already do something well, it doesn't make sense to pay someone else to do it less well\n4) Outsourced job holders don't have nearly the emotional/career investment in your business, leading to issues noted in #2\n\nEDIT: I'm too tired to fix the formatting. And yes, I said \"bitch\" to a five year old.",
"In a perfect, free-trade world, business would outsource until there was so much outsourcing, those so-called third world countries could get away with demanding pay rates as high as those in so-called first world countries.\n\nWhile it would balance out the world, in theory, it would take time and ultimately hurt the wealthier countries (by reducing the standard of living) and helping the poorer countries (by increasing the standard of living). People in first world countries have a lot of reason to not like outsourcing - doing so should ultimately hurt *them*!\n\nBut things get more complicated when you add nonuniform tax codes, tariffs, subsidies, and other nonequalizers.\n\nELI5: All of the kids in your 5th grade class compete to see who will do the most work for the lowest price. (Like trading lunches) This class is like Western Europe and the US. Now you start trading with the 1st graders(Asia and Africa), who have *much* lower standards, and all of the good trades go to them, not you. You no longer get the great prices you're use to. After a while (100+ years in RL, but let's say a month here) things would equate out and it'd be like before, but now with a much larger class size.",
"Outsourcing seems so inevitable, when you put it like that.",
"In many cases, the old saying \"You get what you pay for\" applies. Some companies are actually moving back to the United States because they have found that the quality of work they're getting overseas isn't up to their expectations.",
"There are huge tradeoffs. \n\n1) Someone has to manage all those people, remotely. That's a bitch and can be a problem when you have an issue that's time sensitive\n2) Items produced for less are often of lesser quality\n3) If you already do something well, it doesn't make sense to pay someone else to do it less well\n4) Outsourced job holders don't have nearly the emotional/career investment in your business, leading to issues noted in #2\n\nEDIT: I'm too tired to fix the formatting. And yes, I said \"bitch\" to a five year old.",
"In a perfect, free-trade world, business would outsource until there was so much outsourcing, those so-called third world countries could get away with demanding pay rates as high as those in so-called first world countries.\n\nWhile it would balance out the world, in theory, it would take time and ultimately hurt the wealthier countries (by reducing the standard of living) and helping the poorer countries (by increasing the standard of living). People in first world countries have a lot of reason to not like outsourcing - doing so should ultimately hurt *them*!\n\nBut things get more complicated when you add nonuniform tax codes, tariffs, subsidies, and other nonequalizers.\n\nELI5: All of the kids in your 5th grade class compete to see who will do the most work for the lowest price. (Like trading lunches) This class is like Western Europe and the US. Now you start trading with the 1st graders(Asia and Africa), who have *much* lower standards, and all of the good trades go to them, not you. You no longer get the great prices you're use to. After a while (100+ years in RL, but let's say a month here) things would equate out and it'd be like before, but now with a much larger class size."
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1xoupz | how does an atomic bomb produce so much energy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xoupz/eli5_how_does_an_atomic_bomb_produce_so_much/ | {
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"an atomic bomb is directly converting mass into energy. The formula for converting mass into energy is E=Mc^2. C, is the speed of light, meaning that it is, in metric units, 300,000 km per second. \n\nThat means, that the energy of an atomic bomb is the amount of mass converted times 90,000,000,000 (90 billion!). \n\nIt's hard to argue with a 90,000,000,000 times multiplier when it comes to power. ",
"The atomic bomb actually splits atoms. It's the bonds of the nuclei (protons and neutrons) in the dense material used (plutonium, uranium, etc.) that is actually converted to energy. The atoms split into ever growing numbers, and consequently smaller particles. As the first split occurs 1 becomes 2, 2 become 4, then 8. 16 so on and so forth. Before the first testing during the Manhattan Project, some scientists believed if it was detonated that the bomb would inevitably turn the entire Earth (and all life ) into a cloud of small atoms, the smallest of which is hydrogen.",
"It's a chain reaction: when you split a Uranium (or Plutonium) nucleus with a neutron, it creates some energy, some other stuff, and some more neutrons (at least two) that fly off. If you have more Uranium nearby for those nuclei to hit (you need a bunch and they have to be tightly packed to guarantee they're going to), the same reaction happens again, started by those neutrons. So the number of reactions keeps multiplying, with energy being released by every one. ",
"As others explained, the energy from nuclear reactions (not just fission, also decay and fusion!) comes from the conversion of mass to energy. The reason this happens is easier to understand if you look at how the atom cores work:\n\nThey are basically clumps of neutrons and protons, that are held together by certain forces, called the \"strong\" and \"weak\" interaction, that work similar to the electric force. I won't go into detail how exactly they interact, but they basically hold these clumps of particles together, with density and stability depending on the number and configuration of neutrons and protons. Light atoms (except hydrogen) always have a similar number of protons and neutrons, while heavier atoms have more neutrons than protons.\n\nOnce you have these particles clumped together it takes energy to pull them apart again - just like magnets. If you for example want to split an helium atom (2 protons, 2 neutrons) into two hydrogen atoms and two free neutrons you need to invest energy. This means the hydrogen atoms and the neutrons have more energy than the helium atom - the energy of the helium and the energy you invested add up.\n\nThis also works in reverse - making helium atoms with hydrogen atoms unleashes the same amount of energy you had to invest in the former scenario. It's called fusion.\n\nOf course not all kinds of cores \"pull together\" as much as the others. Iron is the densest of all elements, so if you take apart *any* element (with heavier or lighter cores) and use it to make iron you'll unleash energy. Radioisotopes, cores with a configuration of protons and neutrons that isn't optimal, hold together very little and can lose parts of their cores, called decay. Some very heavy elements like Uranium or Plutonium can also be split entirely, which is called fission. In both cases the products of the process are denser and have less energy, the difference is emitted in the form of different kinds of radiation. The energy difference also directly translates into less mass - as according to Einsteins famous formula they are the same.\n"
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53lwgm | why do only edible substances taste good? | I've always been curious about this. To my knowledge there are few, if any, substances that taste good to us but are inedible, not counting foods laced with inedible substances. It seems like other animals enjoy eating things that to us are inedible, so why is this the case? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53lwgm/eli5_why_do_only_edible_substances_taste_good/ | {
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"It's quite obvious if you start thinking about it. The brain knows which chemicals are nutritious to us, so it makes them taste good (so we eat stuff that's nutritious). That's why cellery (which has almost no calories) doesn't have such a good taste. To the contrary, pork tastes good because it has a big nutritious value.",
"Evolution. A simple organism isn't as picky, but those that prefer foods that carries more energy and required nutrition have more time to rest and mate. As time goes on those who prefer the better food depending on their current environment thrives. Remember this varies between species (cows that can process cellulose enjoy grass, unlike the average carnivore), location (carnivores near rivers may grow taste for fish) and time. \n\nFor human we also modified our foods. Current crops & cattle are far more tastier than the first time our ancestors start growing them. We also extend the modifications to our pets.",
"that's not true. there are plenty of poisonous substances that taste good. car antifreeze is sweet, and it can kill you. ",
"Many leafy plants contain enough oxalate crystals to cause gastrointestinal distress.\n\nethylene glycol tastes sweet\n\nlead salts such as acetate of lead was used as a sweetener by the Romans. \n\nBeryllium is sweet and toxic.\n\nSo our evolution to prefer food high in nutrients, like sugars and fats wasn't fool proof, but fairly reliable.\n",
"Evolution, those who though poisonous substance tasted good ate them and died out.\n\nThere are tasty poisonous things. We keep them away from ourselves. Animals like to drink antifreeze. It tastes good. They die a horrible death. Some mushrooms make good mushroom soup. They kill the liver hours later. But the soup tasted good."
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5zwufg | why do foods like rice, pasta, or beans take minutes to soak up water when it's hot, but hours upon hours if the water is cold? | (Not sure whether to flair chemistry, or physics.)
EDIT: Wow, this is the most rated/commented post I've ever made, thanks guys. I played GTA V for a few hours and come back to this. Thanks for the responses. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zwufg/eli5why_do_foods_like_rice_pasta_or_beans_take/ | {
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"Is this the same phenomenon as with something like tea? Tried to make tea at work the other day but with cold water, I was pretty whelmed.",
"Here's an old thread that explains it\n\n_URL_0_ \n\nTldr: starches have a structure that don't allow the absorption of water. Heat breaks down the structure, allowing water to be absorbed faster ",
"I've seen some answers about why starch specifically requires hot water, which are likely correct as well, but I'll provide an explanation via thermodynamics. In general for anything like this it is all based on diffusion. Diffusion generally refers to the movement of matter from a high concentration to a low concentration, so if you have a lot of water molecules in one place (i.e. water in a bowl) next to a space that contains very few water molecules (i.e. a dry grain of rice floating in that water) the water molecules will be more likely to enter that space over time, this is due to entropy of mixing (I can go deeper into entropy upon request but I'll spare you here, basically it is a numerical measurement for the reason that things mix together). This is why if you let even cold water close to freezing sit in a bowl with rice or beans it would eventually infiltrate them, but like you said it would just take a long time. Even cold atoms have energy, but that energy just makes them vibrate, not move with any kind of purpose, so the odds that they'll end up inside of the grain of rice are random. Now the energy of the atoms increased with temperature, which makes them vibrate more, which means that they are that much more likely to enter the grain of rice. The thermodynamics probably compound with any chemical reason for the starch absorbing water as well.\n\nTLDR: Hot things vibrate faster, faster vibrations increases the odds that each water molecule enters the rice over time. So hot water will enter the rice faster.",
"The mentioned food all contain one compound: starch. Since its 'outer layer' is quite hard, it will take a while for the cold water to get through this tough barrier. Heat breaks down some starch compounds which allows the 'outer layer' to become something like a porous membrane. This allows the grain to absorb water faster.\n\nSource: I'm a chemical engineering student\nEdit: Clarified that starch is a compound. ",
"If you like food facts, especially when related to home cooking. You should watch \"good eats\" its a bit older now, was hosted by Alton Brown, the current host for iron chef america. Good eats, however, is incredibly informative about food. There is a cooking portion of the show, which visually demonstrates the lesson for the day. I watch the entire series on YouTube, some dude called \"Rabe Shimpa\" has every single episode on his channel.",
"Good lord I can't believe nobody has posted the real answer:\n\n_URL_0_.\n\nCompetent chefs use this property. It why some soups thicken and gelatenise when cooled.",
"Are you saying I could put pasta in water abs a couple of days later it would be done?",
"One thing to note. Beans and chickpeas are very difrerent from rice or any other grain.\n\nWith beans and chickpeas and lentils, the water has to penetrate the tough outer skin. Often, even with hot water, chickpeas and beans do not cook through (water is unable to go through the skin barrier).\n\nA common technique used when cooking chickpeas (especially in Indian cooking where beans and chickpeas and lentils are key protein sources so are eaten every day) is to add baking soda which makes the water more alkaline and helps the moisture go through. Often, tea leaves or tea bags are added which being mildly acidic counteracts the alkilinity of baking soda and the food still ends up tasting good (and not bitter).\n\n\nSee this video recipe explaining this technique: _URL_0_\n\n"
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35n0fz | how will the tpp be binding/ enforced? | I took an intro level international politics a couple semesters ago and some parts of the TPP didn't really seem enforceable. One of the main things I got out of the class is that international law is more of a suggestion and not really ever followed. One common comment I've seen is how Tabasco companies will be able to sue australia. What would stop an Australian judge from throwing the case out saying their law takes precedence over the TPP or just basically saying screw the TPP since it's international law. Like I know the US won't send any citizen to the international court. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35n0fz/eli5_how_will_the_tpp_be_binding_enforced/ | {
"a_id": [
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"It would be a treaty. A treaty is binding law in every country that signs it.\n\nIn your example, Tabasco would be able to sue in Australia. The Australian judge would not be able to throw it out because \"their law takes precedence over the TPP\" because, once ratified, the TPP *is* their law."
]
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5tphti | how do big companies/colleges maintain high internet speeds across hundreds of people's devices? | It was a random thought that occurred to me. I've heard about how connecting a ton of active devices to a home network can cause congestion (and slow it down?). I'm a university student and I am always able to have a fast internet connection even when there's hundreds of people in the same building as me using the network.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5tphti/eli5_how_do_big_companiescolleges_maintain_high/ | {
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"Your building has lots and lots of access points all connected to many, many switches. Each switch is likely to be able to handle a Gbit of traffic *on each port* so for a 24 port switch that's a 24+ GBit back plane. \n\nYour college also has an industrial level internet connection. And if its a large research institution it likely is a node on Internet2 which is an all fiber network that connects lots of colleges and other institutions. When you data needs to get to one of those institutions, it gets automatically routed over the super fast fiber connection. ",
"What /u/dodgeBallRocks said is correct. To add to it... \n\nConnecting too many devices to your home Internet is a bad excuse given by your cable provider. \n\nThey have one 'pipe' to your entire neighborhood. Let's say you and your 19 neighbors pay for 25 up, 25 down. Your neighborhood pipe only carries 200 up, 200 down, even though it needs 500 up and down to serve the max your neighborhood is paying for. \nEveryone in the neighborhood tries to watch Netflix around 7pm, and all of you have buffering issues. Even though you pay for enough Internet, the neighborhood pipe can't carry all the data it needs. Your connection ends up competing with your neighbors', and no one gets good service. \n\nFiber doesn't have this problem. Each house has its own 'pipe'. You're guaranteed to get the speeds you pay for, assuming your hardware in the house can process it. ",
"all that has been said so far is accurate but just to add... industrial level internet connection is SO FAST. i mean... SO FAST.\n\nif you get 50mbps download speed at home, your doing alright for yourself.\n\nat work i get 400mbps. 400. FAST. and where i work is a small workplace. universities i can imagine would be able to go much faster.",
"A larger, enterprise-level network used in schools and offices is different than your home network. You pay for different provisioning and lack any sort of service level agreement when a business will pay for better speeds and a certain percentage of uptime and performance. \n\nYour home network typically consists of a line that is ran to the utility junction near your house on the poles from a box near your TV. This box will take the converged services (phone, TV, and internet) and offer access points to where you can connect another box for decoding TV, a line for phone, and a third line for internet. You connect the internet line into your router which shares the services to multiple connected and wireless devices. Your home network will run fine until you start getting about 8-12 active devices running at once. You normally administer your network by going to the 192.168.1.1 IP in your browser and configuring fields such as wireless security, DHCP, DNS, etc. A diagram would look something like [this](_URL_0_).\n\n\nThe network design for your college or a business is different. The infrastructure has to support thousands of users, be secure, and have redundancy in place. The services provided by your modem and router are provided through much more expensive and higher capacity devices. You also get into separate connections for interconnecting the sister universities and campuses which are satellite which is a separate connection from internet access. For administration, this is done through the CLI or tools which emulate the commands for you from a GUI. You get into IP address architecture to efficiently assign IP addresses to campuses, buildings, and user equipment in a single private address scope. You get into topics such as core and edge routing/switching, static and dynamic routes, redundancy protocols, and more. What services your router provided at your home are now being provided by physical servers. Instead of just using Google's DNS servers, you now have to maintain an internal DNS server for mapping addresses to hosts within your network in addition to outside networks. I would create an example of a diagram, but I have to leave for work in a few minutes. [Here](_URL_1_) is a decent diagram which shows the various systems in place made by someone else. I may come back and edit something in tonight if I get time.\n\nTL;DR:\nThe home system is designed for a family. A college/business set up is designed for high availability and capacity. Your set up will cost $50 from a big box store while an enterprise set up with gear that is not end-of-life will be tens of thousands up to millions of dollars. "
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"http://imgur.com/a/Sg08Z",
"https://itsc.ust.hk/sites/itscprod.sites.ust.hk/files/HKUST-CAMPUS-NETWORK-SCHEMATIC.jpg"
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5i3r4l | why does the number on an analog bathroom scale go up when you bend down to read it? | I may need glasses. This is so odd to me since digital scales do not seem to do the same. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5i3r4l/eli5_why_does_the_number_on_an_analog_bathroom/ | {
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"A bathroom scale doesn't measure weight, it measures normal reaction. \nWhen you bend, the normal force on different areas of your sole changes to keep you from toppling over. If it increases at the place where the sensors are present, it gives a larger reading. \nA similar thing could happen if you stand on one foot/change posture to drastically shift the weight distribution.",
"By bending, you cause part of your body/mass to \"fall\" (it's moving towards the floor), so it's not being pushed upwards by the scale for a brief time.\n\nI assume digital ones are programmed to react slower than analogue ones, or to take an average measurement after a few seconds."
]
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5w2w90 | if the kreb's cycle regenerates its own citrate from ooa, why does it need any additional acetyl-coa input at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w2w90/eli5_if_the_krebs_cycle_regenerates_its_own/ | {
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"text": [
"oxaloacetate is 4 carbon atoms + 2 carbon atoms from acetyle molecule (acetyl CoA) = 6 carbon atoms of citrate.\n\nThe cycle regenerates the citrate *with* the acetyle.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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"https://ka-perseus-images.s3.amazonaws.com/c7052763740cb431d8e989fa55460816cc5a074c.png"
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1rfdu5 | why am i uncontrollably emotional right when i wake up in the morning? (25yo male) (example in post) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rfdu5/eli5_why_am_i_uncontrollably_emotional_right_when/ | {
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"I don't know either, but this happens to me too. ",
"Look man, dont worry about it. It just means you're alive. Everybody gets a case of the feelings sometimes. If it doesnt affect the rest of your day, and the way you coexist with others, then its all good. \n\n\n\n",
"I get this also. check out /r/frisson. I believe this is what this experience is.",
"You're pregnant bro",
"Have you binged on mdma/ecstasy recently? ",
"Opposite for me, 23 years old and also a dude.\n\nI am stone cold dead inside upon waking up. You could force me to strangle baby squirrels, you could cheat on my girlfriend, you could flaunt material wealth... I feel nothing for the first hour or so of the day. Gradually, I become increasingly open to emotion over the course of the day. Generally around 16 hours of wakefulness I start to edge into emotionally unstable, when something simple like really good music can bring a tear to my eye. Finally around 18+ hours of being awake I'm told there is a definitive shift in my tastes, personality, humor, etc similar to when I'm drunk. Around that time I would be like you describe yourself early in the morning.\n\nI know my emotional cycle is simply from fatigue and instability without proper or sufficient sleep.\nPerhaps you aren't sleeping well or enough? You truly need coffee to function in the morning?\n\nNot the ELI5 answer you were looking for, but I might recommend a sleep study. The only time I had emotional instability that early in the morning was back when I was getting fewer than four solid hours of quality sleep every night.",
"I can't explain this from a scientific point of view, but I can let you know that I experience the same thing. I consider myself to be sensitive, and only the people that really know me would say/know that. It is a constant battle putting up a front to cover emotions. Seeing as I am usually by myself, I have no way of venting any of it. When I wake up in the morning it doesn't register to hide those emotions yet, so they flow and make me feel relieved. After that initial morning time, it's back to the day and hiding emotions. I feel that a way to remedy this would be to find a way to vent your emotions so they don't have to come out during this time.",
"I don't think your pegged as sensitive. I think you're pegged because your sensitive.",
"Your emotional self might wake-up quicker than the rational-ego self. The former meets experience directly, from the heart. The latter is armed with all kind of filters to distance yourself from experience, so that it may interpret experience as an object. It constructs a narrative of self, and we tend to dwell within the narrative and believe its real.\n\nWhen you're immersed inside experience, even if you're sitting in front of your screen as observer, then you're free to respond naturally from your emotional centre. It's also a state during which stuffed-down grief (and joy!) can gush up to the surface and be felt, at last. Emotion = e-motion, or energy in motion.\n\nIt's normal. It's healthy. And probably a time when your body thanks you for sitting still and being present to whatever feelings are looking for release. ",
"any regular to semi-regular synthetic drug use? did a lot of drugs a few years ago and even the slightest dose of high grade mdma will severely throw off my chemistry if no preloading/postloading is done. even alcohol as well as weed throw me off now if i don't prepare for it. i consider myself very sensitive though i don't know how get data to prove that..."
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3c63hk | why don't they kill prisoners in a less toxic way in order to leave their organs viable, thus saving lives? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c63hk/eli5_why_dont_they_kill_prisoners_in_a_less_toxic/ | {
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"not worth the effort for the handful of executions... even fewer that would volunteer to donate (cant force them).\n\nfinding agreeable drugs for it is hard enough without worrying about toxicity. \n\nNot sure how people would feel about getting the boston bombers liver... I mean... they are alive... but...",
"CHINA USED PRISONERS FOR ORGAN DONATION. THERE IS SPECULATION THAT THEIR CONSENT WAS HEAVILY COERCED:\n_URL_0_",
"That would be a very dangerous game my friend, organ trade is a big business anyways and if something like this was made mandatory it would have a major influence on death sentencing and the likes. People would be on hospital beds waiting for another human to die so they could live longer. In fact I read somewhere doctors were in fact the people to be heavily against this idea. "
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China"
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||
3zsdzb | why does reddit allow biased default subreddits | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zsdzb/eli5why_does_reddit_allow_biased_default/ | {
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"text": [
"No shadow banning needed; according to the post itself, it was deleted. The comments suggest that the community there didn't agree with the post, although there's no mod comment.\n\nYou should really take this up with the mods in question, rather than posting here where people can't help you."
]
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||
3allvm | why is it that i'm exhausted after 8 hours of sleep on a work day, but struggle to sleep 8 hours on the weekend? | I get around 8 hours of sleep every night. When I have work, I wake up exhausted, but on the weekends, I want to sleep as long as possible but struggle to sleep any longer. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3allvm/eli5why_is_it_that_im_exhausted_after_8_hours_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"csdyzgb",
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"text": [
"Even if you sleep about the same amount of time, your circadian rhythm is being interrupted by an alarm. The way it sounds, on the weekends you are waking up naturally. ",
"Your sleep cycle will be off if you deviate more than an hour or so from when you're normally falling asleep. If you sleep 10pm-6am during the week, but 3am-11am during the weekend, your quality of sleep will be worse because your internal clock will be all off. "
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3flklh | would legalizing prostitution/pornography lower sex crimes such as rape? | Is there evidence to support the statement that decriminalizing prostitution/pornography could lower sex related crimes such as rape? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3flklh/eli5_would_legalizing_prostitutionpornography/ | {
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"text": [
"Rape normaly isn't about sex it's about control. You can artificially simulate that with a prostitute but at the end of the day a rapist will always seek a target to dominate. ",
"[Here's a study that suggest porn prevents rape.](_URL_0_) [Here's another one.](_URL_1_) [Here's a study that argues the opposite.](_URL_2_)\n\nThere's not any good way to find this out though. From what I can gather, they've noticed that the rates of rape fell with the rise of the internet, and other crime didn't change with it. The idea that access to porn is what caused the fall seems like an obvious explanation, but that's not great science."
]
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"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J056v08n03_01#.Vb8qNPlViko",
"http://idei.fr/sites/default/files/medias/doc/conf/sic/papers_2007/kendall.pdf",
"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791317?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents"
]
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|
d3rzcv | why is the volume of my bluetooth headphones independent of my phone’s volume? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d3rzcv/eli5_why_is_the_volume_of_my_bluetooth_headphones/ | {
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"text": [
"So that you don't blow your ears out going from car to headphones. Or at least that's how I use it.",
"* When you adjust the volume on a digital device, it could be doing one of two things:\n * Adjusting the level of the data inside the file\n * Adjusting the level of the amplifier driving the output to the headphones.\n* For a bluetooth device...the amplifier is inside the headphones.\n* So in OP's case, the volume is adjusting the level of the amplifier.\n* Some bluetooth devices, however have a fixed amplifier level and instead send a signal back to the phone telling it to adjust the level inside the data file. \n* In this case the phone takes the individual audio samples in the file and alters them and then sends them to the bluetooth device."
]
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7b4zwx | if a low carb diet works by restricting carbs so that the body burns fat for fuel, how does a normal calorie restrictive diet work? | So a person does a low carb diet < 50g carbs per day, then after a few days their body will produce ketones that burn fat for energy.
But if someone just restricts calories, say by about 500kcal under their daily requirement keeping their macros roughly even, the body is getting ample supplies of carbs, so how does the body then burn fat without the ketones produced from a low carb diet?
I'm probably misunderstanding something here. Please ELI5 | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7b4zwx/eli5_if_a_low_carb_diet_works_by_restricting/ | {
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"Your body has 2 primary concerns in daily life. \n\n1. Get enough fat or carbohydrates to run the brain, typically this is either 30 grams of fat (if you're in ketosis) or 100 grams of carbohydrates. \n\n2. Get enough protein to be able to keep making cells \n\nAfter this it's all kind of meh, during respiration your body typically burns through a mix of 60% stored carbohydrates and 30% stored fat, 10% protein. As those stored carbs are used up your body begins to turn towards the fat to get more energy, and as long as the brain's needs are satisfied it won't try to burn through any of your musculature. \n\nOn ketosis the percents are flipped between fat and carbs, and there's a solid chance you don't really have anything to worry about with running out of fat to run on. \n\nThat said, either way your body is producing ketones, but with a normal dietary usage of about 10% you're going to have very few in your blood stream. ",
"You've said it yourself. The body is receiving fewer calories than it needs to function off of your intake, so it will start using more calories from your energy reserves (including body fat) to meet it's needs.\n\nPeople tend to put things into various oversimplified terms like \"your body switches from burning carbs to burning fat!\" but those are so oversimplified they're simply not true.\n\nThe more honest answer is that under normal circumstances (like not going days with literally 0 food intake) your body will always be using some mixture of fat and carbs and protein, both from what you're eating and what it has stored. These percentages will move around a little depending on what exercise you're doing (if any) and what you eat. To answer your question specifically, even if you eat a very high carb diet but under your caloric needs, your body will still make up for those needed calories with the energy reserves in your body.",
"Ketones don’t BURN fat – they ARE fat. Your fat reserves are converted into ketones by way of ketogenesis. Your body doesn’t want to resort to ketones for energy. If it were sentient, it would perhaps be thinking: “Well, there isn’t a total lack of food around, so there must not be a famine. Better to hold onto fat reserves and try to lower my metabolic rate.”\n\nSo often what you’ll see in 500 kcal restricted diet is not necessarily muscle wasting (though that indeed happens on some level, especially with even stricter caloric restrictions), but an overall drop in resting metabolic rate via various corporeal regulations called adaptive thermogenesis. There isn’t a lot of research on this stuff, but it is observable.\n\nThe “Biggest Loser” study is maybe the best example of this occurring. Compared with other lean adults with similar BMIs, they had lower RMRs across the board. Now, when a normal, insulin-sensitive adult slips up and eats cake, their body has the metabolic rate to necessary to burn the extra calories. From what I’m aware, their body will even compensate by increasing their metabolic rate. Not so with our biggest losers, who ultimately end up rebounding in weight gain.\n\nAs for how they still lose weight: well, a resting metabolism can only dip so low. But anyone will find themselves constantly hungry, because of an insulin/grehlin (the stuff that makes you feel full) imbalance. This is showcased beautifully in the Minnesota Starvation study. Obsessive thoughts about food, etc."
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avez55 | why are illnesses like a cold or aggressive coughing more common in humans than in animals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avez55/eli5_why_are_illnesses_like_a_cold_or_aggressive/ | {
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"Humans are by far the most widespread and gregarious species, you cross paths with more members of your species in a day than your dog will in its entire life.\n\nThat makes airbone transmission a highly efficient mechanism for human specific viruses, so they evolved to encourage heavy coughing.\n\nMaking a bear cough in the middle of nowhere four miles from the next closest bear isn't quite as effective, so many animal-specific viruses have opted for other transmission methods.\n\nAnimals do get respiratory infections and they can cough, but you're probably not hanging around enough lions to know the difference between one that feels fine and one that is a little irritable.",
"The dog version of the cold is called kennel cough, and it has many causes including the bacterium *Borditella bronchiseptica.* However, it's much more common that the cause of any given kennel cough outbreak is a strain of canine flu. \n\nDogs that spend a lot of time around other dogs, such as at a dog park, doggy daycare, or using communal water bowls in public places, are more likely to be exposed to kennel cough germs. Exposed dogs come down with symptoms much like a human cold or flu, including lethargy and a hoarse, rasping cough. \n\nAlthough you might not experience kennel cough, those who work with large volumes of dogs like veterinary staff and kennel workers experience twice-yearly outbreaks of kennel cough and take the same precautions to control it as you would the human cold: disinfecting surfaces, washing all food and water bowls thoroughly, and isolating sick dogs. Treatment consists of bed rest and sometimes canine cough medicine. "
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35a04b | why is it that in a huge audience of mixed male and female when they sing together, the sound is predominantly female? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35a04b/eli5_why_is_it_that_in_a_huge_audience_of_mixed/ | {
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"text": [
"Frequency. Males tend to have lower voices, females higher. Humans are more sensitive to sounds in the middle frequencies and that is where more of the females output is. \n\nThat's the short/simple version, the long version is long, gets technical, and I'm too tired to write it out. :)",
"Hobby Audio Engineer here... Female vocals can be difficult to sit in a mix since they often hit the same frequencies as the lead instruments (guitar, piano, etc). By the time both vocal tracks are sitting comfortably in front of the mix, the female vocal is usually a bit louder."
]
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2df0rb | why can't i sleep if i'm excited about something even though i want time to pass quicker? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2df0rb/eli5_why_cant_i_sleep_if_im_excited_about/ | {
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"Because that excitement is causing your body to produce adrenaline.\n\nIt's supposed to keep you up and ready to go. But the problem is, it keeps you up all night leaving you exhausted when you need the energy.\n\nIt's common in UFC fighters, boxers, etc. hence why many have people dedicated to helping them sleep."
]
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||
93bffd | why do (some?) styro cups sweat anything that's being poured inside them? | I have seen a photo somewhere here in Reddit (I forgot where) where the styro cup contains coffee and the styro cup itself sweats the coffee that's inside it. My 20-years old mind thinks that styro cups should not sweat anything that's poured inside them. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93bffd/eli5_why_do_some_styro_cups_sweat_anything_thats/ | {
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"If you think about what styrofoam is, it's a bunch of little plastic balls melted and stuck together in a shape. If the cup is made poorly or a sufficiently hot liquid (I've seen suggestions of residual solvents from processing) starts weakening the connection between those balls, stuff will come out in the \"cracks\".\n\nThis is a completely different phenomena than water condensing on the outside of cold cups. In this case, the water is actually pulled from the air & changed into a liquid.",
"In general such cups should not and do not allow their contents to pass through their walls. But they are cheap products and not always produced correctly; likely the problem occurred during the molding process where hot air is used to expand and fuse the polystyrene beads together. Perhaps slightly too little hot air would result in almost, but not completely, fused beads meaning fluid could slowly make its way through."
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606hlt | if an object is just floating in space is there a point where it stops moving or will it always be moving unless hit by something? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/606hlt/eli5_if_an_object_is_just_floating_in_space_is/ | {
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"text": [
"If it some how avoids being influenced from another object or gravity field it would eventually stop. Space isn't an absolutely perfect vacuum, but it's close. So this would take an extremely long time."
]
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||
1rwt7u | why does this look computer animated? | _URL_0_
The mystical creature found in the deep-sea looks like a bad computer animation. Why?
Honestly I thought it was a bad joke the first time I saw it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rwt7u/eli5_why_does_this_look_computer_animated/ | {
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"This picture is a conversion of a non-visible-light image to a visible light one such as what is used for night-vision goggles. These creatures appear to be translucent and the lighting, which is already a bit complicated in natural water, is far from conventional. The combination of these factors create an image where the shading of the subjects does not conform to our expectations of natural images giving them an artificial quality."
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edlazk | how do diseases survive without hosts? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/edlazk/eli5_how_do_diseases_survive_without_hosts/ | {
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"disease is a state of condition of your body. it isn't the agent that causes your disease. \n\nagents of disease don't have to be survive. a chunk of uranium will cause you to have disease. it doesn't need to survive. it's not even alive. \n\nbacteria are alive and die without being in a suitable environment. the human host is not necessarily the only evironment lots of bacteria can survive and reproduce in.\n\nviruses also don't need to survive because they're not living either. it's just some strands of proteins. \n\nmolds have spores which have a hard shell that opens when conditions are right. as long as shell stays intact, the spore can be viable for thousands of years"
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4munri | why does cuba have such a high life expectancy and such a low gdp? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4munri/eli5_why_does_cuba_have_such_a_high_life/ | {
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"Because they use the tried and true method of corrupt governments across the world: Lying! There is no limit to what you can do if you aren't truthful!\n\nFor example, babies who only live for a few hours after birth don't get counted as ever having been alive so they don't count against infant mortality statistics. Doctors are pressured to induce abortions for pregnancies likely to be problematic, and they don't report the deaths of fetuses younger than 21 weeks.\n\nCuba self-reports life expectancy statistics and they are not independently verified. They are reluctant to report disease outbreaks such as cholera in 2012 which killed several people; who really knows how many?"
]
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6gg07o | what are opioids, why are they bad, and how can i avoid using them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gg07o/eli5_what_are_opioids_why_are_they_bad_and_how/ | {
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"Opiods are a class of painkillers derived from the opium plant or artificial means.\n\nThey are great at killing pain, they also can be very addictive because they can cause a very strong high. They aren't bad to use, if you use then as directed. ",
"They are one of the most potent analgesics (painkillers) we have, and so are very difficult to avoid in treatment. For severe acute pain, morphine is the standard analgesic in pre-hospital treatment, unless contraindicated. \n\nAs a group, opioids are extremely addictive, and their frequent use in the treatment of chronic pain, especially in America, had raised concerns that they are being over prescribed, and the potential for abuse is huge. \n\nThey are also commonly used as narcotics for recreation - Heroin, as well as prescription abuse, and they are respiratory depressants, which means they can cause the body to stop breathing. ",
"I had a relatively minor surgical procedure and my doctor gave me a six day supply of an opioid (forgot which one). Boy, am I glad it was only six days; that shit can make you feel goood. \n\nBe very, very careful if you are prescribed them, and don't feel like you need to finish the entire course. I probably could have switched to Tylenol or something similar after two or three days, but I really, really liked them. Fortunately, when I ran out, I didn't try to get any more. Dodged a bullet.\n\nEdit: spelling."
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3vd7db | why is it that when fighting a cold, you feel sick in "waves"? | Currently dealing with a sinus infection, and I will feel great for an hour, and then crash and feel like absolute shit for the next 2 hours. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vd7db/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_fighting_a_cold_you_feel/ | {
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"When ill your body stops being sensible and starts over-reacting - feeling ill is actually mostly your body trying to fight the infection, not the infection itself.\n\nSo your body tries to heat you up to destroy a virus, produce more antibodies and other nice defences, vomit to remove things it doesn't like the look of etc.\n\nThe problem is that it's so determined to do this that it sometimes goes too far - raising your temperature too high, for example. After a while (a little too long) it realises this and tries to correct it, so you feel better for a little while. Then your body figures you're okay now so does it again, making you feel cruddy again.\n\nOr it may produce lots of mucus in nose which can actually sooth inflammation, but will make you feel congested and may make you nauseas by clogging your ear passage and affecting your balance.\n\nMedications have a similar effect - eg if you take painkillers, they don't work perfectly for 4 hours before the next dose - so you'll tend to feel better from ~30 minutes after taking the painkiller until ~2 hours later, then start feeling sick again for a while.\n\nSimilarly other things you may do can make things better or worse - you may take a drink which cools inflammation in your throat and reduces your temperature, but then that triggers you to vomit again which inflames your throat and hurts your stomach muscles while producing more heat in your body. Or you may cool your arms down with cold water which helps for a while, before your body decides to warm you up again to fight the infection\n\nThere are lots of things your body is doing at the same time, which take energy and can unbalance your system to make you feel crap.\n\nUsually, though, it's the temperature which *really* makes you feel crap, and this tends to fluctuate as above."
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460tdz | glass cutting, how does it work/are there different methods to cutting glass? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/460tdz/eli5_glass_cutting_how_does_it_workare_there/ | {
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"I used to make stained glass, leaded glass and still do cabinet and door work that uses glass, professionally. \n\nFirst there are a lot of types of glass, but the ones that we can cut to make things out of are usually either plate glass, or tempered glass. Tempered glass has to be un-tempered, cut, then re-tempered if you buy it and need it shaped, so usually you make sure all your cutting is done before treating the glass. Some types, like laminated glass, simply cannot be cut after treating.\n\nThe easiest, cleanest and most detailed way to cut glass is with a high pressure water CNC table. It is a super high pressure stream of water that slices through the glass easily. Other CNC processes include diamond shaping and wet grinding, which use high speed bits to grind or cut the glass. \n\nFor small scale, a glass scoring wheel is the best option. To use it effectively, you cut a grove into the glass using the wheel, then break the glass by tapping the piece you want to remove, or in some way applying mechanical force to the groove so the glass breaks. (I used to hold both pieces with special pliers, then bend it along the cut I made) I also have a small diamond grinder for polishing edges, it's water cooled and with a smaller bit you can make cuts and holes (though it's difficult, and the glass can break due to a flaw in it's construction very, very easily) \n\nSome very talented people blow glass, or work with molten glass to create the shapes before the glass drys, no cutting involved. I made some roses in this method, but it is very difficult to be accurate or make hard shapes. "
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dolw7t | what's the difference between conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dolw7t/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_conscious/ | {
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"In one, you are doing something because you are aware. The second you are doing something without thinking about it. The third is the lack of awareness.",
"Conscious is you making a decision and being aware that you are making that decision\n\nSubconscious is you doing something off instinct without giving it any thought\n\nUnconscious is a lack of any awareness",
"Conscious: You're actively participating in the activity. You read a math problem and work it out right then and there.\n\nSubconscious: You're brain is participating in the activity without you. You read a math problem but didn't solve it right away, but your brain is still working on it without you thinking about it. (This is where eureka effects happen, when the answer seems to pop out of nowhere).\n\nUnconscious: You and your brain aren't participating in an activity. You read the math problem and fell asleep.",
"They are not separate nor distinct minds, but two parts of the same thing.\n\nIn general, conscious refers to awareness or responding to one's surroundings.\n\n**The conscious mind is the thoughts or a decision that we are aware of before doing anything.**\n\nIt depends on what your attention is focused on. When you focus on one thought all the other thoughts are “sub-conscious”. The moment you think of something else\n\n **UNCONSCIOUS** \\- Things we are not aware of at all.\n\n**Subconscious** \\- Subconscious mind is like the RAM in your computer. For those who don’t know, RAM is the place in a computer where programs and data *that are currently in use* are kept so they can easily be reached quickly by the computer processor. It is much faster than other types of memory, such as the hard disk or SSD. \n\n**The nature of the Human Mind** \n\n**Conscious - 10%**\n\n**Unconscious - 30-40%**\n\n**Subconscious - 50-60%**",
"Concious is the very moment when you notice your favorite TV show comes on and you settle in to watch the opening scene you even sing along with theme song. \n\nSubconscious is when that tv show uses a word like \"bro\" all the time. Then when you're playing with a female friend up the street and out of nowhere you call her bro on accident. It just came out. Subconscious mind picks up things that you dont actually notice and can bubble up when you're not expecting. \n\nUnconcious is like your father when I'm shouting at him to wake up in the morning. You can turn on his favorite TV show but if he is asleep, he wont remember any of it when the show is over. Dreaming and being unconcerned arent exactly the same thing. But if you're not dreaming and your unconcious, you're probably dealing with some kind of medical condition or injury."
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24s3p5 | when a diamond is cut, what happens to the dust? is it worth anything? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24s3p5/eli5_when_a_diamond_is_cut_what_happens_to_the/ | {
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"First use would be as an abrasive in cutting, grinding and polishing industrial applications. A diamond tipped drill bit doesn't have a big diamond up there, the steel is just coated in small bits of diamond.\nThough, I'd think most industrial applications would use \"grown\" diamonds... much cheaper.\n\nI've heard that diamond bits are used as an exfoliant in some beauty products, but I find that hard to believe.\n\nBut even a big jewelry outfit... I find it dubious that there'd be enough dust every few weeks they'd empty the vacuums and sweep up the shop, then drive it over to the local Makita or Craftsman factory. At least to get any big $$ from it. Dunno, would be interested to hear from a jeweler.",
"Diamonds are cut by cleaving, not a cutting saw. \n\nA big diamond is cleaved into smaller pieces. The smaller pieces end up as accent gems. Like the ones you find that are 0.01 carats on the side of a ring",
"Diamonds are actually not that rare and most of their worth was created by some of the most successful marketing campaigns of the last century.\n\nFor a detailed history of diamonds check out [this interesting documentary](_URL_0_).\n\nFor a shorter and more comedic approach check out [this CollegeHumor clip](_URL_1_) on why diamond engagement rings are a scam.",
"I know diamond dust is used as a cutting and polishing abrasive on other diamonds, since nothing else on earth is hard enough to abrade a diamond...except other diamonds. They may just recycle it into the cutting/polishing stock.",
"Diamond dust can be made in the lab. It's actually really cheap. If you want you can buy a handful on eBay for like 40 bucks. It's used with industrial purposes all the time. ",
"I know that gold dust from filing and cutting jewelry is worth something. I worked in a jewelry shop for a short while and every few months we would sweep up all the gold dust from the desks and melt it down into tiny gold chunks.",
"When cutting diamonds one of the primary tools used is a diamond edged cutting wheel. A diamond is placed on the of a weighted dop on top of the wheel and slowly the wheel cuts through it. All the diamond cutting wheel is is a paper metal disc with the edge coated in olive oil (traditionally) to which diamond dust sticks. So as the wheel cuts a diamond most of the dust merely recharges the wheel. This process can take roughly 4-6 hours depending on the size of the stone.\n\nSources: DCA certified diamonologist ",
"Doesn't it go into industrial use, like into grinder blades and stuff like that?",
"If I remember correctly, a polishing company I visited in Antwerp use the dust created to polish other diamonds in the finishing process. \n\nThere's not any particular value in it in the same way that 1 carats worth of small diamonds are less valuable than a 1 carat diamond (all other things being equal). \n\nIt's true about diamond as a material not being rare. Gem-quality diamonds are definitely rare but there are masses of \"diamonds\" just some are more accessible than others making mining viable or not. ",
"jeweller here. \n\n\n\n1. jewellery stores don't cut diamonds. there are very few places that do.\n\n\n\n2. the diamonds you see in jewellery have been carefully selected for that purpose. most of the stones will have visible inclusions comprised of carbon deposits. there is a lot of \"extra\" that comes off when cutting these out of a large uncut stone. this \"extra\" is ground up and used as an abrasive addition to cutting tools.\n\n\n\n\n3. you can totally smash a diamond to dust with a hammer. i've done it.\n\n\n\n\n\nedit: sweet jesus. please stop blowing up my inbox about my diamond buying guide. really didn't think that there'd be this much demand. i've left a copy in the comments right below if you're interested.",
"diamond sandpaper and grind wheels",
"I do some work for some people who cut diamonds. I asked them and got the following response:\n\nMe: \"Hey, when you cut a diamond, what do you do with what's left? Is there chunks or dust or what?\"\n\nDiamond Cutters: \"There is dust left, but it's just dust, I mean, you can't even find it if you wanted to, and even if you could, it has no value\"\n\nSo, it's worthless.\n\nThat said, I know they have a really neat camera where you can put a rock in it, pick a cut and it will scan the rock and then tell you exactly how much cut diamond you are going to get out of it. It's very, very neat and it does a magical job of getting the most out of every rock.\n",
"Diamonds are actually pretty common (after all, they're just carbon).\n\nDiamond dust is used in abrasives (cutting edges, knife sharpeners, drill bits), although I believe lab-grown ones are more common because cheap. De Beers just owns most of the diamonds, so people THINK they're super rare.",
"In the heads of the engine, there are metal valves. Those valves have to be seated to the heads. There is a paste that is put between the valve and the head. The valve is spun around while in the head which grinds both surfaces so that it creates a perfect seal when shut. The paste uses diamond grit to do the grinding.",
"The amount of misinformation being posted on here is a little disturbing. But it’s a relatively niche industry so no worries. \n\nSomeone linked me this post so I just had to make an account to answer. I’m a Certified Diamond Polisher and was a diamond polishing instructor in Yellowknife, NT, Canada for 7 years. \n\nNow for the ELI5 part: \n\n* Diamonds are sometimes sawn or cleaved in two, but that’s not what they’re referring to when they say “diamond cutting”. \n\n* Diamonds are shaped by faceting, the grinding away of the surface to create flat planes using a diamond polishing wheel. The wheel spins at about 3500 rpm and has two sections. The outermost section is coated with coarse diamond powder and the inner section is coated with very fine diamond powder suspended in a tacky oil like linseed oil or petroleum jelly. \n\n* The facets are ground on with the coarse part of the wheel (cutting), then smoothed mirror flat with the fine part of the wheel (polishing). \n\n* This grinding process creates a lot of heat (I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve burned myself with a stone). The diamond that is ground away stops being diamond. A lot of it oxidizes to CO2 and some is deposited all around as elemental carbon (just C). This “diamond dust” is completely worthless and very annoying. A poorly ventilated diamond polishing factory is a very very dirty place to work. It’s just C though so it won’t give you black lung or anything. \n\nedit: Corrected: \"course\" to \"coarse\"\n\nedit#2: Thanks for the reddit gold and all the great questions/comments.",
"My brother's friend's dad has a company that makes tool parts out of diamond dust. I'm assuming it mostly goes to uses like this.",
"I was in a town in Deutschland in 85. Went to a town called Kirschweiler. The kid I stayed with worked at a business where they cut Diamonds. All the dust was kept and used. Nail files, polishing stones and what not...",
"Hey I can help here! I work in an industrial lapping facility that specializing in lapping using diamond powder. Most of our stuff is made synthetically and is much cheaper than natural diamond. Natural diamond lasts longer and for specific projects we will use natural diamond. We buy it from a wholesaler who buys it from diamond cutting facilities. The diamond dust is used for very precise grinding of very precise parts. Most of these parts are silicone wafers used in the semi-conductor industry in the Silicone Valley.",
"My boyfriend worked in a photonics lab experimenting with solar cells and they used diamond dust for its reflective properties to increase the efficiency of the cells",
"Yes, the dust is used. Mostly it goes into files and grinders, abrasive things for material removal.",
"How is this an explain like I'm five? I feel like this sub has just become a backdoor for people that get downvoted off AskReddit because they post easily googled questions. ",
"I usually dust them on my French Toast instead of powered sugar to remind myself that I am not a 99%'er"
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75efog | why is chloroform not used as a sleeping medication? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75efog/eli5_why_is_chloroform_not_used_as_a_sleeping/ | {
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"Because chloroformed sleep is a sedated, unnatural state of unconsciousness. The compound depresses the central nervous system and too much can easily kill a person.",
"The main components in chloroform, at least the most common way to make chloroform chemically, is with acetone and bleach. Neither of these are exactly safe to inhale, and chloroform keeps those properties after a chemical reaction combines them. \n\nChloroform almost immediately knocks you out, and not in a good way. It's very unhealthy for you to inhale, and so it's not used commercially. "
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wunzl | how can decriminalization of certain acts (like drug use, abortion) lead to a decrease in those acts? | I was inspired by a post I saw on Portugal's drug decriminalization:
_URL_0_
I have also heard the claim time and again that following Roe V. Wade, abortion rates immediately dropped in the U.S.
What leads to these decreases? I get that in Portugal there is now more drug counseling and treatment, but the U.S. has drug rehab programs for addicts as well and one would assume many more people would try drugs or get abortions if the risk was reduced. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wunzl/eli5_how_can_decriminalization_of_certain_acts/ | {
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"Not sure if it is going to cut using of the drug, but people will be more likely to seek help because there is no fear of legal repercussion and less shame associated with it. \n\nThink of a heroine addict and a smoker, one is a social lowlife outcast and one is someone who smokes. See the difference? ",
"1) Legal things are regulated by the government. The government can use regulation to reduce addiction. For example many people in Europe stopped smoking because the price of cigarettes increased A LOT in the last few years due to the huge taxes on tobacco. Also you can enforce \"no sales to kids\" policy. A dealer won't ask you for your age before selling, a legal shop will.\n\n2) As Jim777PS3 said, it's easier for people to seek help if it's legal. If I know I'm going to get arrested, why would I tell the government that I'm doing drugs? And if I don't tell the government then how will the government help me to deal with an addiction?\n\n3) People always desire forbidden things more, it's in our nature."
]
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64waon | can someone help me understand how crossing the legs impacts when measuring blood pressure | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64waon/eli5can_someone_help_me_understand_how_crossing/ | {
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"Crossing legs, crouching, or otherwise increasing peripheral vascular resistance will cause a slight increase in blood pressure due to the increased pressure required to force blood through slightly crooked arteries.",
"It's like kinking a hose enough so that water comes out still but it's not at its normal rate/pressure. This would then impact the site you are measuring blood pressure at due to the change in pressure elsewhere. Just gives a more accurate reading to have all limbs uncrossed. "
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5jrzn5 | what do our federal income taxes pay for? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jrzn5/eli5_what_do_our_federal_income_taxes_pay_for/ | {
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"They go into the federal budget:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nabout 30% to \"discretionary spending\" , 64% to \"mandatory spending\" and 6% paying interest on our debt.\n\nA bit over half of our discretionary spending goes to the military.\n\nAbout half of the mandatory spending goes to social security and unemployment, about 40% to medicare and other health programs.\n\nSo basically, in this order:\n\n* Social Security/Unemployment\n* Medicare/Health\n* Miltary\n* Interest on debt\n* Other stuff (about 10%)"
]
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"https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/"
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|
arsur7 | how do maintenance personnel know how and where to replace electric and phone cables when it's underground? | A bunch of California's cities and towns have begun moving overhead cables underground how would they fix it if an earthquake breaks a cable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/arsur7/eli5_how_do_maintenance_personnel_know_how_and/ | {
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"You can send a signal down the line and have it bounce back at the break. Time how long it takes and use math to determine the length the signal travelled and there's your break. "
]
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|
5kqikl | how can 3rd-party sellers on amazon sell their products cheaper than their standard retail price? | I'm talking about how some sneakers are cheaper off Amazon than if you go to the physical stores or how Ralph Lauren polos are cheaper on Amazon than in Macy's. Do the sellers get the products straight from the source or are these counterfeit? And if they are, why isn't Amazon doing anything about it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kqikl/eli5_how_can_3rdparty_sellers_on_amazon_sell/ | {
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"Places like Macy's or JC Penny have a set profit they are trying to achieve with the products they sell. They buy shirts from Ralph Lauren for $10 (probably a lot less than this) and sell them for $25, making sure they get maximum profit to pay their employees, brick and mortar locations, etc. \n\nPlaces on Amazon don't have as many expenses and usually don't have a set profit margin they want to make on every product. This means they can charge whatever they want for the product. \n\nAmazon doesn't do anything about it because they get a set % of what these sellers are getting, and these sellers are doing well because they are undercutting the competition. ",
"a combination of lack of expensive overhead that needs to be paid for, and Amazon's business model.\n\nPlaces that have storefronts have to pay a huge amount in extra workers being hired to staff them, along with power bills, insurance, potential OSHA fines, and general property costs. All of those have to be offset in order to make a profit. This means they cut out the middlemen, so to speak. And doing so saves A LOT of money. \n\nAlso, Amazon bites a lot of cost or profit potential because of how they are currently trying to destroy traditional market competition. It works for them because they have an insane amount of assets to fall back on, and because they are 'winning', so to speak, over traditional mega-market companies like Walmart.\n\n_URL_0_",
"For some businesses, especially ones that actually run their own site, Amazon is a way to get attention by selling at a minor loss. I'll speak to specifically what I know in this instance:\n\nFirst there is cost. I know it costs about 33 cents to make a pretty decent quality gift bag, one you buy at Walgreen or Target. I know that the retailer bought that bag for something anywhere between 45 to 60 cents (usually dependent on the volume ordered). And we know that those bags will ultimately be sold to you at about $3-$5 a bag.\n\nSo already there is a ton of profit built in. Instead, you drop that price down to a dollar on Amazon. Just at that, you're still making some money. But, as /u/jlitwinka said, Amazon's seller central takes a cut of those sales. That is usually set when a retailer is creating their account, and highly dependent on the volume you push. Sometimes it is terrible, almost makes it not worth selling. An order for something that is a dollar or two might end up with a 25% fee. Then! You set up some shipping costs (if you self fulfill, meaning you get the order and you ship it out yourself). You want to make it attractive, but don't want to eat into your profit too much. So you take any loss for expensive orders (shipping is far away, they need it expedited, etc). \n\nSo I mean, in this scenario I set up, the retailer is making no money. But it is often approached this way as a form of advertising. Everyone buys stuff off of Amazon. So you buy my bags, I loose money, but I ship it out with a nice little letter, saying that if you visit my site, we offer free shipping (but the product is more appropriately priced), I can give a discount or coupon, and we have a wider range of items on our site. \n\nIf you're talking about something like a camera or technology, it gets a little different. To have TV's manufactured is also much cheaper than what you pay, but because it is a high-end luxury item, there is way more cost built into that suggested retail price. So there is a lot more profit to be made at retail, so you could loose more at the top to sell. \n\nAnd that is still all assuming that you're shipping out yourself. There is a whole list of new fees if you go the way of Amazon fulfilled, allowing your items to be applicable for Prime 2-Day shipping. Warehouse storage fee, return fee, you pay just to be able to sell, etc. And in that case, they make money off of quantity. Sell a lot at a little and you still make a lot. \n\n**EDIT** Source is that I do ecommerce marketing for a small import/export company here in the US, and this is how it was explained to me when we were getting into Amazon sales. "
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2bisn4 | how do cells bind together to form an organism and why do they do this? | I tried asking in biology but I didn't get any answers. Not talking about complicated organisms such as humans but even something simple like an algae. If the very first living things before any other life were simple cells that reproduced asexually by essentially cell division then why did these cells "stick together" I don't know the correct term but you get my point to build a larger organism? They are living things themselves perfectly capable of living out their entire life as a cell so why join to form a bigger organism what's the benefit?
Also when say a couple million cells do join to make say a fish, then they are dependent on each other for survival. So isn't that actually worse than just staying separate?
I know this is a broad question but no one has seemed to be able to answer this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bisn4/eli5_how_do_cells_bind_together_to_form_an/ | {
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"The life of a single-celled organism isn't \"life\" like we think of it. They don't think or anything. They react to outside influences (stimuli), and create energy by \"eating\" - usually, processing some sort of chemicals into energy, or by photosynthesis. Single-celled organisms have simple DNA which is easy to mutate, so they evolve very fast.\n\nThere are different kinds of multi-celled organisms. Some come about because a single-celled creature developed a mutation that made the daughter cells stick together instead of splitting apart. This can be beneficial because they can pass chemicals and nutrients to each other through a cell barrier. Others come about because big single-celled organisms swallowed smaller ones but couldn't break them down into energy. This can be beneficial because the smaller organisms are protected, and the big one gets the byproducts of any chemical processes the smaller one gives off. They then duplicate and split together, preserving the arrangement in the next generation.\n\nOver time, both types have evolved into bigger organisms, as these alterations aren't mutually exclusive. Remember - evolution isn't intelligent; random changes happen, and if those changes mean that the organism survives better in its current environment than other organisms, the changes will be present in the next generation. Single-celled organisms swallowed smaller ones, then mutated so that the cells stuck together instead of splitting apart, then swallowed a few more small ones. \n\nMulti-cellular structures and organisms have an advantage because when cells specialize, they can do the thing they specialize in very, very well. This allows for better food and energy processing, faster response to stimuli, and advanced processes, like movement.\n\nAs multicellular organisms started acquiring more and more specialized groups of cells (organs), they were able to do things like take advantage of more varied energy sources, and therefore reproduced more. Sometimes, the changes were also defensive - if you have a mutation where all the cells at the outside of your cell cluster have a harder shell around them than the inside ones, you'll live longer and be more protected. Then, say, our mythical creature with a hard shell has a mutation where one cell right at the top of the organism is a little more sensitive to heat - it has a sensor on its outside that causes the organism to move away from, or towards, a heat source. Over time, these tiny changes accumulate. The heat sensor becomes a pressure sensor too, then mutates to spread over the creatures surface, and now it has \"skin\".\n\nKeep in mind, that not all mutations were hugely beneficial - most have little effect, many are detrimental. We will never know how many \"species\" were dead ends; out of the billions of different life forms that inhabit the planet, thousands of trillions more never existed because they had the wrong mutation at the wrong time. \n\nThese things also evolved in tiny, tiny ways, over billions of years - we didn't start out sexually reproducing, first it was cell division. Then budding, where a daughter organism is grown on the body of the parent, and things like spores, and things like germination (plants) or fragmentation (where an organism will break into parts that then grow). Same way with bones, nerves, brains - the first bones were cartilage, and before that, just thicker, denser cells clustered together.\n\nInternally, all these structures share the same DNA, which is where the mutations are happening. Specialized structures happen when a different part of the DNA is expressed in a different cell - think of it like a newspaper, all one thing, but one cell is reading the stocks while another is nose-deep in comics. As DNA mutated, expanded, and mutated some more, you get the variety of life forms. You can look at complex cells like ours and see what little structures inside them were once other single-celled organisms - they actually have their own DNA (yes I know it's RNA, this is ELI5) that is different than the main cell.\n\nThere are also a lot of things that we just don't know. For example, we don't know the precise reasons that consciousness exists. We know the mechanisms of memory and recall and learning, but not how to turn it on in the first place. We don't know why sexual reproduction is one of the major methods of reproduction. The list of things that science and biology has to go \"We don't know why it works, it just does!\" is almost longer than the list of things that we do know."
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5b38w5 | difference between a 'disease', 'disorder', and 'syndrome' | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b38w5/eli5difference_between_a_disease_disorder_and/ | {
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"A disease is an anomaly in your bodily functions that results in health issues. This is what doctors treat.\n\nA syndrome is a collection of signs and symptoms that are caused by said disease (things like fever, tireness, pain, skin ailments etc etc) and you typically use syndromes to describe a disease.\n\nA disorder what the disease causes to the body.\n\nFor example, a disorder resulting from lung disease is respiratory failure or coughing fits.",
"* A *disorder* means that your body is not functioning normally\n* A *disease* means that your body is not functioning normally, and science understands the specific process that led to that state. Everybody with the same disease undergoes the same basic process. There may be variations, but the underlying process is the same.\n* A *syndrome* is a collection of symptoms. There is no guarantee that 2 people who have the same syndrome actually have the same underlying bodily process producing their symptoms. \n* Example: both syphilis and depression are disorders. Syphilis is a disease - science knows how it happens. Everybody with syphilis has been invaded by the syphilis organism. Depression is a syndrome - the process that causes depression is not clearly understood, and there is no guarantee that any 2 people who have \"depression\" actually have the same underlying physiology. \n* Example: a few hundred years ago, if you had a fever and were coughing up blood, people might say you have \"hot blood coughing up syndrome.\" Today, we know that some people with this syndrome have lung cancer (a disease) and some of them have tuberculosis (a different disease) and some of them have other things. ",
"If you look at the words closer it becomes slightly easier.\n\n**disease** - \"dis\" - \"ease\", whatever takes your body and makes it not at ease. This is how people can say something like \"depression\" is a disease, or \"obesity\". \n\n**disorder** - \"dis\" - \"order\". Whatever disturbs what is normal. Mental disorders are a good way to look at it, because they're not always harmful. But they are outside of whatever we define as the normal.\n\n**syndrome** = \"syn\" - \"drome\". Syn here effectively means \"with\" or \"grouping\". It's a group of symptoms. Lupus (from the show House) is a great example. We don't know what causes it, we don't even necessarily know if all Lupus is the same. But we know it has xyz symptoms, so we we group it all into one thing.\n\nEdit: Lupis",
"Some answers are getting pretty close, but I just want to chime in.\n\n* A disorder is any derangement of function. This is an extremely broad term, but it is commonly used to describe psychiatric conditions, *e.g.* generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, schizoaffective disorder. The term does not apply *exclusively* to psychiatric conditions, but it tends to be used as such.\n\n* A disease is also any derangement of function, and is also an extremely broad term. It is more commonly used to describe obviously organic problems, such as Crohn's disease or Lyme disease. Note that diseases can be neoplastic, infectious, autoimmune, degenerative, *etc.* In other words, cancer (neoplastic) is a disease, just as pneumonia (infectious) is a disease, just as multiple sclerosis (autoimmune) is a disease, just as osteoarthritis (degenerative) is a disease. Note, however, that disease *also applies to psychiatric conditions* such as those I mentioned above (major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, schizoaffective disorder).\n\n* A syndrome is a collection of signs and symptoms^1 that is seen together more frequently than you would expect by pure chance. For example, Down syndrome is characterized by intellectual disability, macroglossia (large tongue), single transverse palmar crease, and a long list of other things. We know that Down syndrome is caused by trisomy 21, but it is still a syndrome. Another example would be Cushing's syndrome. This is a state characterized by central obesity, red abdominal stretch marks, round face, and some other things. It can occur when a physician gives a patient too many steroids accidentally (iatrogenic), or when a patient has a tumor that secretes steroids in large amounts, or in a variety of other circumstances.^2\n\n**tl;dr** *Disease* and *disorder* are technically synonymous, but *disease* often implies organic derangement and *disorder* often implies psychiatric derangement. *Syndrome* is a collection of signs and symptoms seen together frequently. All diseases are disorders, all disorders are diseases. All syndromes are both, but not all diseases/disorders are syndromes.\n\n\n\n^1 A medical sign is something that can be observed by the physician objectively, such as hyperreflexia (increased reflex amplitude) or hypertension (high blood pressure). A symptom is something the patient experiences subjectively, such as nausea or pain.\n\n^2 Interestingly, when a patient has Cushing's syndrome due to a pituitary tumor secreting steroids, this is known as Cushing's disease. Cushing's disease is **one cause of Cushing's syndrome**.\n\nSource: Medical student\n\nEdit: Thanks for the gold! Never been gilded before. :)",
"A disease is a pathophysiological response to internal or external factors. \n\nA disorder is a disruption to regular bodily structure and function. \n\nA syndrome is a collection of signs and symptoms associated with a specific health-related cause....\n\nSo say the experts",
"Physician here. In practical terms, there is no meaningful difference between the common usage of the terms \"disorder\" and \"disease.\" These can generally be used interchangeably. Some conditions such as \"bipolar disorder\" have stuck to a particular word, but it could just as well have been called bipolar disease. ",
"I've learned it more as a conversation about illness vs disease. An illness, like a cold, has clear symptoms. The goal is to treat the symptoms to get rid of them. You are looking to take away symptoms. Same goes for depressions. Treat the symptoms so they go away. \n\nDisorders, like personality disorders, require adding something, like teaching new skills or ways of adapting to life events. ",
"There isn't a great deal of difference. \n\nDisease/disorder\n\nno meaningful difference and very broad. They mean illness/ medical issue. Yep, that is it. Nothing else to it. Some fields prefer one use over the other, but in terms of definition there is no difference. \n\nSyndrome:\n\nThis is a group of symptoms that commonly occur together. We don't always know what's occurring with these. \n\n\nIt's important to note there is overlap. Crohn's disease is also a syndrome.",
"A disease is problem you acquire. A disorder is a problem you are born with. A syndrome is a bunch of individual problems with a common cause."
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9mzu25 | why dont we stuff nuclear waste back into the already radiated uranium mine? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mzu25/eli5_why_dont_we_stuff_nuclear_waste_back_into/ | {
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"The reason is this; when uranium ore is extracted from the ground, it’s not very radioactive. A little, yes, but not dangerously so.\n\nIt’s the byproduct of nuclear processing (power generation or weapons manufacturing) that creates highly reactive, dangerous waste. That stuff cannot just be placed into the earth.",
"Nuclear waste and uranium ore are very different things, and a mine is very different than a deposit.\n\nNuclear waste largely consists of isotopes created during the process of generating nuclear power, which means that they're very different things than ever existed in the ground. Most naturally occurring uranium (U-238) has a half-life of billions of years, and emits little radiation in the short term. It's also locked up in ores with other elements, so that a given molecule is not pure uranium. On top of that, the ores themselves are mixed with other substances in mines.\n\nPlus, if you want something sealed up, a mine is not a great option, because you've spent the last few decades making the ground permeable enough to extract. ",
"Not only what has been mentioned already, but also all that 'waste' is still useful fuel if we did nuclear better. \n\nA great talk on Thorium nuclear power, which I think is currently our most viable path forward. _URL_0_\n\nEdit: spelling",
"The most concentrated Uranium mine is about 13% uranium, with most being closer to 2-3%. This means for every square meter of rock there's about a coffee cup worth inside of uranium scattered through it. This is far from pure nuclear by-product which in part isn't even uranium anymore but other radioactive material. \n\nBreathing in 10% CO2 isn't going to kill you, might give you a cough, 100% CO2 and you can't breath/pass out and die. "
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