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1xqmyt | how can i see the back of my head in a black hole? | From [strange facts about black holes](_URL_0_):
> Light bends so much near black holes that if you were near one and looking away from the hole, you would see multiple images of every star in the universe, and could actually see the back of your own head! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xqmyt/eli5_how_can_i_see_the_back_of_my_head_in_a_black/ | {
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"That whole statement makes no sense."
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c0701h | what are t cells and b cells in medical or anatomy terms and how are they different when dealing with viruses | Also are there any other cells related to these that I have not specifically mentioned? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c0701h/eli5_what_are_t_cells_and_b_cells_in_medical_or/ | {
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"B cells and T cells are part of the adaptive immune system. They are lymphocytes with different roles and are activated to fight an infection. T cells can be divided into three main kinds: cytotoxic T cells, which recognize and kill infected cells, T helper cells, which produce molecules called cytokines to control the immune response to a pathogen, and T reg cells, which inhibit the immune response. B cells instead only produce antibodies, which can neutralize a pathogen and help macrophages in killing it. \nWhen it comes to viruses, usually all of these cells are involved and many more (Th1, T cytotoxic, Treg, B lymphocytes, Natural Killer cells, Macrophages, Dendritic Cells). Some of these belong to innate immunity, others belong to the adaptive immunity, while others allow an intersection between the two. \n\nThe human immune system is really fascinating, so, if you are interested, i suggest you pick up a short book about it and give it a quick read. There are actually a ton of different cells involved in different mechanisms, it would definitely be a worthwhile read. I’m gonna leave a link here of what i just found with a quick google search.\n_URL_0_"
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137qpc | gaza vs. israel. i'm seeing reports that gaza fired 120 rockets towards israel and i don't know what to think about the whole conflict. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/137qpc/eli5_gaza_vs_israel_im_seeing_reports_that_gaza/ | {
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"I don't have an answer but I just came to ask the same thing. What is going on in Israel?",
" > **No bias.** Discussion of politics and other controversial topics is allowed and often necessary, but try to remain textbook-level fair to all sides, for both questions and answers.",
"This is a very, very complex issue that would take me a very long time to write up, if there's enough interest/if I get any homework I'll do it.",
"Ok... the thing goes like this (might be a bit israeli bias).\n\nDuring the ariel sharon goverment there was a plan called disengagement, \n\nThe idea was that if they cant reach a negotiated treaty with the palestinians they would just retreat from gaza and the west bank exclusing settlements too big to take apart, build a large wall and let the palestinians find their own way, the palestinians didnt like the idea becuase israel would keep east jerusalem and some large colonies in the west bank aswell as that as soon as they are independent it becomes a border dispute and they lose the \"poor oppressed underdog\" status, and the israely extreme right didnt like it becuase it would be the end of colonization of the west bank and removing colonists from smaller settlements, \n\nThe first step went forward, all israeli settlements in gaza were dismantled, the infastructre was left intact for use by the palestinians, israel removed all its millitary forces from gaza but retained maritimal and air control, gaza had 2 crossing points, one with israel another with egypt meaning it wasnt landlocked, it was hoped that the lessening of pressure on the people of gaza and the removal of all settlements there would be taken as a mesure of good will for negotiations, and if not, close the border and let them sort themselfs off. \n\nThe problem came that soon after the palestinians held elections, the Palestinian authority lead by fatah lost badly, its corruption and lack of advancements getting results from israel in the peace proceses mixed with hamas bolstering that the retreat from gaza was actually a millitary victory for the palestinian people lead to a hamas majority goverment, \n\nhamas took its controling position in gaza soon afterwards and started millitary actions against israel \"to liberate the rest of palestine\", in a cross border raid they killed 3 soldiers and kidnapped another, aswell as started shooting home made missles and mortars in to israel, \n\nIsrael as any other country which is reciving fire from a neighburing terretory closed the border and imposed a blockade, \n\nAlot of people say that the blockade is there becuase hamas rules the terretory, its not exactly true, the blockade is there becuase once elected hamas used its political gains to use gaza as a plataform to attack israel, Israel has stated on many occasions that the blockade could be gone tommorow if hamas put down its weapons and recognized israel has a right to exist. \n\nI find it funny becuase a couple of months back a document leaked about dietry conditions in gaza with the headline \"israel planned to starve gaza with 2250 calories a day\", it was actually a report to avoid malnutrition in gaza by making sure each person in gaza gets atleast an avarage 2250 calories a day, the recomended calorie count by the FDA is 2000 for women and 2500 for men, an avarage of 2250, but they tried to sell it as \"starving the poor palestinians\" when its the recomemded diatery figured for most of the world. \n\nSo be very carefull with what you hear, many sources distort information becuase they all love the underdog, but at the end of the day, if someone was tossing rockets on your place every day and the police wouldnt do anything, wouldnt you eventualy beat the shit out of him ?",
"I am sure if all of us were alive in 2050 and Reddit were to still exist - we would be discussing the same thing. \n\nI am not being pessimistic at all and I think I am being fairly realistic. I now sympathize more with Palestinians than with the Israelis but at times I just don't even see how this conflict is going to end. \n\nWhat is really needed is moderates from both sides to come forward and work constructively but it seems unlikely when there is so much angst on both sides. "
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3z69if | why is the birthplace of ted cruz not an issue for his presidential campaign? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z69if/eli5_why_is_the_birthplace_of_ted_cruz_not_an/ | {
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"It is an issue for some people. But his mother was an American citizen when Cruz was born, thus making Cruz an American citizen. Ted Cruz's father became a Canadian citizen after fleeing Cuba and his student visa in the US expiring. Rafael became a US citizen in 2005."
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1r485c | if there are bacteria that live in hot and cold environments, why are we told to wash our hands with warm water? | You always see the signs telling you to wash your hands for 20 seconds under warm water, why not cold?
Also if I poured Liquid Nitrogen on my hands, other that it freezing my hand, wouldn't that sterilize it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r485c/eli5_if_there_are_bacteria_that_live_in_hot_and/ | {
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"The warm water is for dirt and grime (it'll dissolve more easily in warm water than cold) and as you're unlikely to have been touching a thermal vent on the ocean floor most of the bacteria you encounter will die from 70C to 80C water, which is hot enough to severely burn you."
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wbdhi | this xkcd | [I just don't understand it at all...](_URL_0_)
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wbdhi/eli5_this_xkcd/ | {
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"Einstein came up with relativity while he was a Swiss patent clerk.",
"Albert Einstein worked as a patent clerk in Switzerland when he developed his theory of relativity. So, the joke is that now everyone expects all the patent clerks in Switzerland to come up with world-changing amazing scientific discoveries.",
"Thanks guys! It was hard to even determine where to look from the comic and the scroll over caption.",
"[This](_URL_0_) site is very helpful.\n\n"
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7xt649 | why does food poisoning take up to 12 hours rather than immediately? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xt649/eli5_why_does_food_poisoning_take_up_to_12_hours/ | {
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"When you first eat the contaminated food, there may only be a few harmful bacteria. There simply isn't enough of them to secrete enough harmful chemicals for your body to react to. But given time in your gut, they multiply. At which point their collective secretions are enough to trigger your digestive system to react and transition into purge mode."
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50800m | how do certain security systems recognize credit cards, key fobs and id cards by a "magnetic identity"? | How do certain security systems recognize credit cards, key fobs and ID cards by a magnetic identity?
How can a magnetic strip be so unique that a scanner can read it different than millions of others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50800m/eli5_how_do_certain_security_systems_recognize/ | {
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"You just need 6 digits to give a million different cards unique numbers. The magnetic strip on a normal card is as long as a few seconds of VHS tape. In theory you could store your entire credit card history on the magnetic stripe. A handful of digits have no problems fitting on the card. The same is true for any other identification. You can get a 16GB thumb drive small enough to get lost in the USB port and cryptographic computers at the same size. Cards and key fobs are quite large in comparison and hardly needs to do anything. Even the chipset for RFID is about the size of a grain of sand.\n\nOnce the reader on the security system have read the ID number on your token, and depending on system cryptographically verified that it is genuine, it will look up the ID in a security database. You may be granted access, denied, security might be called or you have to enter your PIN number for two factor verification. The pin number is also stored in the same database."
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4pd17r | what prevents a business owner from selling the company then starting a similar company? | I don't own a company nor intend to sell one anytime soon but what prevents this from occurring if you do not hire any employee from the previous one? Is it a breach of contract if you do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pd17r/eli5_what_prevents_a_business_owner_from_selling/ | {
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"Any halfway competent lawyer drawing up the contracts for the sale of a company is going to include noncompete language to prohibit precisely that sort of shenanigans.\n\nIt'll include poaching employees, or clients, and probably also include the old owner running a similar business anywhere within, say, 100 miles.",
"Most business sales will include some form of non compete provision to prevent exactly that outcome. ",
"I'm confused. You phrased that like it would be some great deal. Why do you think business owners would want to do that? In many cases, business owners can do exactly what you said, but there's no much advantage to having to start a business from scratch vs keeping the business you already have. Are you interested in why those startup costs are higher?\n\nE: oh, I guess you meant from the new owners perspective. If they are worried they will create non-compete clauses in the purchasing contract.",
"sadly it isn't allowed since it will be a clause in some sort of contract that you sign stating that competition of a similar business isn't allowed within a certain range or in that strip mall etc. There are even some companies that if you are an employee of and say you quit.. you can't join a direct competitors company for a certain amount of time. This is usually to do with technology.",
"Imagine I spend five years creating the perfect water park. It's the only one in my town and everyone loves it. It makes me lots and lots of money every year which is great! \n\nLet's say it stops earning me lots and lots of money but I still need to pay all the staff who work there. Now this business is costing me money to operate - so I might get rid of some slides or workers. \n\nI now decide to sell my water park after 6 years of building it up from nothing (bank loans, effort, research, development, branding, marketing, advertising). \n\nNow Geoffrey owns my water park and he's restructured it in a way that means it is making some money for him. And I have a really big bag full of money. \n\nAt no point would I sell my business if it is making me money every year.\n\nDue to the investment of time and other hidden costs like interest on loans, money spent on services like marketing or simply paying my staff; at no point will selling a business give the owner more money than they have put into it. You never get your time back, sadly. \n\nOnce you sell a business it would be rather silly to immediately open another one just like it. The two businesses would then compete with each other for customers (and profits). Unless you relocated which is quite a big thing to do. \n\nLawyers also get involved when business entities are sold. Non-compete clauses are a legal way to prevent exactly what you are talking about. Imagine I was a highly successful doctor but I sell my business. All my clients would still belong to the old business and a non-compete clause would stop me from approaching them from my new business. ",
"The only thing that stops you is if the contract for the sale includes a requirement that you don't (often called a \"no-compete\" clause). In general, most people buying a business where competition may be a problem will put a no-compete clause in the contract, or their lawyers will.\n\nHowever, no-compete clauses aren't permanent, but are usually for a period a few years. After all, if you tried to put a permanent no-compete in, you may well find that the seller won't sign.\n\nFor example, a guy called Mark Goddard-Watts founded a UK company called screwfix specialising in selling light construction materials and tools to trades and the general public. They worked on the basis of warehouses with a trade counter where you could turn up with a list of item numbers from a catalogue and your items would be picked while you waited. Using this model, they could undercut proper shops, but were super convenient for tradesmen, because they could just pop in and pick up a tool or materials if they ran short. The public liked it too, because they got trade prices on basic home improvement materials.\n\nThe company was purchased by a major retail group, and Goddard-Watts spent a few year just sitting on the cash he'd made from the sale.\n\nThen after 4 years, he set up another company called toolstation - which, you guessed it, has a chain of warehouses with counter service where you pick items from a catalogue. If you go down to one of these stores, you literally can't tell the difference apart from the name above the door, and the name on the catalogue.",
"So there are a number of blockades that usually prevent this.\n\n\nThe first one is a non compete clause that will exist in almost any standard sale of business deal. Most deals will hinge on the seller not being able to simply take that idea to another company, whether they start it or not. There's usually a limit on these clauses, measured in years in most cases. Technically you could do this after the clause is over, but by then the buying company should already be to market with your idea.\n\n\nThe second big block would be the sale of IP along with the company. If you started the company, your intellectual property is almost always under that company, not under the creator. When the company is sold, so is the IP. You know have to respect any patents, copyrights, etc of the company as if you never had the ideas or products in the 1st place.",
"The previous company owns all the IP on the projects they were doing so if the companies are too similar then you can run into intellectual property issues ",
"It has happened before. For example, Leo Fender sold the Fender Electric Instrument Company he founded to CBS in 1965, for health reasons. The sale included a 10 year non-compete clause, but Leo's health improved and he found he was still interested in making guitars and amps. By 1971 he was involved in a new company started by an ex-Fender manager (which later became Music Man); officially as a silent partner and financial backer, but unofficially working on designs too. When the non-compete clause expired in 1975, he was appointed President of the company. ",
"For small businesses very very little.\n\nNon compete clauses? Simply have the business in the name of your wife or run it as a Ltd company so that it has a different identity.",
"Most of the time when you sell a business a non-compete clause will be a part of the sale. This prevents exactly what you are talking about.\n\nPlus you have the fact that a businessman has no reason to do that most of the time. If they wanted to still work in that field why would they spend the money and effort to build a new business from scratch when they have one that is already up and running with customers and the like. ",
"Desire. If you want to sell a business, it is probably because you want to get out of that business. Otherwise, you would rebrand or restructure; getting additional capital from investors or loans if necessary. Starting a business is difficult, and it takes time to build the reputation of a brand. Presumably if you are selling the brand and somebody is willing to buy it, as opposed to liquidating the assets, the brand you are selling already has value.\n\nA sales contract may contain a non-compete as other people have said, but if the business is a corporation than it will almost certainly not. Since a corporation is its own legal entity, who would the non-compete apply to? The corporation itself? The stockholders?",
"The non-compete was already brought up a lot of times.\n\nAlso, think of this. Take Coca-Cola, or Pepsi. They both have cola drinks. What's to stop you from starting your own cola company, and taking on either one or both of them? They have the brand recognition. Coca-Cola's \"secret\" recipe doesn't matter. A good flavorist can reproduce that in no time. But there's no point in selling a product that tastes like Coca-Cola, because you can never compete with Coca-Cola marketing.\n\nAlso, if it was cheaper to start a new company, why wouldn't the other company start it instead of buying yours? What benefit could you get from selling your company, and then starting one exactly like it? Sure it has happened, but there have usually been some very special circumstances.",
"Many times when business are bought outa non compete clause is included in the agreement. This means that the owner of the business is not allowed to create a competing business within a specified time frame. For example the owner of Starbucks sold his company, waited for the non complete clause to end (I think it was 10 years) and opened David's tea"
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6mleuu | why is gentrification a modern phenomenon? why did it take off in the last two decades in the us and western europe and not earlier? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mleuu/eli5_why_is_gentrification_a_modern_phenomenon/ | {
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"It's not a modern phenomenon at all, what makes you think it's only been happening for the last 20 years?"
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46vrqg | how do the "get rich quick" and related scams get away with it? are there no laws against these types of fake advertisements? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46vrqg/eli5_how_do_the_get_rich_quick_and_related_scams/ | {
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"There is in America, but circumventing American law on the Internet is as easy as not basing your company in America. Seriously that's how they get away with it, it's still going to get to you and Americans can't do anything about it, because it's not theirs. "
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1z625s | eili5: why do i get totally dehydrated when i drink a ton of beer? | I drink a lot, I piss a lot, I wake up feeling like I'm made of sandpaper. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z625s/eili5_why_do_i_get_totally_dehydrated_when_i/ | {
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"Beer is a diuretic. What diuretics do is, quite simply, make you urinate more. This leads to dehydration as you continue to urinate, eventually leading to that nasty hangover in the morning. Drinking water will help to prevent those hangovers!",
"There is a molecule released by your adrenal medulla that tells your kidneys to retain water. Alcohol inhibits this molecule, so your kidneys don't retain water and you piss it out. This leads to huge water lose and dehydration. "
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7i1nj9 | how does your body know what to process from the food you eat and what is waste? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7i1nj9/eli5_how_does_your_body_know_what_to_process_from/ | {
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"It doesn't *know*. It's what it's *able* to process. What it *can't* process is waste. ",
"imagine you have a bunch of lego constructions, but they are missing parts.\n\nyou go and take an already completed lego model, and completely tear it apart piece by piece.\n\nyou use these constructed pieces to complete all of your lego constructions, and use some of it to start to build more. and then some of it is just no good, and you poop those lego parts out of ur butthole",
"First, let's talk about the \"know\" part. Your body uses microscopic structures called \"enzymes\" that grab ahold of other molecules and (for our purposes) breaks them down into other molecules. Each of these enzymes are specific to what they break down, so an enzyme won't just break down anything, it will only work on specific molecules. This has to do with the enzymes structure, round enzyme requires a round peg or, the enzyme is a lock and the molecule it breaks down is a key.\n\nThere are three main types of molecules that can be broken down for energy: carbs, fats and protein. For the most part, the energy is being carried by a molecule called ATP. Think of ATP as your bodies 20 dollar bill, there are other molecules that carry energy, but we're just going to talk about ATP, because it's your bodies favorite.\n\nThe process starts in your mouth where you chew up your food into smaller molecules, and then break it down even further by enzymes in your saliva, you swallow it, it goes down into your stomach where it's broken down into a liquid by the acid in your stomach and the proteins are broken down into smaller molecules call \"amino acids\". The liquified food then makes its way to the small intestines where the good stuff is absorbed through the walls of your intestines and into your blood.\n\nThis is where our discussion of the specific nature of enzymes becomes important, as these molecules are brought into the cell from the blood and meet a bunch of enzymes that break them down depending on what they are. There's a whole chain of enzymes that react with each one, we can put these enzymes into groups based on the original food. So there's glycolysis that breaks down carbs and Beta-Oxidation that breaks down fats and then amino acid degradation. \n\nSo, each of these foods requires a different group of enzymes to break them down and anything that doesn't have enzymes to break it down is excreted as waste."
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69rvzz | why does "walking it off" seem to help us recover from some types of minor injury more quickly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69rvzz/eli5_why_does_walking_it_off_seem_to_help_us/ | {
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"When you walk, your blood pumps faster and that helps heal the wound faster. It also distracts you from the pain since your brain cannot waste time on pain if it has something physical to do. \n\nHowever, don't strain yourself too much or the healing process may actually be put on hold since your body focuses entirely on the exercise. \n\nTLDR: don't benchpress, just walk it off",
"The healing process begins nearly immediately, but you'd have to be Wolverine to notice any actual healing in the moments you spend walking it off.\n\nWhat is happening here is a bit of distraction. Some injuries (depending on the type and severity) are more jarring/painful initially and the pain subsides a bit shortly after. When you hit your shin for instance the pain is intense but after a minute or so it has dulled to become manageable.\n\nWalking it off is simply trying to distract yourself while the initial pain subsides. This strategy isn't very useful for true injuries and often makes the injury worse. "
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15sy9r | what if two people involved in a car accident go to court, and they both have the same insurance company? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15sy9r/eli5_what_if_two_people_involved_in_a_car/ | {
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"Usually this doesn't happen because it is in the insurance company's best interest to resolve the matter before it gets to court. But, if they insisted then the insurance company would hire lawyers for both sides."
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1q86cs | why is bank of america considered a scam/bad company? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q86cs/eli5_why_is_bank_of_america_considered_a_scambad/ | {
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"Banks only care about their shareholders. Shareholders want all the money now, but there is a finite market for financing, not everyone is capable of handling credit or loans, that's what a credit score is supposed to show. If I loan a guy with zero or bad credit $10,000 for a car, when I try to sell the debt to someone else they're going to see that the debt is very likely to default. But if I loan to hundreds of guys with bad credit and then cut up the debt and bundle it together, I hide the bad scores and make it seem like the debts might not default: at least not all of them, right? This is what banks like Bank of America did to get their shareholders money, they screwed everyone else as much as possible and it's still their MO.\n\nBanks have conflicts of interest against their customers, both their basic customers and the owners of property they are financing, as well as heavy collusion with their partner institutions, the FED from which they borrow tons of money at great rates makes them invaluable to the US government, which in turn bails them out if they fail. Their incentive to do risky, borderline illegal stuff is high and it has not changed. Their rates are pretty terrible, their customer service is near non-existent, and they are toxic partners that know they can't be replaced by many other financial institutions they are leeched upon.\n\nBy contrast, a Credit Union does not borrow from the FED and does not have a select group of shareholders that hire shady CEO's to work against it's own customers. The customers are the shareholders, so there is little conflict of interest, the service is remarkable by comparison, and the rates are often very fair, especially with things like CDs.\n\nBank of America is convenient and familiar, there are ATM's everywhere, and while Credit Unions often offer complete reimbursement on ATM fees, they 'trust' big brands more."
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c1rr65 | how is a word created? how does it become a generally accepted term by a population? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c1rr65/eli5_how_is_a_word_created_how_does_it_become_a/ | {
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"I feel like this phenomenon is a bit too complicated to eli5 but here's the best I've got.\n\nWe know there are different shades of red. For a long time though, we only had one way to describe the different shades so they were all red. The some day, some one said something like \"burgundy\" or \"crimson\". \n\nWe find a new way to describe something so that ideas become more robust and easier to picture for others.",
"There can be existing words that are modified (eg. magestical) or made up words (like today’s slang) .\nMainly these words need to be said a lot and then they sort of become offical.\nThat’s the best explaination I have.",
"In addition to everything said here, dictionaries can also “just” add words. It’s always interesting to see what Mariam Webster adds year by year.\n\n[new words 2019](_URL_0_)",
"Not a language expert. But i assume that our earliest ancestors needed to communicate. What started off as grunts or sounds needed to become more complex to actually describe what they were trying to communicate to each other. Eventually rules were made to help everybody understand each other and language developed from there.\n\nEnglish as a language is a mash up of many different languages, with words that have their origin in all sorts of ancient and more modern languages.\n\nNowadays words are either made my mashing words together or modifying already existent words (think spork) or just making up a new word and if enough people use it and it catches on, then that's a word.\n\nScientific words are often based on latin or Greek origins, or named after the discoverer or something important to the discoverer.",
"It's a popularity contest, literally. If I decide to use a new word to describe something, people around me will either no use it or start to use that word too. Maybe it's a convenient word, maybe it describe something that they didn't know about, maybe it just sound better than the word they used in the past, or maybe there is a word already existing, but they don't know about it. No matter the reason, if more and more people start to use my word is become a popular word and that's it. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nNow at that point, a linguist could look at that word and classify it a certain way, a group of people in charge of a dictionary can decide to include it, or maybe a standardisation office of the language can accept it officially, but that just give legitimacy to the word, but doesn't change the fact that word was used by a lot of people and part of the common language.",
"Most English words started as Latin or Greek. They were spoken in Latin or Greek by English speakers until people 1) misspelled them more frequently (both on purpose and accidentally) and the misspelling became a more common English word, or 2) purposely added the Latin or Greek word to another part of another word to create a brand new word, or 3) existed unchanged until today, still to be spoken by English speakers. \n\nExamples of each of those:\n\n1) The Latin word *pictura* was eventually changed to the English word *picture*. \n\n2) The Latin words *corna* (which means *horn*) and *copia* (which means *plenty*) were combined to make the English word *cornucopia*. \n\n3) The Latin words *villa* and *aqua* meaning *house* and *water* still mean the same things today.",
"From POV of a schizophreniac with perhaps thousands of neologisms... a fellow will find making the word is the easy part. Harder is to to get them to overcome their miscalors unto him and to use the words themselves.\n\nTo that end, more acceptable than the purest neologisms, such as *quark* or whatever keyboard spam, easier are the derivations, the lowest liberties, the *neologoses*. For example, as the dominant does dominate, the *complicant* does complicate. Shouldn't they? Wouldn't you be more willing to use that word than, say, *schlarf* for that purpose? Did you even need a definition?\n\nThere is something which when tasteful is called poetry, and when tasteless and helplessly overdone is called psychiatric *clanging*. To put words together satisfied only that at the intersection of sound and feeling, they're *right* together. It is a schizophrenicē, if not as quantifiable as its direct consequence in the plurality of neologisms that schizophrenics produce.\n\nBut quantifiable or not, it may helps them produce the best words of all.",
"Have you ever read the book, Frindle? It's a cute story and the main character asks this exact same question."
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3n0t83 | why is turning your assets into cash called "liquidating"? | Because I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I checked, money wasn't liquid. Anyone have any insight on this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n0t83/eli5_why_is_turning_your_assets_into_cash_called/ | {
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"This is known as a \"metaphor\". \n\nMoney isn't literally liquid, but we *do* refer to it as \"cash flow\". Basically, having your assets liquid means you can easily move them from place to place. ",
"Liquidity in the world of finance refers to how easy it is to trade an asset. If i want to buy groceries and pay for it with my house or my car, things would be pretty difficult. Cash is, almost by definition, the easiest asset to trade and is therefore called the most liquid."
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dkgm4h | on infrared night vision cameras, why do black clothes look white, but my black dog stays black? | We have at home cctv cameras, and at night time, when the infrared night vision mode activates, our black clothes look white on the video. But one of our dogs is black, and she stays looking black.
Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dkgm4h/eli5_on_infrared_night_vision_cameras_why_do/ | {
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"It might be cause your black cloth doesn't absorb light from IR spectrum while the dog's fur doesn't. It's sorta like the cloth isn't truly black in the sense that it'd absorb light in any spectra.",
"Infra-red (IR) is just another colour, like red, green and blue. It's possible for something to reflect or shine in IR so that it shows up white on IR cameras even if it looks black to us. It sounds like the black clothes you're talking about are like that. On the other hand, it's possible for your black dog to not shine in IR."
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185iwp | what is hermeticism? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/185iwp/eli5_what_is_hermeticism/ | {
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"A sort-of religious magic thing where people try to influence the world through contacting and making deals with heavenly beings.",
"Hermeticism is a style of magic that was decended from greek and egyptian sources, based on the teachings of a mythical guy named Hermes Trismegistus. This man was seen as an avatar of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. He supposedly authored some quasi philosophical/ metaphysical texts called the Corpus Hermeticum.\n\nMost Occult traditions that existed during the 18th 19th and 20th centuries were based in part on hermetic principals as well as christianized Kabbalistic principals.",
"Alester Crowley had more fun."
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7i2pzd | how does martial law get retracted? what value does it have for citizens? | I found info on how it can get called upon, but not ended. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7i2pzd/eli5_how_does_martial_law_get_retracted_what/ | {
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"The answer if going to be 'it depends'. It will depend on the constitution of the country and whether or not it is being followed. Some countries have provisions in the constitution for the army to step in at certain times, usually with the aim of restoring order and having fresh elections.\n\nMost countries do not, so whenever martial law is declared, the army are essentially freestyling an intervention, and are making up the rules as they go along. In those cases, martial law ends when the army decides it ends - again usually after elections and a handover to civilian power.\n\nValue for citizens - mainly that martial law can quell large scale rioting and disorder, plus possibly remove a corrupt government, but generally mainly of benefit to whoever backed the army to do it.",
"When used appropriately, martial law means a certain portion of the country is under military control, but the country at large remains under civilian control. Those civilian authorities decide when it should end.\n\nAs for value, it allows military resources to be better used it emergency situations, typically a war. If Canada invaded the US and had seized International Falls, a good part of northern Minnesota would likely fall under martial law. The US also declared martial law after the San Francisco fire of 1906, so soldiers could blow up buildings to make firebreaks.\n\nHowever, it is more often used abusively. For most of World War II, Hawaii was under martial law, mostly to suspend the rights of Japanese-Americans living there. One multiple occasionas, state governors used martial law as a pretense to break strikes, and the last time it was used, 1961, the Alabama Governor used it as a pretext to harass civil rights protestors.",
"It can mean different things. In some circumstances it can mean the military is now serving a law enforcement function over civilians, while the civilian Government is still in control. An example of this would be the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. President George H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807 via Executive Order, federalizing the existing California National Guard troops already in place, and then sent in 1,500 Marines and elements of the US Army's 40th Infantry division to restore order. In other circumstances Martial Law could be declared by the military themselves as part of a coup attempt. In this case the military is running the show, and they'll end it when they feel like it, because it's an extrajudicial action.",
"Martial Law = Ternary of the Government over the people.\nFor as long and as hard as they want to make it. Essentially your civil rights are suspended."
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2ciz6f | what is the significance of the numbers that come after the dash in processors? | For example, say there is an Intel Core i5-3570K or a Intel Core i7-2600K. What does the 3570K and the 2600K mean?
Also, how do you determine the relative rankings of each processor based on their full names? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ciz6f/eli5_what_is_the_significance_of_the_numbers_that/ | {
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"That number is just a model identifier and doesn't match any actual metric of the CPU. There are so many different factors that go into what makes one CPU faster than another (cores, clock speed, cache size, pipeline architecture, etc.) that as /u/riconquer says you should just look at benchmarking scores."
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f22cwp | what makes that last 1% on your phone battery so much stronger than the rest? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f22cwp/eli5_what_makes_that_last_1_on_your_phone_battery/ | {
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"It’s much like your car being on “E” for 20 miles. It’s just a warning sign and they give you plenty of time to make up for your mistake of not paying attention.",
"It's usually not the last 1%. The phone tracks how much current goes in and out of the battery. So the remaining charge is just an estimate. It's always conservative, because if it wasn't your phone would often die with 5-10% 'battery life' remaining, and that tends to make people understandably angry. It's better to have it go down to 0-1%, and then stay on until voltage is too low to continue operation."
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3dg001 | when people drink alcohol, cravings for and use of cigarettes is increased greatly. is there a scientific basis for this, or is it purely habitual? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dg001/eli5when_people_drink_alcohol_cravings_for_and/ | {
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"Being a smoker and an enjoyer of the occasional several pints and or a ripping good party, from personal experience it was more the instinctive desire to smoke more due to being drunk. ",
"I'm on mobile, but everyone else has been off. \n\nSo, a lot of your behavior and expectations are derived from associations. Like, when you see your best friend in your caller id, you can't help but smile. You associate your best friend with good times, because off all the past adventures you've had. Or even better: when you were in line to get your tickets to see the movie inside out you probably started craving popcorn or whatever your family's favorite movie snack is. The ticket line, posters, and even the big movie time display cued your brain for the yummy snack.\n\n\n\nNow, older people drink beer and go to bars. When a lot of folks started smoking it was at a social event, and every time afterwards that they start smoking while drinking reinforces that association. So after a while, that beer will cue them for that yummy dopamine rush via cigarettes. Its familiar to them. Heck, a lot of people wouldn't even know what to do with their hands if they weren't smoking while holding a beer!\n",
"There is a very specific mechanism for addiction. The dangerous drugs are the ones which activate your dopamine pathways (dopamine is the 'excitement' chemical). Overuse causes down-regulation of the pathways which means that more of the drug is required to get the same dopamine hit.\n\nThere is also cross sensitization. When a person who is addicted to cocaine (which takes multiple hits) tries heroin, they become addicted to heroin instantly. This is because it is the same dopamine pathways that are being used.\n\nAlcohol, nicotine, caffeine, cellphones, porn, video games, reddit, weed and achieving goals all cause this same dopamine hit, it is up to you to make sure that you are not overdoing it, pushing into addiction territory.",
"Alcohol is a depressent, nicotine is a stimulant, the two go very well together. \n\nAlcohol also lowers inhibition and impairs judgement, meaning you are more likely to give into a craving, and less likely to care about the implications of doing so (stinky breath, cancer, ugly looks from non smokers). \n\nMixing things that slow you down, with things that speed you up, is seen in a lot of situations. \n\nAt a certain level, smoking while drinking is a very light version of speedballing heroin with cocaine. ",
"In a Neurochemical point of view: ethanol, although a depressant and GABA agonist, does affect and bind onto dopaminergic projections ascending from the ventral tegmental area that innervate the nuclear accumbens. This is your \"reward pathway\". Nicotine, which primarily affects cholinergic bodies, does find its way onto this pathway. Reward+reward=more reward. Though this is an association phenomena initially (ie. Oh everyone's smoking lemme smoke too) it becomes a reinforcement because your reward center become activated. ",
"I attribute my sobriety 100% to quitting smoking. Before smoking was banned at bars I would easily smoke a pack of cigarettes in a single night out with friends. When I quit smoking I was terrified to take a drink for fear that I would start smoking again. I couldn't have one without the other. I quit 15 years ago and am still sober, and still smoke free.",
"I don't smoke cigarettes. Never really have, except on a few very rare occasions, when I was drunk. I don't think it was anything \"habitual.\" I think it was simply the lack of inhibition. The \"fuck it\" factor, if you will."
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fhtxpu | country development. why did first world countries develop so fast and why are third world countries so far behind the rest of the world in terms of poverty, medical knowledge, access to clean water and consistent food, education, technology, government, economics, etc. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fhtxpu/eli5_country_development_why_did_first_world/ | {
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"Because just a couple of centuries ago the third world countries were colonies of the first world countries. I. E. they were systematically robbed, plundered and bullied for quite a while.",
"For a long time the developed countries actively worked to suppress the advancement of developing countries for their own gain. Resource exploitation is devastating to countries that are trying to build their own economies in many cases. See Congo and Venezuela for examples.",
"The simplest answer to this isn't simple at all. A ton of different factors play into this. \n\nResources. You have to have abundant food in order for humans to have additional time to learn, innovate, produce more. You also have to have key resources to make certain innovations. You can't develop metal working if there's no metal that can be accessed easily, for example. You probably won't invent the aqueduct in an area where water is so scarce you can barely get enough to drink.\n\nGeography/War. Some countries just happened to be near other countries that were developing as well. Other places were invaded by more advanced civilizations. Many areas in Europe were completely changed when the Roman Empire expanded, for example. This can also go the other way. Many countries that are still lagging behind today are that way because another nation invaded and took advantage of resources and labor without bringing improvements to the area. \n\nRich get richer. Once global trade started, it became a lot harder to become wealthy independently of everyone else. Guns kind of ensure that a nation has a good bargaining position. \"You give me your diamonds, gold, and gas, and I will give you a piece of candy and not shoot you.\" So that holds many countries back.\n\nCulture. Some regions are impacted positively and negatively by culture. Religion is a big one. Islam and Christianity have been responsible for some of the biggest explosions in progress and civilization, and some of the worst droughts of the same. There's a fine line between, \"people are surviving for longer because the church is taking care of orphans and enforcing moral laws,\" and \"science can't progress because the church won't let people study medicine and executes anyone who questions their ideas.\" Other cultural modes of progress can be language, oral and written, mathematics, politics. Basic ideas can shape an entire culture, which can shape an entire nation's future.",
"First world nations worked very hard to sabotage third world nations and were successful. The best example of this was when we caused the Siberian gas pipeline to blow up.",
"“Developing countries” are called so, because they are on route to development, but if you really think about it, they will never get there. Why? Because as some as stated here, they weren’t created to be on equal footing with”Developed nations”. The colonies were created for the sole purpose of extracting l wealth from these “new territories”. So much wealth was extracted from these colonies, that citizens of developed nations( kingdoms, back then) started believing that it was an god’s will that they rule over the world.\n\nI lived in a third world country for many years, and I can tell you that even the roads there, were meant for easy extraction of wealth. These roads were made by Colonizers not to the benefit of the natives, but for themselves. Even modern highways and rail systems are created for said purpose. \n\nOne thing I learned early on my travel to developing nations is that most political and civil structures follow this logic: \n\n“Developing countries, rely on lending from Developed Nations, to do business. More than Half of said loans (hundreds of millions of dollars) are stolen in some shape or form by all members of the civil and political structure to the benefit of the “establishment”. Develop countries know these loans will be stolen, but as long as they get cheap labor and almost no cost on those prime resources, the are willing to look the other way.”\n\nThis gives you a really wealthy ruling class, and a huge underclass. In one of the nations I visited, I noticed that people in power got paid in dollars, while the rest of the community got paid in the local currency. My hunch is that doing it this way keeps labor cost depressed. \n\nLastly, should a leader with conscience come to power and try to change the structure to the benefit of his/her people. Develop nations will most likely side with said establishment to restore “order” and normalize the flow of goods out of developing nations. And so, with the exception of some nations, the circle extraction continues to this day.",
"I really wish I wasn’t so tired right now - your question does not have an easy answer. Colonisation and neo-liberalism are your starting points. Also, the entire concept of “first world” and “third world” countries is fairly recent and was a term coined during the Cold War, and only rose to general knowledge during a speech made by Truman while he was president. \n\nFirst of all, for people arguing the “we had guns, they had bows and arrows” rhetoric, really just follows the stereotypical thinking of the whole “savages vs colonists” nonsense. This isn’t Pocahontas. Many, many, MANY cultures and areas were perfectly functional in totally different ways than Europe, and just because they weren’t choking themselves with coal street lamps and painting lead makeup on their faces doesn’t make them lesser. Many cultures lived differently for geographic or population reasons, but that’s a whole other topic. \n\nFor simplicity - We: colonizers them: colonized \n\nIncredibly long story short, Europe pillaged and destroyed and colonized large chunks of the world. Then when the colonies demanded freedom, we gave it to them (generally after hurting them in all kinds of ways to prevent it - during the Cold War was a big time for this), but they were already suffering immensely from being colonized and having their way of life destroyed and replaced by a system dependent on their colonizers. When given freedom (often after fighting for it bitterly, either literally or through economic conflicts), they didn’t have the resources or the people to sustain their own governments very well. Because the first-world dream is so appealing, and we sucked, we encouraged them to follow our “lead” and industrialize to bring them into the “first-world”, offering huge loans in the process (not even getting into the fact that many aspects of industrialization are impractical, unnecessary, or downright impossible in many places - especially since it needs to be done off the backs of others). Then came the inflation craze of the 80’s, and now those countries owe SO much money on their loans they can’t even afford the interest year to year, trapping them forever in servitude to first world countries. Boom. Neo-liberalism - aka modern, forced colonization. \n\nAlso, the concept of a “first-world” country as it currently stands cannot exist without exploiting third-world countries. The amount of production and resources that we exploit offshores to avoid environmental destruction and borderline human slavery is what makes our lifestyles possible (sorry friends). In order for first world countries to exist, third world countries have to exist to be exploited. So the whole world can’t be first world, unless we drastically alter what that looks like. So we told them to go after an impossible dream and enslaved them in the process, condemning them to a fruitless chase of a way of life they will never achieve, and destroying their old way of life while we were at it so they can’t go back.\n\nTo prevent some arguments about “but Taiwan did it!” Yes, but at great cost, and they’re an anomaly, and you can bet your ass “we” won’t let it happen again. \n\nSource: degree in sociology where a large part of my focus was on international development and globalization, as well as other complimentary areas of study within sociology and psychology.",
"There really isn't an ELI5 to this question. Just about all modern explanations fall in to a couple camps though. There's people who want to simply blame Europeans for being meaner, crueler and more clever than other civilizations. The narrative would be that they leveraged this propensity into economic dominance followed up by institutional reinforcement of what would be called the status quo. Basically, get your neighbors into an arm bar and then make all the rules and then when you have everyone following your rules this is good for you and bad for them. Once you \"accept\" this narrative, you'll be encouraged to feel dismayed that your success is in some small part owed to the success of those who came before you and that \"something\" ought to be done about it. Maybe you need to smash the patriarchy, maybe it's the institutions of hegemony (remember the arm bar?) who are nefariously and diligently working to prevent the success of people everywhere that justly need to be dismantled. This is a fairly simple explanation of the world: Bad people committed evil acts that unfairly positioned themselves ahead of others, the world will be better once balance is somehow restored. How will it be better? Hard to say, I guess everyone will collectively just realize things are balanced and no one will ever again try to pull one over on their neighbor.\n\nOther sets of explanations imply less weighty morals and attempt to use historical facts to explain the disparity amongst nations. Guns, Germs and Steel attempts this. The problem is that many historical facts are highly disputed even amongst the most banal historians. Some will say native Americans were devastated by plague caused by Europeans, others that the diseases played a minor role, still more talk about social strife and climate change. The problem is that all of these camps will be attacked by those who believe that history needs to be explained by contemporary morality and to make things even muddier you'll get people in the moralist camp creating fictionalized history of what might have been true about civilizations based on a few cherry picked facts. \n\nAll of this is a long way of saying no one can tell you exactly how things got to be the way they are. History is filled with tragedy and misery for all people. No nation was a stranger to death, privation, or invasion. You can explain why some nations are richer than others in the immediate moment, but to explain everything would be an absolutely monumental task with little guarantee that the explanation wouldn't be biased by ideology or personal opinion. The question is, what let's you sleep at night? What explanation motivates you to do the most good today? And maybe the trick, if there is one, is not needing an explanation at all to try to do the most good for the people around you.",
"Europe was the first place where cultural evolutions like the enlightenment happened etc. This made them more advanced as most others at the time.\n\nThanks to this advancement they were so powerful they could basically take everything they wanted, which they did because that's human nature, especially in those troubled egocentric times.\n(with they I refer to the ruling class) \n\nIt is highly likely that if these cultural revolutions happened anywhere else that these people would be colonizers because of too powerful rulers. Power can do crazy things to humans."
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wbukn | emacs | what is it!? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wbukn/eli5_emacs/ | {
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"Some will claim that emacs is a simple text editor for unix.\n\nOthers will claim (rightly so) that emacs is actually a giant experiment to see how far people will go, and how convoluted the commands can get, before they will notice they're being trolled in a war against pinky fingers.",
"Not to jack your post, but I would like to know, ELI5 why emacs over vim?",
"Emacs is a advanced text editor for Gnu/Linux systems, and it's often used for programming software.\n\nEmacs is famous for its extensive use keyboard shortcuts, and combinations of these shortcuts. (could someone who actually use Emacs give us examples of some everyday tasks?)\n\nEmacs have a extensive scripting-interface that allows the user to extend it and use it for more than simple text editing: you can use it as a calendar, email-client, terminal emulator, \"IDE\", and anything else you can think of.",
"The main reason emacs has such a dedicated following is that, other than it's very core functionality, everything can be customized or extended in the same language it is written in, lisp. \n\nWhile the learning curve to do so is very steep, once one is accustomed to the environment the level of possible customization and extensibility is unparalleled. "
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4ul6n8 | why will some things not load on my phone when using wifi, but immediately load on my cellular network? | Did a test on cellular data and wifi to compare:
_URL_0_
So, sometimes when browsing on my phone I click on a link/video and it won't load. I'll close out, refresh, wait... And the page will not load. Turn off my wifi, and on cellular it loads instantly. What causes this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ul6n8/eli5_why_will_some_things_not_load_on_my_phone/ | {
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"All Internet traffic is moved through \"routers.\" These little boxes control the flow of traffic between your device, your host (i.e. ISP, Cable, cell provider, etc.) and the Internet. When you send a request for a web page, your host uses a variety of tools to route that request. It's entirely possible that the way your cell provider routes the traffic is being handled completely differently than on a typical Wi-Fi network. \n\nThere are literally hundreds of reasons of why this could happen. Bad DNS server, bad routing tables, a down router, a bad switch, security protocols, proxy servers, security settings, or more. The issue here is that your little web request has a lot of hoops to jump through and it's possible it's getting stuck in one of the hoops.\n\nLong store short, you will want to inform the host of the issue. They could have a problem they aren't aware of and need data to fix it."
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1erbuw | what do vpns and tors do? | I have a few questions, but let's start with:
1. What is a VPN?
2. What is TOR?
3. How do they work and in what ways are they different?
4. Why would someone use each, assuming they are used for different purposes?
Thanks in advance! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1erbuw/eli5_what_do_vpns_and_tors_do/ | {
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"1.a VPN is a virtual private network, which basically means that it connects several computers over the internet in a Virtual LAN, So you can communicate with these other computers as if you were on the same LAN as them, but they could be anywhere. This works in several different ways, but a common method IP tunneling, which is essentially an IP packet within an IP packet. The other one used to 'tunnel' through the internet medium to the other computer, and then the inner IP packet used at the destination\n\n\n2. TOR is a way of making your internet traffic anonymous by changing 'source' field of your messages when they go through the TOR servers, and like wise changing the destination field of any messages for you which where actually sent to TOR, so TOR acts as a middle-man to keep your IP address hidden.\n\nyou can probably figure out the last two for yourself"
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6i3snq | why does the hormonal iud cause menstruation to stop? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i3snq/eli5_why_does_the_hormonal_iud_cause_menstruation/ | {
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"The IUD contain the hormones known as Progestogens. \nThe body produces these hormones when already pregnant. \nThe body uses progestogens as a signal to stop the menstrual cycle so the fetus doesn't get flushed,. \nBecause the user is not pregnant and the menstrual cycle is stopped, this prevents the release of a new egg, thus preventing pregnancy. ",
"The hormonal IUD, and some pill forms of birth control make the body think that it's already pregnant, which stops the queue for menstruation.",
"Another question this question brought me to: If you don't get your period from your birth control, and therefore don't rid of the eggs, will you go into menopause later in life than if you had regular periods? "
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d1t0x5 | how can some computers play a video at full quality with high fps but can’t play a video game with the same quality? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d1t0x5/eli5_how_can_some_computers_play_a_video_at_full/ | {
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"A video is a series of images that a computer can receive in advance and load in a big line for your viewing pleasure, while a game, the computer has to work out what to show you just before each frame which takes wayyyyyy more power and processing to do quickly",
"When playing a video, all the information is there, it just has to be displayed. A video game requires that all those frames be calculated first.\n\nThis would be like asking why it's so easy to read a book versus writing a book, and then reading it.",
"A video is already rendered into frames. E.G. playing a video is taking already established frames and swapping them with the next one at the rate determined by the frame rate.\n\nA video game will be _rendering each frame_ and then swapping, so...doing significantly more work.",
"When playing a video, all the PC has to do is Display the images X amount of times a second. How these are displayed is determined by the Codec used.\n\nWhen playing games, the calculations, physics, and general game code needs to be run in real time without delay in order to get a smooth experiece.",
"To your PC, playing a video is like reading a comic book. It's pretty easy. But playing a game is like drawing a comic book, it takes a lot more work and time.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn recordings of video games, the all of the 3D rendering work has been done. In a real video game, your PC has to calculate and draw everything you see on your screen very quickly, so it takes a lot more work."
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7qjhuc | why do companies and government not report the data breaches immideately? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qjhuc/eli5_why_do_companies_and_government_not_report/ | {
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"Simple. Most companies are interested in profit. In fact, that's kind of the whole point. If something like a data breach became public, nobody would buy their product and stocks would plummet. So it's in their best interest to try as hard as possible to make sure the public doesn't find out. Morals literally have nothing to do with it.",
"- companies: they usually try to figure out what went wrong first and whether they can fix it easily. They also are afraid of bad reputation/fall in prices so they keep quiet until they are sure that the breach is fixed now, what actually was stolen and have made their strategy of talking to the public. They usually also kick off some legal investigation by informing the police who also analyzes the problem. \n\n- government: mostly the same thing just with politics. \n\nSo there is something else. Sometimes a security flaw gets detected by someone, and that someone may go and tell the company or whatever it is about the breach, and maybe the authorities as well (or the person works for them). Sometimes the government buys information or learns otherwise about security flaws to be able to exploit them as well, then they are not interested in the problem being fixed quickly or published, but in keeping it in a broken state. Exploit trading is a huge market, and sometimes data gets stolen undetected, what leads to the last one:\n\n- they figured it out months later themselves. Sometimes they don't detect the data breach or the security flaw for a long long time. They might not even know whether or not someone was exploiting the flaw or not. They might simply find their data being sold at a data broker's and realize that the data must have been stolen (and by looking at the data they might be able to determine from when the data was from...)."
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4lzjkq | why can a nicotine (and possibly other substances) addicted brain sleep without having to get a 'fix'? during the day it's a lot harder to 'stay clean' for 10 hours. | Little side question: Would be interesting to know if all addictions are at rest during sleep. Personally I don't have the experience besides nicotine and maybe caffeine. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lzjkq/eli5_why_can_a_nicotine_and_possibly_other/ | {
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"if you are addicted to a substance enough, it will affect your sleep. it may be minor, waking up a time or two and drifting back off, or it may be severe, waking up several times and not being able to go back to sleep. sleeping does the same thing going without any other time does. it starves your body for the substance. that is why most users will fix right when they get up. even if it is nicotine or caffeine, you need it right away.",
"You're going through withdrawal while you sleep. You just don't notice it because you're asleep. Most people feel like they need a cig as soon as they wake up though",
"I am heavily addicted to harsh arabic tobacco called dokha. The nicotine levels in it are ridiculously high. The morning hits are legit the best things ever and I live for that shit but i feel it killing me slowly. I sleep and wake up 12 hours clean but that morning hit really gets your body going",
"This is why I wonder why they don't just put addicts to sleep for a week or two.\n\nA couple of drip of protein and sugar would cost a whole heck of a lot less than any other 'solution'.",
"Cigarettes usually makes some people alert. When they wake in the middle of the night and smoke, they can't go to sleep right away. (unless they are on meds).\n\nSwaying aside, cannabis does allow some to sleep well without waking up at any given time. \nThis is not necessary in all cannabinoids. ",
"All that has been commented is true, it alters your sleeping patterns but your body also starts to crave for nicotine during sleep, that's why the time between the user waking up and his first cigarrette is so important in determining the severity of his dependence to nicotine.\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"Part of _many_ addictions involve social cuing on top of the bio-medical part. So you talk to a smoker and they have not just the nicotine addiction but the social chain-of-events... \"I finish eating, I want a cigarette\" \"I talk on the phone, I want a cigarette\" \"I take my first sip of coffee in the morning and I want a cigarette\".\n\nSo while you are asleep you don't cue the addiction.\n\nNote that some people take this to mean that addiction is \"purely psychological\", but they'd be incorrect. Other's then take that first group of people bing wrong and think it means that addiction is not psychological at all, they are also incorrect. There is a psychosomatic (brain caused) element to many/most addictions. This is a real, measureable effect.\n\nFor example, you put an addict into a controlled environment and show them pictures while measuring brain activity and such. If you show them pictures of people they don't know and places they've never been, they have no particular reaction. You show them pictures of people they use with, places they use, and their tools or drugs of choice and their body measurably changes in anticipation and preparation of using.\n\nSome studies strongly suggest that overdose of opioids and the like often involve \"a customary dosage\" but \"a novel location\". So the addict, by taking his \"normal\" hit, but in an unfamiliar place and/or manner has deprived his body of the pre-drug experience and so reduced their instant resistance to the drug itself. In other words, the same dose taken in the same old place they always use, or with the same people they use with, would not have been an overdose.\n\nYou walk into your favorite opium den and your body _prepairs_ for the onslaught before you even start reaching for your works.\n\nAs an aside, you should _never_ do drugs where you sleep. Nor should you read, watch television, or use your computer in bed. Your bed should be for sleeping and maybe sex. You never want to associate your bed with daily activities as the same priming effect can give you insomnia and remove the \"sanctuary effect\" cause by the \"this is where I let the world go away\" associations of sleep.\n\nSo anyway... when you are asleep you are highly unlikely to trigger any of the impulses and bodily preparations that lead to cravings, so that entire initiation pathway is idle. Eventually you _will_ hit a biological watershed point for a physical addiction that will wake you up.\n\nSecond Aside: Don't use in the restroom. You don't want \"getting up to pee\" to turn into a priming event because it involves going into the bathroom where you use.\n\nAddiction is tricky shit. We used to think it was really simple. We used to think it was about strength of character and \"breeding\". But experiments like \"Rat Park\", and the ability to measure the activities of a living brain have told us that everything we used to know is just wrong.\n\nSociety and The Law, have not caught up to Medicine, and Medicine hasn't caught up to the Science. "
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a64rc8 | why does feeling like i need to pee not always correlate with how much i actually need to pee? sometimes it feels like an emergency but the quantity is insignificant, and vice versa. other times it is directly correlated. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a64rc8/eli5_why_does_feeling_like_i_need_to_pee_not/ | {
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"You can also get the urge to pee as a stress response, so when that happens it does not match the amount of urine currently stored.",
"The emergency feeling but small quantity is most likely a stress response.\n\nFor example, competitive runners (and athletes in general) know this: no matter what you do, you'll always have to pee really close to game time. I would say on any given basketball team, half pee right before game-time when they go into the locker room after warming up.",
"The stretchy muscles in your bladder have stretchy sensors that sends your brain a signal when they get stretched, like when your bladder is full of pee. However, if something irritates these muscles, it also can send that signal even if your bladder isn't full. This could include stuff like bladder infections, inflammation, or even cancer :)",
"Basically, there's a nerve that sends a message from your bladder to your brain saying 'I'm full'. And you perceive that as the need to pee. But lots of things can fiddle with that signal, and amplify the signal. So, if you're stressed, you may pee more often, but smaller amounts.\n\n & #x200B;",
"The feeling that you're describing is related to stretch receptors in the bladder. As it fills, it stretches and sends a message to your brain that you have to go. If you ignore that message (you're busy, for example), the bladder does not continue to send the message and the feeling goes away for a while. Then, as the bladder stretches more, the message will be resent and you'll notice the urge to go again. I imagine the times you pee a large volume but didn't realize how full your bladder was are on days where you are busy doing other things.\n\nOther people have mentioned that UTIs can cause urinary frequency and urgency. Also, untreated diabetes can cause lots of urination (polyuria). But I think you're asking more about day to day urination. ",
"I’m not entirely sure about this, but I think it has to do with your urothelium. This is a specialized type of skin (epithelium) that lines your bladder. I think that even if small amounts of urine irritate it over a long period of time, the urge to urinate increases. This is why in the morning, even though you don’t necessarily have a lot of urine in your bladder, you feel a very big urge to urinate: because it’s been sitting there the whole night.\n\nLike I said, I’m not 100% sure about this, but I think it contributes. I’m an Ophthalmology Resident, so haven’t dealt with the urinary system in a long time.",
"You could be like me and have OAB, over reactive bladder. Mine basically spasms a lot from what they can tell and sends signals to my brain saying I need to pee, when I don't. Seems to get worse through stressful situations or if I'm far from a toilet e.g. Car, meeting etc. I'm now taking Toviaz which is fesoterodine fumarate and largely its way better. From what the doctor said, this essentially switches off the signals. ",
"My understanding of the 'why' is that we are evolved from (in comparison to other animals) a pretty weak branch on the primate tree so you have evolved to bloody well piss when you can regardless of amount because you do not want to get caught short... \n\n\nThis is why it is not 100% connected to actual need but also by how good a time it is",
"The urge to pee can also be trigger visually. When I was a kid, as we approach the bridge, just seeing the Mississippi River made me need to go.\n\nBecause of a previous kidney stone, I have to have regular ultrasounds of my kidneys and bladder. To do it effectively, I have to have a full bladder. And so an hour before my appointment, I'll drink a huge amount of water..\n\nThe urologist's waiting room walls has several lovely photos of local waterfalls and streams. The bastard.",
"It’s a stress thing. I drive for work and generally have a somewhat strict timetable. I find myself getting stressed out that I need to stop to pee, and then stressing out and needing to go again within the next 20 minutes because I stopped and am running a little later than i was before.",
"The bladder is an amazing organ. Generally what causes the feeling of extreme urgency is involuntary contractions of the bladder muscle. This is normally defined as an over active bladder but there could be other conditions to cause it. The bladder is much like a balloon inflating and deflating according to the amount of urine.\nWhen your bladder is full it expands to accommodate the urine and your brain will start firing off signals to the bladder to give you the feeling to urinate. Sometimes in the case of an over active bladder the signals are sent too soon. Which is why you don't urinate much from time to time. \nThere are other conditions that can cause this like a urinary tract infection. It is best to see a urologist if it persists. ",
"Because nerves can be impinged and muscles can spasm. Signals travel to your brain telling you “Hey it’s time to pee your bladder is full” since that tissue is being stretched. If that pathway is compromised (due to a plethora of things, most of which aren’t serious), you may have a full bladder but your brain doesn’t know. On the contrary, (I’ll use an example from personal experience.) I pulled a groin muscle while snow boarding once and that muscle would spasm and press on my bladder telling my brain I had to pee all the time for like 2 weeks even if my bladder was empty. Very annoying. But anything pressing against the bladder can do this. And then you have stress which can affect your body in both directions and is probably the most common cause of this phenomenon. Nerves can work both ways as well but I’d assume that inhibition would be more common than over excitability, don’t quote me on that though. ",
"Your level of dehydration greatly effects this, if you are dehydrated or if you have low/ too high electrolyte levels, your body conserves fluids so it is very scenario specific. I had gone through some serious dehydration issues after a heat stroke and dealt with this for days (this is paraphrasing what the doctors told me at the time, so it is not entirely accurate, but that was what I was told).",
"Pressure on the bladder can be a contributing factor. You have special epithelia (general tissue) in your urinary bladder called “transitional epithelial cells”. When they are squamoused (squished) they activate nerve receptors that tell your brain “hey, I have to pee.” Now, this effect can be tricked, because a full bladder can feel the same as a smooshed bladder. Too much food in your stomach, an exceptionally large bowel movement, and as another redditor mentioned, stress can cause these cells to become squished without the presence of a large volume of urine. There are likely other reasons as well, but this explanation is for physiologically normal individuals.\n\nSource: Finishing up my undergrad as a bio major this May. :)",
"So without hearing more about the symptoms, what you’re describing could be urge incontinence. In general, this means that you just have an “overactive bladder” (OAB, is a common abbreviation). \n\nIn this case, the detrusor muscle around your bladder can be thought of as a fist around a water balloon. Usually, your balloon will fill to a point that tells receptors that you are good to go urinate at your leisure. As filling increases, so does stretch and, in turn, the urge/signal to release pressure on the balloon. At some point you’d gently squeeze this fist to empty the balloon.\n\nIn OAB the fist doesn’t listen to these signals and will start squeezing and making you feel like you need to rush to the bathroom—the amount of stretch and the urge to relieve stretch no longer correlate. People with this problem will most often complain that they’ll wake up in the middle of the night with the sudden urge to void and, to their chagrin, very little will actually come out.\n\nEdit: Regarding causes, there are many. Some are actually pretty serious, some are pretty benign—they range from a UTI to MS. This is why giving a good history to a doctor who can also properly illicit one from your symptoms is important.\n\nUrge incontinence is also much more common than the other end of what you’re asking, which is neurogenic bladder—a problem of overfilling the balloon without appropriately warning the fist it needs to squeeze.",
"The urge to pee is caused by pressure in the bladder area. Many things can cause that besides a full bladder. Enlarged prostate, cancer, or something as benign as being bloated. If your stomach and intestines are full of gas/food it can often create pressure in that area that registers as needing to pee.",
"Source: MD.\n\nBecause the urge is not only related to how filled the bladder is. That mechanism exists, but is less effective in people that sustained high distentions or low distentions for a prolonged time. Although it returns.\n\nThe urge may be triggered by irritation of the internal skin. Pus, infecion, blood, wrong pH and other substances signals that it must be emptied immediately. It may also be caused by irritation of the uretra or vulva/vagina because of a DST or an age related atrophy.\n\nThe sympathetic and parasympathetic systems also can play a role. We empty it when nervous because our body is getting ready for a physical activity.\n\nSome people just get the urge out of nothing, that is usually caused by an involuntary contraction of the bladder muscle, a spasm. The poor person usually pees itself as often there isn't enough time to reach the bathroom. This is usually caused by nerve damage or some medicines.",
"While pregnant, the baby pushes on your bladder, which makes you pee all the time. Once you are in labor and get an epidural, they insert a catheter into your urethra so you can pee. The combination of the anesthesia with the catheter, confuses your bladder and after delivering the nurses have to make sure you pee all the IV solution you were getting, otherwise you get another catheter to drain it out. Not only that, days after delivery your bladder is still messed up, and forgets to send signals to your brain, so your bladder keeps getting full and you don’t realize it until it starts hurting and you get the urge to go. Things go back to normal after a few weeks, thankfully. But, oh God... our poor bladder does suffer through all that. ",
"Your brain constantly produces a hormone that says \"don't piss.\" It's call anti-diuretic hormone (ADH). Sometimes it doesnt match up with the exact amount of fluid in your bladder. \n\nYou can see its effects in action when you drink alcohol - it suppresses ADH reception at your kidneys, who are now without a signal saying \"dont piss yourself\" and start siphoning extra fluid from your blood to piss. This is why drinking will often make you dehydrated, your kidneys are overproducing urine because they thought they were supposed to.",
"So anatomically, your urethra has two spincters- the internal urethral sphincter and the external urethral spincter. The IUS is smooth muscle--meaning you have no voluntary control over it. The EUS is skeletal muscle, meaning you can open/close it voluntarily (you actually learn to control it as a child which is potty-training). If you've ever pinched off your micturition (urination) mid-flow, that's your EUS. So as has been mentioned before, your urinary bladder has stretch receptors, which communicate when your bladder is filling to your brain. Your autonomic nervous system can then subconsciously open your IUS, but the feeling of holding your pee is you deciding to keep the EUS closed. So I would imagine that for some reason your autonomic nervous system is opening your IUS before your bladder is fully stretched?",
"Everyone is saying stress. There is also enlarged prostate, a condition called benign prostate hyperplasia. Usually starts in 40s/50s, but can happen anytime. Go see a urologist to sort it out. On rare cases it can be prostate cancer. 100% treatable but 100% fatal if ignored. Good luck, and again take the time to get a medical exam. ",
"According to pelvic health physiotherapists, if your bladder is even a mm off of where it should be, the signals from your brain to the bladder get discombobulated. On the same hand if you empty your bladder a lot when it isn't full then you're weakening the bladder and training it to empty when its not full so, bit of a vicious cycle."
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4wpqpw | ive: how/why are self destructive habits (mental or physical) formed, and how can they stop? | By self destructive I don't necessarily mean like cutting oneself, more like scratching that really hurts after a while. Or mentally, why do repetitive thought cycles that pain or trouble the person intentionally repeat them self despite the person not wanting them to?
Example:
Me: I saw a picture I didn't like, I don't want to keep thinking about it.
Brain: nope, fuck you. Time to keep thinking about it....
Me: but it causes me discomfort. Seriously guys (talking to my brain) lets cut the crap.. I don't want to think about this again.
Brain: lolwut ya sure whatevs, *thinks about it again
Me: -___- pls. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wpqpw/elifive_howwhy_are_self_destructive_habits_mental/ | {
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" > Or mentally, why do repetitive thought cycles that pain or trouble the person intentionally repeat them self despite the person not wanting them to\n\nI'm doing lifetrap therapy for a while now and the main reason, why for example people who had abusive parents marry an abusive spouse, is because it's familiar. Your brain loves consistency and although it's painful habit to be abused and abandoned, it's your comfort zone. Breaking out of it and forcing to date a spouse that's not abusive is new and you are not used to it, while abusive spouse gives feelings and emotions from your childhood. These people say that they feel a special \"chemistry\" with the abusive spouses, while non abusive ones just don't feel right.\n\nSame with the repetitive thought cycles you mention. It's easier to be mad/angry/anxious/irritable, than try hard to be happy and think positively. Thinking negatively benefited our survival in the past. You have to work on your thought patterns, even thought trying to change the very primal emotions and instincts is hard.\n\nI may have gone off topic, but I hope it's in the right direction\n\nWhoever has depression and/or anxiety I can post link to the book that teaches how to change the patterns and what is a life trap and how to get out of it. Understanding if you have abandonment, emotional deprivation, failure, mistrust, etc. issues and how to work on them.",
"This may be related: \n\nGoing and eating something *to excess* is something that although bad for our bodies in most cases, is something that we can find ourselves doing, potentially due to evolutionary factors. \n\nSweet, rich foods, are the most attractive food to us, because they indicate a presence of glucose, which our body relies upon for all bodily functions. Our body also directly rewards us for the consumption of these foods, with a burst of serotonin. \n\nThe problem arises where we're now in a modern society where there is no longer any real struggle to eat as there was back in Pre-agrarian times\n\n(Before agriculture, ie farming of livestock and crops, where there was no clear indicator as to when the next meal was going to be caught/found and so it was a matter of eating whatever was in front of you to make sure you could have the energy to go without if nothing presented itself.)\n\n\n... yet we are still internally rewarded for the consumption of these high energy foods. \n\nThis results in a situation where we are self-rewarding a process that *would* be beneficial in the scenario in which it arose, but it now is detrimental to our lives. \n\nThe human race is an incredible species and although we as a society have come a long way, some of the underlying vital processes of our own minds are somewhat ancient and primitive. \n\n"
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5qbap5 | why do people sound different when they clear their throats? | The parts aren't that different between people, so why is throat-clearing something that can uniquely identify people? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qbap5/eli5_why_do_people_sound_different_when_they/ | {
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"I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. Are you asking why person X's throat clearing sounds different than person Y's? Are you asking why the act of throat clearing is an identifiable vocal feature? Or are you asking why throat clearing changes the sound of a person's voice?\n\nWell, in order:\n\n1. Your throat is only a small part of what makes your voice. Your mouth, tongue, jaw, teeth, nose, sinuses, skull, and facial muscles all play a part in the exact sound you make. Even slight variations can make a dramatically different sound, even for something as simple as clearing your throat. Even the texture of your mucus has an effect in this case.\n2. Humans are *really* good at identifying individual voices and picking up on subtle patterns. If you know someone who regularly clears their throat, you'll be able to identify them by just that sound because you have an entire section of your brain dedicated to purely vocal noises.\n3. Mucus acts as an obstruction in your airway and a dampener to the motions your vocal cords can make. Clearing your throat is much like taking the mute off a stringed instrument and tuning the strings to the correct tension."
]
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[]
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|
2m9vj5 | in winter why is it darker in the middle of the day, compared to the summer. | At the moment there is cloud coverage, fairly consistent with that of summer (UK obviously). It seems darker now than it ever is in summer, despite the sun still being up. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m9vj5/eli5_in_winter_why_is_it_darker_in_the_middle_of/ | {
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"The sun is not as high in the sky at midday in the winter as it is in summer. The earth is tilted and when it is winter for you, the half of the earth that you're on is tilted away from the sun, so it's impossible to get the sun directly overhead."
]
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[]
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8otnb8 | why do some food service workers such as those in supermarkets have to wear gloves and hairnets, but chefs in restaurants and food prep in a mcdonald's doesn't? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8otnb8/eli5_why_do_some_food_service_workers_such_as/ | {
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"Dunno what McDonald's you're going to, but those in the kitchen are required to wear gloves and hairnets ",
"There are several layers of stuff telling employees what they have to do.\n\nFirst is the law. This is usually not very detailed, and it rarely dictates behavior. This covers stuff like physical safety. \n\nSecond is local ordinances. This is usually much more detailed, but it still doesn't dictate behavior at the employee level. It covers things like food temperature requirements and that boring stuff.\n\nThird is company policy. This is usually pretty detailed and it dictates a lot of behavior. This covers recipes, dress codes, glove use, hairnets, etc.\n\nFourth is store policy. Often times, managers have discretion over certain things or company policy doesn't cover it. This dictates most behavior and covers pretty much everything.\n\nTo answer the situation in your question: one store had a manager that said they had to do that and the other store had a manager that didn't say they had to do that.",
"UK worker here.\n\nIt's mainly for cross-contamination purposes.\n\nThe supermarket workers you are talking about are primarily in the Meat, Fish and Deli counters. As such, they handle a wide variety of raw meats, so using fresh disposable gloves for each meat is the easiest method to prevent cross-contamination between meats.\n\nIn McDonalds, some disposable gloves are used when handling the frozen raw patties. Once cooked, the cooked meat (and chicken etc. products) are only handled with tongs, which are coded such that each meat has its own set of tongs.\n\nThe above does not remove the need for regular handwashing for food-handlers, but washing your hands every time you handle a different meat is excessive when alternatives exist.\n\nAs for hairnets, the UK requirement is for a head covering. Hairnets are only required for long-haired workers. It's also rare to see bearded food handlers as snoods are generally required as well."
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2cf4nn | how do bacteria actually make you sick? | Why can a person carry around certain types of bacteria without actually becoming sick and another time they do become sick after coming in contact with the same type of bacteria? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cf4nn/eli5_how_do_bacteria_actually_make_you_sick/ | {
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"It is the toxins. The question is, why do the secrete toxins that make people sick? \n\nI think it might be that bacteria use those toxins to protect themselves from other micro-organisms and the same mechanism the destroys those micro-organisms kills our cells. We \"feel\" sick as a signal to stop eating whatever we were eating that had bacteria in it."
]
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34jgj6 | what are "period cramps?" | Why do some women get them worse than others, and why do I feel like I'm DYING right now?? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34jgj6/eli5_what_are_period_cramps/ | {
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"Period cramps is the uterus contracting to push out the lining.\n\nWhy some people have worse cramps than others, well, that is a pretty difficult question to answer as there are many factors. There are some disorders that give women worse cramps (PID, PCOS, Endometriosis) but there are also a lot of environmental factors that can play a role. Stress can lead to worse cramps as can caffeine. If you are experiencing bad cramps every month, think about checking with a doctor to make sure you don't have any disorders that are making these cramps worse. If you are having one bad month, try and think back what you did differently this month. Maybe you will find it was a highly stressful month, or that you had exams and drank a lot of caffeine while pulling all nighters. All of those things can have effect.\n\nFor now, drink lots, take painkillers as needed, perhaps take a nice hot bath or put something warm against your abdomen. And if you are feeling a bit better, exercise does help lessen the cramps too, though that is not exactly what every girl wants to do when bleeding like a mofo. "
]
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7z4hin | how does the body know where send immune cells? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7z4hin/eli5_how_does_the_body_know_where_send_immune/ | {
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"The main protection would be immune cells going around basically until they come across a pathogen, once a white blood cell engulfs one they can send out signals to others, it’s a little more complicated but that’s the jist"
]
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||
5kk3or | how is it that some people are born with natural talents for things and others must learn them? | Some people are born with the ability to draw well or pick up musical instruments, while others must spend double the hours of practice to learn them. Why/how does this happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kk3or/eli5_how_is_it_that_some_people_are_born_with/ | {
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"\"Born with it\" is usually a misconception. The general philosophy is that it takes 10,000hrs of practice with the aim to get better to master something. \n\nThe key to that is making the most of your time spent \"practicing\". For example, professional hockey players almost exclusively are born in January/February. It's not because the hockey gods decreed it so, but has to do with little league rules. \n\nMost pro players got their hockey start in grade school where leagues are usually broken into age groups. Anyone who was 7 on Jan 1 plays in the 7yr old League. The difference between 7 and 7.8 years old is huge, so oldest kids on the team are usually the best just due to size. \n\nNow they look objectively better than their peers when going out for select teams and coaches. This access gives them better training opportunities and tougher competition to grow their skills against. \n\nIt's not that they were born with it. They just were able to make better use of their time practicing. \n\nIf you aren't genuinely interested in what you are studying, don't have the best teachers, or simply don't challenge yourself, you aren't making the most of your time, and extend your learning curve. \n\nSome *are* literally born with physical advantages, but like the hockey players this usually gives them an early advantage and early access to elite-tier training and competition. An example of this would be Michael Phelps and his freakishly long arms & legs attached to his extra-wide hands & feet. That man's body is just about perfectly evolved for lap swimming. ",
"musician here, I don't believe in natural talent, at least in music. Every musician I know has worked their ass off, sat in their room and practiced for hours, literally thousands of hours. Some people are lucky to be introduced to something at a very young age and put their time in early, some people pick things up quick but it still takes work and time to master. The only exception are savants. ",
"No one is born with the ability to do any of those things have you ever seen a newborn paint or draw well? Some people can be better suited to certain tasks because of their genes but that doesn't mean this will instantly be good at it for example there is a hormone that determines how much muscle mass you body will try to maintain but if you sit in a chair all day and don't go outside you will be shit at running and every sport no matter how much muscle you have. ",
"There is a difference between talent and skill. You're born with talent, and you learn skill. And someone with a talent still must develop the skills to get the most use out of that talent.\n\nI have some musical talent, as do many others in my family (my mom's side at least). I have a decent voice, have an good ear for pitch, and have an excellent sense of timing. But other than a few things I picked up in high school choir, I don't have musical skills. I can't play any instrument, I can't read sheet music other than getting the intervals.\n\nSo, I was born with some talent but didn't develop many skills around them. Had I decided to pursue a career in music, I'd have taken years to learn the skills.\n\nAnd yes, natural talents can help someone learn skills faster than others. The timing sense I have might have helped me learn piano faster than someone who didn't have that particular talent.\n\nTraining can develop many of the skills that enhance talent or even make up for a lack of talent in some areas. But for music, like many other endeavors, the very best are the ones who have good talent and worked hard at the skills.",
"I don't think it's being born with a specific talent, but a combination of genetics (strong immune system and good metabolism for things like athletes) and a strong environment that is conducive to learning said skill (training early and often in life). There is also the concept of not knowing or not seeing what your talent is. Schools are usually so standardized that unless you are noticed by a teacher, they may never know you have a natural talent (drawing, writing, or even a good singing voice). Parents miss this too. \n\nAnd then there are the people that have a talent but never take advantage of it. I have seen countless stories of people that are incredibly musically incline but because of a crap family life, or drugs or whatever, it never goes anywhere. ",
"You can practice more efficiently than someone else, but you aren't simply born with the skill. Remember highly skilled people make it look easy but don't underestimate how many hours they've dedicated to practice.",
"People who seem to have a natural aptitude are encouraged to keep doing it. People who either believe that they can't do something well or have been told that they can't do something well are encouraged to stop trying. The problem with doing stuff and gauging aptitude is that it's highly subjective. It doesn't actually matter if you're good or not, so long as you believe you have a skill worth pursuing and thereby gaining mastery.\n\nKids who do well in school tend to be the ones who are *encouraged* to do well in school. They also tend to be the ones who meet other correlates of school success: reading at home, lots of physical activity, adequate sleep, family dinners, family members who value cultural or artistic pursuits. In terms of learned behaviours, there are things like better coping skills, learning to persevere instead of giving up and walking away when things are hard.\n\nWhen you talk about learning, there is another side: the teacher. If your teacher passed on knowledge in a manner that makes sense to you, you can pick up the information quickly. If you don't understand the teacher, you may struggle to pick up the information.\n\nFinally, people just underestimate the amount of time that \"talented\" people spend practising their craft. You can do an experiment: go to any skill-related sub here and see how many posts are along the lines of \"How do I get better?\" The answer is almost always: \"Practice more.\"",
"I once asked a really good guitarist I knew how he got so good at playing at such a young age and he replied with, \"I had no friends, no social life. I just sat in my room all the time for hours practicing chords and making songs.\" Sacrificing a social life at a young age usually breeds excellence at one thing or another."
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23ltfr | magnetic bracelets.. | So i was with my family last night, and they're the kind of people that have dreamcatchers and whatnot, so bear that in mind.
Anyways, they all had this Magnetic Bracelet that supposedly makes them sleep incredibly well, and they all were super excited about how amazing it was and whatnot.. now, i'm skeptic, asked them if they at any point thought it could simply be a placebo effect, but they refused.
I've done some research on my own, but haven't really got a straight answer yet..
So, do these bracelets actually do anything to the blood stream that could affect something? or are we simply talking placebo? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ltfr/eli5_magnetic_bracelets/ | {
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"They don't do anything.",
"The placebo effect could be in play, otherwise, they don't do anything.\n\nThe Power Balance bracelets were a proven fraud, and the company got hit with a $57M class action settlement. [You can read more about it on the 'pedia.](_URL_0_) I'm assuming your friends are using a similar product."
]
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4yvv8p | dietary fiber and it's misconceptions | I keep seeing people talk about how fiber builds firm perfect stools. Yet everything I read completely flips the table. So confused | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yvv8p/eli5_dietary_fiber_and_its_misconceptions/ | {
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"Some dietary fiber absorb water. This increases the volume of the stool and gives it medium firmness. It's not rock-hard because of the water content, but it's also not a liquidy, sticky, slushy mess because the fibers keep most of the water to themselves, keeping it from mixing with the stool and turning it to \"biomud\".\n\nSo both statements are correct, depending on how you interpret the terms used.\n\nWikipedia actually has a good, more in-depth explanation of the role of fibers in the gut, now that I looked at it: _URL_0_",
"I believe there are 2 types of Fibre. Insoluble and Soluble. \nSoluble: Like oatmeal and berries, this absorbs water and makes your stool gel-like.\nInsoluble: Like seeds, this doesn't absorb water. Adds mass to your stool and helps \"move things along\" . \n\nYou should be getting both types in your diet.",
"Its insoluble fiber that absorbs water and creates stool bulk. It actually softens stool if what you ate is making hard stool. If stool is loose it will bring to normal viscosity. Not all fiber is created equal;cellulose and wheat bran have the most bulking effect. \n\nBut mainly its beneficial because of the byproducts created when fermented in the colon. It decreases transit time of food moving through intestines. Fiber augments how other nutrients are absorbed. "
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7848oh | why does ups leave a 1000$ item in front of my door without knocking, but i still have to sign a $10pizza delivery. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7848oh/eli5_why_does_ups_leave_a_1000_item_in_front_of/ | {
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"You're not signing to acknowledge delivery of your pizza, you're signing to authorize them to charge your card. UPS doesn't need payment authorized at the door.",
"Two different companies with different services and different policies. On that note, UPS offers the option where they will not leave it on the porch if no one answers the door."
]
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||
umt4y | why do businesses care some much about quarterly growth? if they're making a ton of money and have saturated the market, what do they care? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/umt4y/eli5_why_do_businesses_care_some_much_about/ | {
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"The primary purpose of a company is to increase shareholder wealth. If a company isn't continually growing, it is less appealing to investors (potential stockholders). This could cause current investors to sell off their shares and/or create less demand, both driving stock price down. A stockholder's wealth in a company is equal to the shares they own times the share price. So, less growth=lower stock price=less investors. This can lead to a company losing their competitive advantage very quickly. ",
" > If they're making a ton of money and have saturated the market, what do they care?\n\nIt's the the people who bought stock in the company that usually demand constant growth. The faster the company grows, the more these people's stock is worth. They want their stock to constantly get more and more valuable. The idea is that they buy it when it's cheap, and sell it later when it's worth more. Hence the desire for stock prices to keep going up.\n\nPushing for higher stock value every quarter to the exclusion of all else is not usually a great idea. It tends to make the business focus on short-term profit and neglect the long term. Thus there's a tendency for \"boom and bust\" cycles that aren't necessarily good for the business itself nor the economy as a whole."
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otcqo | the difference between irony and sarcasm. | I never really understood the difference between those two. I know irony is saying something that you dont actually mean but sarcasm is the same, right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/otcqo/eli5_the_difference_between_irony_and_sarcasm/ | {
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"OK, I think I've figured it out folks. \nAmericans and English people have very different definitions of what those words mean. \nBasically, the Yanks have taken a relatively simple concept and reversed the meanings just for the sake of making life difficult for themselves. \nIf you're British: carry on, you're doing fine. \nIf you're American: don't worry about it, you've already made it a irreparable mess. ",
"Everytime I hear the word irony- _URL_0_",
"Sarcasm is irony used as an insult. e.g. \"Sarcasm detector? *That's* a really useful invention.”\n\n",
"First, to be clear we're talking about verbal irony. There are other forms of irony, but verbal irony is saying something while you mean something very different.\n\nSarcasm is a bitter remark designed to hurt. It is very often done in the form of irony, but it doesn't have to be.\n\nLet's clarify with a few examples:\n\n* **What a fine musician you turned out to be!** This is sarcasm and irony. It means the opposite of what it says (irony) and is done so with the intent to insult (sarcasm). This is the most common form of sarcasm, and it is why it's often assimilated to irony.\n\n* **You couldn't punch your way out of a wet paper bag.** This is meant as a caustic, insulting remark, but it means exactly what it says. It is sarcasm, but not irony.\n\n* **The weather is so great!** (when it's raining) This is irony, as it means the opposite of what it says, but it isn't sarcasm, as it isn't a jab at someone.\n"
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3039ot | why are brown kittens rare? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3039ot/eli5_why_are_brown_kittens_rare/ | {
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"They're... not? Where did you hear that?",
"_URL_0_ \n\nHeres one",
"Thanks for asking this question! I was just wondering after that front page post.",
"I had a chocolate brown/white cat once, she was really pretty."
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8koqhb | why does time feel slower when you’re suffering? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8koqhb/elif_why_does_time_feel_slower_when_youre/ | {
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"Why does time feel slower when you’re in a painfully boring class? And why does an hour pass in like.. a fraction of a second when we’re talking with someone we’re in love with? Because time is relative, when you’re happy you won’t feel the need to check the time, you just forget about this concept of time and become totally immersed in the moment. But when you’re in pain, it’s the exact opposite. You want it to end, you want this suffering, this depression to let go of you. Hope that makes sense. "
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7u6m8q | why do large corporations, when losing lawsuits, usually have to pay millions to the winning party? | I thought about this when I saw something online about a guy who sued Walmart and got a couple million when he won the lawsuit. I looked into it and, sure enough, a dude tripped and got hurt in a Walmart and won millions after a court battle and this really got my interest. In situations where a company is sued and they go to court, they usually are left paying millions, if not thousands, of dollars to the winning party. Regardless of what the damages were, and assuming they were far under half a million, why are the costs always so high? I'm not asking as a business owner or someone who lost a court case with a company or someone who is a huge supporter of big business, but someone just wondering why they have to pay millions as it seems like an incredibly excessive amount. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7u6m8q/eli5_why_do_large_corporations_when_losing/ | {
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"The bulk of the award is called punitive damages... and they are meant to punish the company enough that it's more painful to risk a similar incident than fix the underlying problem. If a company the size of Wal-Mart just paid out $5000 for medical bills when somebody slipped and broke their leg then they'd have little incentive to fix what caused the fall, like a hole in the parking lot or grease leak. By awarding a large amount, they'll want to fix the issue rather than have another similar lawsuit.",
"A few things going on here.\n\nFirst to acknowledge that big companies get sued non-stop, every day, for a million reasons, by all sorts of people, companies and such, some real, some fake, some good cases, some BS. Only an extremely tiny portion of these ever make it court or a judge or jury making a ruling. Basically everyone of these are settled out of court, generally for not much money, or zero.\n\nNow on to these big paydays. In the tiny amount of people in this category, usually they have a pretty good case to get this far, its also already been a really long time (these cases take years), and super expensive (good lawyers ain't cheap). If you get all the way to this point, and you win, judges are juries are pretty lenient for a few different reasons. One, that they companies can pay a lot, this might be a lot of money to you, but to them its like 3 minutes. Second, the person generally has suffered and needs to be compensated, and last, and probably most important: these large paydays are *meant* to be punitive to the company, its meant to be a punishment to these companies for doing bad stuff.",
"Big companies get sued all the time, and they settle out of court all the time. Most of the time in fact. They know litigation and going to trial is expensive, with legal fees sometimes being close to or more than the amount of the settlement.\n\nSo why go to trial? There are a few reasons:\n\n1. The plaintiff asked for too much money. Sure, the trial court awarded them $2M. But they were demanding $80M and wouldn't budge off that number. You think that $2M is a loss for the company, but it's not. I've seen people walk away from up to $5M because they thought they would get a bigger payout from a jury. In one case like that they got nothing.\n\n2. The company thinks the accident or injury is bogus or exaggerated, and believes the jury will see it that way too. \n\n3. There's some point of law that is at issue and will have much bigger repercussions. They pick a case that has a fact pattern where they can probably win on that point, and edge some case law in their favor. \n\nThere are probably other examples, but's all I can think of at the end of a long day.\n\nI'll add that it's rare to get punitive damages against a company. They have to have done something really egregious. In the general course of business it's a pretty hard standard to hit. This isn't just taking a few extra minutes to clean up a spill that someone slipped on. The reason you occasionally see it in the news is because it's not the norm.",
" > Regardless of what the damages were, and assuming they were far under half a million, why are the costs always so high?\n\nIn the US there is something called \"punitive damages\". The word **punitive** comes from the word **punishment**. The idea is make the company pay so much money that it discourages them from continuing to do that thing that they were sued over. \n\nSome argue that it's crazy to give someone all that money just because they slipped and fell down. But others argue that without punitive damages, companies with lots of money will just keep doing the wrong thing and will just pay people who get hurt. The hope is that high punitive damages will get companies to actually change their behavoir and prevent dangerous things from happening in the first place. "
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8zt38g | how did people in the past estimate distance traveled? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8zt38g/eli5_how_did_people_in_the_past_estimate_distance/ | {
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"Is there a \"sense\" of distance? If so, I'd like to know how to cultivate and sharpen this skill. ",
"If you travel around on foot or by horse you get a sense of how quickly you travel and the distance you may have covered. Navigation in the wilderness isn't typically achieved via random wanderings, rather people will pick a distant waypoint and make their way to it. By doing this they ensure a straight path is being followed in the large scale. When selecting these waypoints people can estimate distance from their experience and keep track of the total distance covered.",
"I'm no authority but I'd guess people who lived before automobiles had a better sense of distance than we do today. I imagine a more historically accurate dialogue for that movie would have said something like \"a two hour trot through the mountains\" just like how we say \"a ten minute drive to the city.\"\nOn known trails, mile markers may have been a thing on those days, too. \nAnother thought I have is that we usually can estimate distances within walking distance just because many of us still walk a lot for jobs or hobbies. \n\n\n"
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8ysakg | why is the "first color x-ray" on the front page important when we have mri? | Is it cheaper? Does it show more? Or is it just a technological advance that demonstrates something? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ysakg/eli5_why_is_the_first_color_xray_on_the_front/ | {
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"Eh, its a little bit of all the answers you mentioned.\n\nThe Xray and all the different kinds of MRIs each serve their own niche within imaging techniques, as they each have their own ideal use cases. The xray is probably better used to identify structural information in the body, which it can do with SUPER high contrast- whereas some MRIs are better used to identify functions (blood flow, fluid levels and white matter tracts in the brain, for example), whilst other MRIs may be better at identifying structural information in areas with more soft tissue like the brain.\n\nNever the less this is a crazy impressive and important development in technology, as it has the potential to be far more cost effective, identify greater detail in many situations, and is also just cool as heck in general. Can never hurt for medical professionals to have another arrow in the quiver.\n\nAlso just on a side note I can't get over how freaking cool it is that this is all happening at my university??? \n\n"
]
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|
2lkcf6 | . the iraqi armed forces number 271,500 personnel. the us-led coalition invested 100,000,000 usd in training, equipment etc. how is it that the iraqi army is so useless when faced by isis, whose estimated numbers are at most 30,000? | [Iraqi Armed Forces Source](_URL_5_)
[ISIS Source](_URL_3_)
Estimates number ISIS in Iraq & Syria at 80,000, but only 30,000 are actually fighting in Iraq. I am baffled that the Iraqi Armed Forces seem to be wholly ineffectual, even when ISIS is murdering POWs. I'm figuring that we might as well have burnt $25 Billion^1 for all the good it's done.
[Even before tens of thousands of troops disappeared into the night two weeks ago, Iraqi generals complained that they were outgunned by an enemy hardened by years of fighting in Syria and in possession of more advanced weaponry.](_URL_2_) So... if the IA is "outgunned" by ISIS, what, exactly did the 25,000,000,000 USD get spent on? That's a whole lotta welfare cheques...
The Iraqi Armed Forces have AFVs, Artillery, Aircraft -- I'm not convinced that the Iraqi Army was simply outgunned. I'm forced to conclude that either the Iraqi Officers are stunningly incompetent or the 25 Billion USD funding was largely spent on... What?
[And in this article 75 Billion USD seems to have quietly disappeared](_URL_0_)
> By the end of 2011, the Iraqi security forces totaled hundreds of thousands of troops, said Austin Long, a military advisor in Iraq from 2007 to 2008. They were also provided with an extraordinary amount of training and equipment, from small arms like AK-47s and M-4s to * top-of-the-line M-1 tanks*.
[Source](_URL_1_)
So the money the US invested into the IA was a waste. A total waste. I would like there to be an investigation. Because, it's not 25,000 dollars; not 250,000 dollars; not 50 million dollars. We're talking **25 BILLION DOLLARS**!!! That would have helped implement the AHCA painlessly. Or paid for welfare cheques for quite a while.
Can it really just be abysmal morale? How much are we investing in the IA as I write? If it's more than zero dollars, why?
Well, apparently [Iraqi Military turned up for work with Civvies beneath their uniforms in case they actually had to *fight*](_URL_4_)
^1 Edited to 25 Billion USD as that's the sum that most sources seem to agree on. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lkcf6/eli5_the_iraqi_armed_forces_number_271500/ | {
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"There are massive leadership and morale problems within the Iraqi security forces. Coupled with the fact that sectarian politics mean that the country as a whole lacks cohesion, it means that some, although by no means all, formations within the Iraqi Army lose cohesion very quickly when under pressure.\n\nIn other words instead of standing as a unit to fight, they break ranks and flee.\n\nTraining should have helped that (but you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, as the saying goes); equipment doesn't really help with such issues much at all. It is on these two items that the money was ostensibly spent, although, as other commenters have pointed out, not all of the funds provided would have actually been thus employed due to endemic corruption.\n\nThe situation is exacerbated by the fact the units that broke, fled leaving their equipment and were subsequently slaughtered when captured, were made up of Shia from the southern part of the country, but based in the predominantly Sunni central regions. They were not defending their homes, families or even people with whom they would felt a huge degree of national kinship.\n\nIn the northern region of Kurdistan the local militia, known as Peshmerga (translates to \"those who fight\"), did manage to effectively fight IS and defend their homeland, despite only being equipped with light arms.\n\nIS are not necessarily a particularly effective fighting force in and of themselves, but they do pick their battles wisely - or had done so until recently being forced into tactically unfavourable situations such as the siege of Kobane, which it should be noted they have failed to take - and are driven by a fanaticism (and also, it has been reported, large amounts of drugs including heroin and meth) that makes them effective combatants. Particularly against forces such as I described in my first paragraph who lack the will to fight.\n\nEdit: autocorrect incorrectly corrected a word...",
"They were often poorly trained, they are very unmotivated and very poorly lead. Now isis are fighting for what they believe in and are willing to die for it. They also get to make the first move which makes it easier for them to mobilise forces. "
]
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"http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/1003/Can-the-Iraqi-Army-regroup-in-time-to-repel-the-Islamic-State",
"http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/6/28/how-did-iraq-s-armycollapsesoquickly.html",
"http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/06/iraq_military_near_psychological_collapse.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant",
"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/world/middleeast/american-intelligence-officials-said-iraqi-military-had-been-in-decline.html?_r=1",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Armed_Forces"
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btywqo | why does a pile of coins left alone for long periods of time get that “icky” dirty feeling and grime to them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/btywqo/eli5_why_does_a_pile_of_coins_left_alone_for_long/ | {
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"Fresh coins wouldn't, i suspect.\n\nI believe this is because they're covered in oils from our skin (which is also what makes them smell of metal) that pick up dust and fluff from the air over time.",
"It's called \"corrosion\". Basically the metal on the coins react with the air and with the humidity of the air, creating ions. That layer of ions will protect the rest of the coin and that's why the texture of the coins change.\nFor example, the Statue of Liberty is made out of copper, which has a dark brown colour, but the Statue of Liberty is kinda green. That is a layer of oxided copper, and it prevents the rest of the copper from vanishing due to corrosion."
]
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aj5cnf | why are coral reefs so important? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aj5cnf/eli5_why_are_coral_reefs_so_important/ | {
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"They help prevent shore erosion, and provide habitats for a huge number of unique species. \n\nThey have also been discovered to be indicator species of global warming as they are very sensitive to ocean temperatures. \n\nI was going to share a link about coral bleaching on NOAA's website, but that page was closed due to the shutdown.\n\n_URL_0_",
"25% of the life in the oceans is in the coral reefs \n\nin the past 30-40 years 50% of the world's coral reefs have died.\n\nand at the current rate the rest will be gone by 2050",
"Most of the ocean is empty. It's like a giant desert, but 3 dimensional.\n\nPhotosynthesis - where all food comes from (simplification!), can only occur near the surface, up to like 60 feet / 18 meters down.\n\nLiving things like homes. So most things that live in the ocean want to live somewhere stable. This means near the bottom, where there's something they can sit motionless on without being attacked from 6 directions by predators.\n\nLiving things also don't like being constantly bashed by breaking waves.\n\nThis means the \"ideal\" place is more than 10 feet / 3 meters down, but less than 60 feet / 18 meters down, and close to or on the bottom.\n\nIt's not a coincidence that's where coral reefs are found.\n\nMany (most?) aquatic life forms spend at least part of their life cycle in the coral reef."
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1wd4jn | the drug "bath salts" can really turn you in a cannibal? | If it is true, how? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wd4jn/eli5_the_drug_bath_salts_can_really_turn_you_in_a/ | {
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"No, the one report of it being a possibility (The case in florida) was found to be false. What's weird is his toxscreens came back completely clean for everything (including marijuana, and bathsalts.) They did however find a bacteria that eats oil (Found exclusively during the Mexican gulf oil spill) on his lips.\n\nThe idea that bath salts could've been a cause of this, is because people who have taken the drug have freaked out, often attacking people thinking they're monsters, or demons.\n\nThe reason for this is because it's been known to cause violent, and terrifying hallucinations. I don't know the exact science behind it, but imagine it like walking around in an extremely vivid nightmare.",
"In general, if something in the news makes you go, \"huh? That sounds like bullshit\", it probably is in fact bullshit.",
"Lemme break it down. Bath salths are basically amphetamines, like speed. When you take them you feel good, but when it wears of it makes you feel shit. The only way to feel good again is to take more, or wait a pretty long time. So it is tempting to take more. Because it is a stimulant, it is impossible to sleep. When people don't sleep, even without drugs they tend to become psychotic, or what normal people call crazy. Crazy people do crazy stuff, one might be attacking and eating someone. ",
"They blamed that incident on bath salts cause they were a rising problem at the time. Just another case of mass media misleading people for their sponsors agenda "
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2crhlc | why do newer vehicles have cigarette lighter ports but not cigarette lighters? why don't they just switch to native ac or usb only? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2crhlc/elif_why_do_newer_vehicles_have_cigarette_lighter/ | {
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"Cigarette lighter ports are a really shitty connector, but unfortunately they're the standard, and standards are hard to change.\n\n120v sockets are problematic to add, since you need an inverter, which is expensive.\n\nUSB ports are problematic, since they can only handle about 5 watts, compared to ~120ish for a cigarette lighter port.\n\nSo I guess we're stuck with the cigarette lighter plugs."
]
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||
653n75 | how much force would it take for an object to make it to the core of the earth | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/653n75/eli5how_much_force_would_it_take_for_an_object_to/ | {
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"Are you talking penetration or displacement? I.e. Are you talking about drilling the earth or shooting it with a projectile.\n\nFor drilling it, it would be the force that is proportional to the energy needed to both break and lift the material out of the hole you're boring. You could also easily use a weakly interacting particle and get to the earth's core with zero energy for a neutrino in motion for example, but to just get there it takes very little energy.\n\nFor a projectile it's a much more interesting question the thing you want is lots of sectional density meaning a very long thin and dense projectile, for penetrating Earth generally you want a 34:1 ratio of length to width for a Tungsten projectile however to maintain the structure of your projectile.\n\nYou also want to keep your impact speed to mass ratio at a certain level to maintain enough velocity as you penetrate the medium. World War 2 bunker busters needed about the velocity squared (in m/s)/10,000 in mass (in kg) to achieve maximum penetration but tungsten rods can use v^2 /23,000 for their optimal launch profile.\n\nAnyways to make it to the earth's core you'd need a 12 million kilogram tungsten rod, about 23 meters wide and 770 meters long, going 530,000 meters per second or about 0.2% light speed.\n\nLaunching a 13,000 ton projectile at 530,000 m/s would take 400 megatons of energy.\n\nSo it would take 400 megatons of energy for a tungsten object to penetrate the earth's crust and reach the core arriving from orbit. You could probably get better results with uranium but nobody has tested extremely large uranium projectiles to give specifics... yet.\n\nFor comparison the asteroid that wiped out the dinsoaurs was calculated to have had 1 billion megatons of energy and it only made it 66% of the way through the earth's crust, so you gain over a million fold improvement over that by decreasing the surface area of the impact by a factor of a few million.\n\nAlso given the extreme speeds involved you might have some unique effects that objects moving at normal speeds don't have to deal with, I'd love to see someone determine if such a projectile would cause any nuclear reactions on impact."
]
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5gqamx | how we are able to assign meaning to complex ancient languages like hieroglyphics, that are entirely composed of symbols/pictures? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gqamx/eli5_how_we_are_able_to_assign_meaning_to_complex/ | {
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"Hieroglyphics were deciphered using the Rosetta Stone, an extremely fortunate find. This is a stone tablet that has the same article written three times, in three different languages. Since we could already read two of them, we could figure out what the third said.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone"
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4jbxyu | console pricing, why is it the same all over? | And what's with the bundles? 99% of the time it's a game I don't want to play. Would love an extra controller instead.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jbxyu/eli5_console_pricing_why_is_it_the_same_all_over/ | {
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"Console pricing is largely similar across brands because they have all figured out exactly where their market niche is. Competition keeps the prices all about even, because everyone is operating in the same market.\n\nAs for why they don't give away things you actually want for free, I think you can probably puzzle that one out."
]
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2xd8sc | how does the nervous system provide spatial awareness along with general senses? for example if someone pinches my finger while i have my arm raised, i can "feel" that my finger is above my head and a certain distance from it. | This feels hard to explain, but I'll try. If you pinch your fingers together in different positions relative to your head, you can sort of feel where your fingers are in space. Is this information that the nervous system provides? Is it in combination with your brains awareness of your muscles states to estimate what position your body parts are in? Help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xd8sc/eli5_how_does_the_nervous_system_provide_spatial/ | {
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"[That sense is called proprioception](_URL_0_)\n\nLI5: you have special nerves for that. ",
"/u/backgammon_no got it right, it's proprioreception.\n\nA quick tl;dr for those who want an ELI5+ answer rather than Wikipedia:\n\nOur muscles/tendons have \"stretch receptors\" that can give us an idea of when the particular muscle is being stretched or contracted, and by how much. \n\nOur body learns early on that (for example) if my triceps is stretched to its maximum length, while my biceps is contracted as much as it can, my forearm is bent towards my upper arm as much as it can go.\n\nOur brains are amazing and they can \"calculate\" the relative positions of all of our limbs based on the stretch of our muscles and tendons! For example, when your face itches, you are able to scratch that spot right away, without being able to see it. That's because your brain can calculate where your hand should go without (much) help from your eyes.\n\n"
]
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6oak92 | is there a reason cpus aren't sold on cards like gpus, or why gpus never used motherboard sockets? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6oak92/eli5_is_there_a_reason_cpus_arent_sold_on_cards/ | {
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"The most basic answer is that for a CPU the motherboard IS the card.\n\nA discrete video graphics card contains everything the graphics unit needs to operate. It has its own processor, its own ram, it's own inputs and its own outputs. It's basically a computer inside your computer that only does graphics. The card (or board) connects all of these components together to form 1 whole. \n\nThe input it takes comes from the CPU, through the motherboard. The motherboard i the board that connects all of the computer components required to make the computer 1 whole. It connects the ram, processor and various input and outputs. \n\nSome motherboards come with the graphics processing unit chip built into them. That chip uses the motherboard pathways and circuits to access the system ram and inputs and outputs. This is called \"integrated\" graphics. It's generally much slower than having a separate graphics card because the components are more general use and are not optimized for graphics. "
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26ckz0 | when the a10 warthog fires it's main gun, why does it seem like i hear the sounds after i've already seen the bullet impacts? | I'm honestly not sure how I could have worded this better. I was watching a video of a live fire exercise and it seemed like I didn't hear the actual sound of the cannon firing until the bullets had already hit the ground. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26ckz0/eli5_when_the_a10_warthog_fires_its_main_gun_why/ | {
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"Because the bullets are supersonic. Being armor-piercing, they'd need to be moving pretty fast.",
"Probably because the shells move much faster than the speed of sound, and light moves so quickly it's practically instantaneous in this case.",
"The speed of sound is ~340m/s where the muzzle velocity of the anti-tank round for the GAU-8 is ~990m/s. The round is fired (ok ~3900 rounds/second), reaches the target, explodes before you hear the round fired.",
"The bullets travel faster than the speed of sound. The speed of light is considerably faster, so you see things before you hear them",
"Its because the bullets are going much faster then the speed of sound. \nWhen a round is fired from its gun it's going almost 2400 MPH, the speed of sound is only 761 MPH. its moving far faster then the sound of it firing is which is why you hear it AFTER it already made impact "
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aknde7 | how can screaming permanently damage our vocals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aknde7/eli5_how_can_screaming_permanently_damage_our/ | {
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"Sudden harsh vibrations of the vocal cords can cause them to rip, once they heal there will be scar tissue which is the permanent damage as they are no longer as flexible as they once were.",
"Your voice makes sound because you are pushing air through your larynx, and making folds of tissue vibrate. When you’re screaming, the vibration can be enough to damage these vocal folds. \nIf the damage is bad enough, there can be a fair amount of scar tissue on your vocal folds. The scar tissue won’t vibrate in the same way as undamaged vocal folds, so the voice sounds different. "
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37da1f | why is it illegal to hit your spouse, but not illegal to hit your child? | I apologize if this isn't really appropriate for this subreddit, or if something similar has been asked before; I didn't get any matches with the search.
Just as a sort of disclaimer, I believe all violence toward anyone else should be illegal, but I've just noticed that when people hit their children in public, nobody seems to mind. However, hitting your spouse in public would certainly gain attention, and authorities would probably be called by bystanders.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that one is socially unacceptable, and the other is generally tolerated, and instead of being called "abuse", it's called "discipline". The only difference is that one victim is an adult, and one victim is defenseless and small. So why is it an acceptable practice in our culture, and many others, to hit your children?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37da1f/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_hit_your_spouse_but_not/ | {
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"To be fair, the same people are likely going to call the cops if you spank your child in public.\n\nThere's a matter of force involved. The kind of slap that gets you arrested if you hit your spouse, the kind that leaves real marks? That's going to get you arrested if you do it to your kids, too. There aren't THAT many people left who believe it's alright to leave marks on your children.",
"These are two completely different situations. The point of disciplining children is to *teach them something* (though whether it works or not is a different question). Corporal punishment is something people (traditionally) did to children because it was felt that, being intellectually not-yet-developed, it was the best way to get the message through.\n\nYour spouse is not intellectually undeveloped - you are not in a position of responsibility over them, you are not supposed to be teaching them to behave properly and there are plenty of non-violent ways of getting a message across to them if they are behaving unacceptably.",
"Children are legally treated differently than adults. It's legal to hit your own child for discipline because you can make decisions for your child. Since you get to make decisions for your child, your child's consent to being hit doesn't matter. You make the consent since you are the parent.\n\nWith other adults, you always have to get their consent. So unless your spouse said \"okay, hit me\" it's illegal.\n\nAnd of course there are laws that say you can't actually hurt children regardless of whether they/you consent or not. ",
" > So why is it an acceptable practice in our culture, and many others, to hit your children?\n\nA lot of people would say that you are entirely mistaken with the \"in our culture\" part, depending on how they were raised and how they parent. It's not really that black-and-white of a question."
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1nk7sl | why is twin peaks considered such an amazing, groundbreaking show? | This is not a criticism, I like the show but not to the same extent that many people seem to love it | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nk7sl/eli5_why_is_twin_peaks_considered_such_an_amazing/ | {
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"Twin Peaks was groundbreaking for bringing high concept storytelling to primetime television and beginning to reverse thought that Hollywood movies were superior to television in this respect.\n\nIt was generally believed before TP that audiences wouldn't invest in a 'deep' television series with an extensive mythology that required week-in-week-out viewing.\nThe top dramas that preceded TP (think Hill Street Blues, St Elsewhere, Magnum PI, CHiPS, etc) didn't require an investment from an audience. They could drop in and out and not worry about missing something and falling behind. Because audiences did become so engrossed with TP it proved to producers that there was a willingness to buy into this type for storytelling. This is the reason shows like X-Files, Lost and Walking Dead get green lit.\n\nTP creator David Lynch was a top Hollywood director. Contemporary thought was that TV was inferior to the movies. Because Lynch 'crossed over' it started to bring down barriers between the mediums and erased stigmas for 'movie stars' to get involved with TV projects. ",
"When I watched it first time, I was like 14 or so. It really impressed me. I was truly in love with the show. It felt unique and atmospheric and just all around awesome.\nHowever when many years later I tried rewatching it, I couldn't get far... It's like a game with awesome, but short, main story, filled with crappy, unneeded side-stories which supposed to make the game longer but they simply water it down instead. All those characters like one-eyed wife and this waitress with her abusive boyfriend, all this was not needed.\nIn the end I appreciate the overall mood and style of this show, but if I want to feel it's (pretty unique) atmosphere again, I play Alan Wake instead of re-watching the show.",
"Allt this talk and no intro [music](_URL_0_)?\n",
"Complex open-ended story telling and many story lines are started but there are many without resolution. This changed the way so that a series was made with long over-arching plots and showed that it was not obligatory to wrap everything up."
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6obufx | if rgb (red, blue, and green) can make all the colors in the visible light spectrum and most displays have rgb pixels, why aren't all displays 100% color accurate or able to display all the colors? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6obufx/eli5_if_rgb_red_blue_and_green_can_make_all_the/ | {
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"'Tis a popular topic here. Though asked a bit differently, ye may enjoy these:\n\n\n1. [ELI5:How can there be colors outside of RGB? ](_URL_1_)\n1. [ELI5: How can't a standard display show all the colors? ](_URL_0_)\n1. [ELI5: Why isn't there a display technology that uses the actual full color spectrum, instead of RGB lights? ](_URL_2_)\n",
"RGB displays can't make all the colors in the visible spectrum. They can only make colors which are within their [gamut](_URL_0_).",
"There are some limitations on how the RGB pixels can display color. They can't be brighter than the screen is on full blast or darker than the screen when it's off, which is a big limiting factor. Also, on computers, the RGB levels are coded as numbers between 0 and 255, so you can't have any levels between those values right now. "
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15ebuy | why do prices on most products end in 99 cents? what's the point? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15ebuy/eli5_why_do_prices_on_most_products_end_in_99/ | {
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"to the consumer it \"seems\" cheaper. i guess it's all perception\n\n$99.99 or $100\n\n$19.99 or $20\n\ni know it's only a cent difference but to be honest i would be more likely to buy 19.99 than 20.",
"because the human brain is weird. We read the first number in a price, like 5.99 and our emotional response is that it is cheaper than if something was 6.00. Now if you put two products side by side one that is 5.99 and the other 6 bucks the effect doesn't work. But with stand alone products, sales are higher for items that are just below the dollar mark.",
"The psychological term is anchoring. The mind perceives it as costing less. There is a tendency to underestimate a cost because the brain wants to perceive it as less of a loss of funds. ",
"makes it look like a smaller number but in reality it really isn't.",
"Just to support the other answers, next time you're at any gas station check the prices up close. It's always $x.xx9 or $x.xx 9/10. Not much of a big deal but to the untrained eye you're *pretty much* always paying a cent higher per gallon than you would normally expect.",
"The trend also carried over to e-sales.. Prices are posted below a certain dollar amount to meet search terms and appear in results before those who post whole dollar pricing",
"I once had an coupon at express for 15$ off 15$ so basically free. However nothing in the store was ever 15$ but a hell of a lot of 14.99$ so they can use the coupon to draw me in and in the end I still got the socks + more ",
"I read somewhere that it originated to make sure that cashiers had to open the register to give the customer change, which stopped them from from pocketing the money. ",
"Adding one point to what have been said already:\nIn mouth-to-mouth marketing, it works better, I suppose. If something costs exactly 20€, you will say that it costs 20. But if something costs 19,99€, when talking to your friends, making a review, etc, you are more likely to say that it costs 19 something, which makes a huge diference.",
"Once I was at a store with a salesperson helping me. My husband was on the other side of the store. I forget what the item was, lets just say a shirt, and it was something that ended in .99 so I just rounded it up a penny and told my husband that it cost that amount. The salesperson actually corrected me. I gave her an \"are you kidding me?\" look and made a point to emphasize the larger amount to my husband again. But I'm the type of person who sees $45.67 and round it up to $50. I like round numbers. ",
"I sometimes find myself justifying a purchase to my wife saying something like, \"this shirt was only $4\", when in fact the shirt was $4.99 and I'm off by a high percentage. ",
"I spent 4 years working in retail. Different items ended in different numbers depending on what was on sale.. most items ended in.99 as a standard. If something was temporarily on sale it was usually marked in.95 and if it was an old item that was marked down for good it ended it.49. It made it easier for us to tell if something was on sale or if a customer had put a sale sticker on items that they didn't belong. I'm not sure how it all started but each ending price had its own meaning behind it",
"This question has been asked *numerous* times in this subreddit. Please remember to search before asking a question. _URL_0_"
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c10q8f | lighting strikes a body of water, like a lake or a swimming pool. does everything in the water die instantly? chances of survival? what's the size/diameter of the kill zone? does the energy disperse in the water the further it gets from the strike point? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c10q8f/eli5_lighting_strikes_a_body_of_water_like_a_lake/ | {
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"I don't know if organisms in the water die instantly or whether they survive but this post is pretty similar\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_0_)",
"Randall Munroe (XKCD) wrote about this on his What If of electrofishing. He was theorising if this was possible with whales. \n\nThe kill zone of the strike depends on how salt the water is (leads electricity better) and the surface area of the fish. \n\nImagine striking a table with your fist. Sure it hurts, but it's not that bad. Now, strike with an open palm. It turns out that really stings. You therefore conclude that hitting a table with more surface area is more painful.\n\nFish experience the energy from the lightning the same way. More square footage of fish subjected to energy equals more potential damage. \n\nNow you stop hitting tables as your hand is getting sore, and join your friends to a concert. You might at some point think it's too loud so you move twice as far away from the stage as you were. You notice that the volume is a lot lower than you thought it would be (4 times as low to be exact), even though the band is playing at the same volume. \n\nThe energy in the lightning strike behaves exactly the same."
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1dwvid | the differences between java, c, c#, c++, python, etc. and the practical/real word applications for each. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dwvid/eli5_the_differences_between_java_c_c_c_python/ | {
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"ELI5: A programming language is to a (good) programmer what a brush is to a painter.",
"There is this set call [Mechanix](_URL_0_) that I used to play with as a child. This is the best analogy for what it's like to program in C; you have the basic parts but you have to put them together correctly.\n\nC++/Java are more like lego, with some basic blocks that you can build anything with to all kinds of fancy, specialized shapes (like flags and helicopter blades). One difference between Java and C++ is that you can give your model to somebody else and if they don't have legos but [something similar](_URL_1_) (because their parents are cheap like mine) they can still figure out how to make it.\n(This is the closest I can get to describing the Java VM to a 5 year old)\n\nC# and Objective-C are legos that Microsoft and Apple (respectively) use; they made all the parts themselves and use them for their projects. People who want to work on projects like that or use their projects need to know those languages.\n\nPython and other higher-level languages are like Mindstorms; a lot of the brain is already built, you just have to give it a few instructions and put a few pieces together.\n\nThis is one class of programming languages, the imperative group. There are also functional programming languages (like Haskell or LisP). These are more like drawing a picture of what you want your legos to look like and making your dad do the grunt work.",
"ELI5: there is no one size fits all programming language. Sometimes you want to make a very small simple computer do stuff (microchips and stuff) and other times you want to make your life easy by automatically sorting some random stuff on your computer into proper directories. Sometimes you want to program a game on your smartphone, other times you want to program the game on windows.\n\nThink of programming languages as various tools, like screwdriver and flathead and hammer (fucking assembly language). each programming language can pretty much do everything, but each one is perfectly suited to some specific thing, way more than the others are.\n\njava is used in android games. C is used for microcontrollers and embedded systems and pretty any time when you have to tell hardware specifically what to do, rather than simply crunching numebrs. C# is good for windows development, like programming actual windows stuff. you need more than just C# but at a bare minimum it can do a lot of stuff compared to the others. C++ is also used for windows but it is used for operating systems and such in general. Also regular programs. Its really a catch all language nowadays, and teaches excellent fundamental skills and that is why everyone learns it. Python is a scripting language. it is very high level and is great for simple loops and doing stuff within the operating system that isnt \"low level\". IE i'm not telling my graphics card specifically to draw a square, im just writing \"draw a square\" and python takes care of everything else automagically. personally, i'd use python for simple scripts and programs because its so damn easy. Perl is great for text processing. Assembly is when you dont want to be sitting there changing 1's and 0's or hex bytes, but you do want to specifically tell the hardware what to do. Assemble is speaking directly to the CPU, while C and C++ is speaking in kinda/sorta english, having it go through a language interpreter (compiler) and then that output directly speaks to the CPU. Python speaks to the python interpreter, which speaks to the OS, which speaks to the hardware.\n\nThis isnt entirely correct but you're 5 and i was attempting to keep it simple.",
"Programming languages help you make your ideas come true. But different languages have different ways of saying things. Just like real-life speaking languages, sometimes there are short words you can say that represent an entire idea, but other times there's no single word you can use and you have to use a sentence instead. \n\nSome languages have a very advanced vocabulary, like English. The English language has the word \"regret\", but what if it didn't have that word? You could still get the meaning across by writing a sentence: \"the feeling that I get when I did something that I later felt bad about, and I realized I shouldn't have done that thing in the first place\".\n\nThat's what programming languages are like. Some have words that mean a lot. These are considered \"high-level\" languages. You can get a lot done with just a single word, or a short sentence. But, just like real languages, that single word might have a deeper meaning and maybe you didn't really mean it 100%. You know how sometimes you say a word but you realize it wasn't *really* the word you wanted? Maybe you said \"regret\" but you really meant \"contrition\". So that's the danger of high-level languages; you don't always have the control over the subtext that you think you might have.\n\nLow-level languages give you a lot of control over what you're saying, because the vocabulary isn't as abstract and the words have very specific meanings. But the downside of those is that you have to use a lot of words to get a single idea across. Some people find them harder to learn, because some of the ideas behind these specific words are ideas that we're not used to (because they're more computer-y ideas). But they tend to be much faster, because there's nobody in the middle translating your high-level ideas to the low-level ideas that the computer uses. \n\nC is pretty close to the lowest-level you can get. Below that there's \"assembly\" and below that still is \"machine code\". \n\nPython, Java, and C# are pretty high-level. There are certainly higher-level languages out there, but of the ones you listed, those are the ones with the larger vocabulary that lets you get a lot done with fewer words. C++ is in the middle. ",
"Okay, considering other responses have apparently been too technical for some people, here's my attempt. I'm going to start with the lower-level languages in order to establish how they build on top of each-other.\n\nHere are the language attributes that generally control how a language gets used:\n\n* Low-level: Low-level languages like assembly, C and C++ give you straightforward, direct access to memory and hardware. They are intended for performance-critical drivers, number-crunchers and graphics applications, and sacrifice organization and structure for power, speed and control. They require a detail-oriented mind and mental clarity.\n* Managed: Managed languages, including C# and Java, *force* good organization. They help you stay organized, and because of that requirement, features are there to help manage some of the details you either sacrifice for usability or wouldn't want to have to handle, such as memory management and optimization. Managed languages help you perform good planning, but often require bigger computers (ie. a PC) because those management tools also have to load when your program runs.\n* Interpreted: Interpreted languages like Python, JavaScript and HTML5 have large libraries that can perform work at your request. They usually require a separate manager in order to run them, and they usually don't let you access anything about the CPU directly. They're no-good for anything computationally expensive, but they let you leverage powerful tools, such as web browsers and string manipulation libraries. They require practically zero organization and zero organization skills, which is why learning a little organization on your own keep your interpreted code from looking like crap.\n\n**C**: Like almost all languages, it kinda looks like instructions on troubleshooting car problems, if those instructions included algebra. As a C programmer, it is easy to see computer memory as a huge array of \"mailboxes\" with various addresses on them. Sometimes the addresses hold only specific things like numbers, but it's also easy to put any other junk in the mailboxes however you want (arrays, trees, structs, strings). Some of these address boxes contain a note that tells you to go look in another specific address. The instructions on what these addresses mean and what to do with them are kept in a separate booklet, so it's hard to say what address boxes have to do with which instructions. You need to keep track of which address boxes are available for new work, and which ones hold important information that should be left alone for later use.\n\n**C++**: C++ is C with extra features. Now, you're using masking tape to outline objects (groups of addresses), and leaving post-it notes regarding how the addresses can be used. These instructions describe what each address is for (fields), and what can be done with the group (functions/methods). Some of the address boxes contain notes that describe entire outlined areas (objects), allowing objects to interact in a more organized way. C++ is therefore object-oriented, since it is more useful to work with the groups rather than individual addresses. It's still easy to make mistakes because you could misunderstand some instructions and open/change the wrong address box, but now that you're organized, it's not too bad.\n\n**C#**: C# looks a lot like C++. The instructions all read about the same, but now there are bigger, easier to use widgets that cover the many addresses. This makes it easier, so you have almost no need to work with individual addresses at all. All of the instructions talk about objects (groups of addresses) instead of individual addresses. Dials, buttons and switches manipulate the address boxes behind them - this makes it so you can't do bad things to the address boxes as long as the widgets are functioning correctly. You can get more done with less work, but it's hard to be sure if those widgets are fast, lean and efficient. \nAll of your instructions on interacting with the widgets don't need to change, even if the underlying address system has changed - that intermediate mechanism between the address system and the widgets can be swapped out for whatever kind of computer the C# is running on. \nIf the instructions and widgets never \"talk about\" an object, that means the object is not in use - the system is smart enough to use the underlying address boxes for something else. This is called garbage collection, and it means that you don't have to keep track of what needs to be preserved and what doesn't. \nC# has some options to keep the address boxes from being tampered with in a bad way, but in some cases you can gain access to the raw addresses in order to work around the widgets to improve performance.\n\n**Java**: Java pre-dates C#, but works on the same principles. The widgets are all different, so you can't use C# instructions in Java, but they all perform similar functions. The intermediate layer between the widgets and the address boxes is available for many, many more kinds of computers. Java also forbids *all* instructions that make any changes to the address boxes directly, which can limit it's capability.\n\n**Python**: Python is practically a receptionist for your address boxes. You can provide instructions, and there is a great deal of intelligence between you and those address boxes. This makes Python more capable of understanding complex instructions, but it takes much longer for all of your requests to make it through the receptionist, the widgets, the intermediate layer and the address boxes. One advantage is that Python is very good at understanding text. A few short instructions are enough to search a large database for something that matches complex criteria. At this end of the spectrum, however, if something is too slow, or something inexplicable goes wrong, you have no way to see what's going on in the computer hardware (the address boxes), and so you're stuck with poor performance or a vague understanding of how a certain task is being achieved.\n",
"I'm somewhat a novice/advanced programming and still have much learning to do -- so I wanna give this a shot:\n\nFirst thing first -- you want to categorize each programming language based on how they function. You have programming language, scripting language, and markup language.\n\n* Programming language such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc are codes that need to be compiled before it is run. (Compile a jargon for translating the code into machine language )\n\n* Scripting language such as PHP, ASP, etc are codes that are interpreted at run-time. This is why some are considered server-side programming as a program is placed into the server that can interprete the code and run them.\n\n* Markup language such as XML, HTML, etc are quite different from the other two. It's more of a set of tags that are used to literally \"mark up\" a text documents.\n\nThis [source](_URL_0_) explains the difference between high level programming language and low level programming language quite nicely (also copy n pasted here)\n\n > High level programming languages are more structured, are closer to spoken language and are more intuitive than low > level languages. Higher level languages are also easier to read and can typically sometimes work on many different > computer operating systems. Some examples of higher level languages are Java, Visual Basic, COBOL, BASIC, C++, > and Pascal to name only a few. Lower level languages are typically assembly languages that are machine specific.\n > Computers run instructions at the binary level, interpreting zeros and ones as instructions. Rather than writing > programming code at this level, we've developed languages that compile into the zeros and ones that computers > understand. As these languages become more robust, they get further and further way from zeros and ones, becoming > higher level languages.\n > Today's object oriented computer languages allow developers to mimic the real world with objects in code.\n > To use an analogy, high level programming languages are to spoken languages as low level languages are to Morse > code. Morse code is not limited in what it can communicate, but it's not as intuitive or easy to use as spoken language.\n > Yes and Also... High Level Programming falls in the Area of OOP/Object Oriented Programming. They were design to > get much out of Programming, more complexity, flexibility, in a presentation, in Simplicity.\n > There was a time where all Programming was done in Machine Lanuages, which I can imagine... Gave Programmers a > big Headache. Then b, was created then C, Then after awhile C++ Was created which was an adon to C, Making it > High Level OOP.\n > All though not all High level Programming is OOP. OOP Has to have .\n > Polymorphism.\n > Encapsulation\n > etc etc....\n > Well Not all High Level Programming is OOP. PHP, PERL, RUBY, Which fall in the lines of ''Interpert'' languages, and > differ from OOP. Anyway Low Levels actuially refer to The actual Memory, how the CPU Reads, and executes Data. > High Levels Are powerful languages, but are presented in ''Human readable Codes'' Defining Variable Names, etc etc.\n\nWithout further ode -- the core difference between programming language that you have listed (Java, C, C#, C++, Python [not including etc]):\n\n* **C (1972)** - Emerged first before all the listed programmings. But far after COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, etc. It's considered low-level (though some thinks it's more mid-level. Apparently it's debatable), data are not secure, uses top-down approach, function driven, etc. It was originally designed for implementing system software but is widely used for developing application software. *Notable mention: if you which to become an Apple Developer -- you'll be using mostly Objective C.*\n\n* **C++ (1983)** - Started off as an extension of C (basically does more that C originally cannot do), it is essentially a general purpose programming language. It works especially well because it can interfaces easily with the libraries (which is a collection of implementations of behavior -- for example, if you want a program that generate random number, you can use a library that already has that behavior written to use in your program instead of creating one from scratch)\n\nWhile C++ can be hard to learn, it is also an enjoyable experience and in the long run, allow you to create many things. C++ is still maintaining popularity in the real world and many softwares still uses C++. *Some of Google applications, file system, and Chromium are written in C++; a few part of Apple OS X and few iPod application are written in C++; literally most of the Microsoft software are developed using various flavor of Visual C++ or simply C++*\n\n***Important note: C and C++ are sometime(often) used interchangeably.***\n\n* **Python (1991)** - Often used as scripting language though classified as programming language that was designed with intention to be simple, explicit, and readable.\n\n* **Java (1995)** - It is based off C and C++. In a nutshell, a newer programming language is hoped to become easier and better to use than older program. So Java became popular because of the advantage of JVM in which allows Java to runs anywhere. Nevertheless, it's used primarily for client-server web applications. *Notable mention: if you wish to become an Android Developer -- you'll be using Java (and XML)*\n\n* **C# (2001)** - Developed by Microsoft within its .NET initiative. Naturally, designed to be simple, modern, general-purpose, object oriented. \n\nIn a nutshell -- to really know the differences is to actually use them. Each has slightly different syntax, some easier than others. Many of the principle remains the same such as conditions - the famous \"for loop\" -- some language are written the same while other are written differently. Then once compiled (or interpreted) the translation is also different in terms of efficiency, memory usage, and much more. \n\nUltimately, It's as Atyzze mentioned earlier: it's a choice of brush to use when painting.",
"C...\n\n ...C sharp? C hashtag? C poundsign? C tic tac toe?\n\nI have no idea what I'm doing"
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efcar6 | what's the difference between a broken bone you can heal from, and one you can't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/efcar6/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_broken_bone/ | {
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"No, it’s not bone related due to bones not healing. Most likely, it’d be due to a spinal cord injury causing partial paralysis or brain damage causing mobility issues.",
"Wheelchair bound would generally be nerve damage. Bones can generally be set properly, and muscles and tendons may take months of therapy to recover. Nerves tend to be more iffy in regards to recovery. Blood supply and nerves are difficult to fix, as is some types of connective tissue.",
"It's called a non-union fracture. It can be a nightmarish neverending trip into a kind of chronic pain that changes just about everything in your life. Off the top of my head I think there's about a 30% or so chance that any break can go non-union."
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1ldhyl | why do people still talk about the heart as the center of emotion, when it is really the brain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ldhyl/eli5_why_do_people_still_talk_about_the_heart_as/ | {
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"Because the brain is already known as the center of logic. Yes I know it's the center of both, but people want to refer to the two as separate. ",
"Social convention mostly. Just like why we draw 'hearts' which look nothing like an actual heart.\n\nA theory as to why the heart is the subject of the convention might go like this: Most emotion seems to occur via a system in your brain called the limbic system which does much of its work by influencing parts of the brain which trigger horomone releases. Many of the horomones associated with emotion influence stress response (e.g. epinephrine or adrenalin). These cause a lot of symptoms, but one which we notice is change in heart rate. It is easy to draw lines from this to ignorant understandings of emotion in the body."
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yib2x | why a guitar string g is tuned on the 4th fret, while the rest are tuned with the 5th. | E B G D A E. Bottom to top. Why, when finding octaves, are the notes on the g string that match the B string one fret lower than the other strings in relation to each other when matched in the same way? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yib2x/eli5_why_a_guitar_string_g_is_tuned_on_the_4th/ | {
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"This is simply for playability. In most commonly used guitar chords (when the tuning was standardized), the intervals between the root and lower pitches of a chord are greater (notes are more spaced out) than the intervals between the higher pitches. The guitar accounts for this by having a smaller interval within the higher pitches of guitar strings. It causes finger placement in most chords to simply be more comfortable and form-fitting to one's hand, by automatically gearing the intervals to be similar to common chords.\n\nEDIT: In music theory, an interval is the distance between two notes and it forms the basis for all music theory. A guitar is tuned in fourths (a \"fourth\" being the name of the interval between the two strings. I.E. A is a fourth up from E) and the G and B strings are tuned in a major third (one half step less than a fourth, so smaller interval = shorter distance).",
"Couldn't locate the video, but here is a quote from the legendary EVH on guitar that I found interesting:\n > “ A guitar is just theoretically built wrong. Each string is an interval of fourths, and then the B string is off. Theoretically, that's not right. If you tune an open E chord in the first position and it's perfectly in tune, and then you hit a barre chord an octave higher, it's out of tune. The B string is always a sleeping with mommy to keep in tune all the time! So I have to retune for certain songs. And when I use the Floyd onstage, I have to unclamp it and do it real quick. But with a standard-vibrato guitar, I can tune it while I'm playing.''",
"Bottom to top is E A D G B E. The distance between most of the strings is called a perfect fourth, but the distance between the G and B string is called a major third, and the reason for it is to make chord formation easier. If a guitar was tuned straight fourths(like a bass guitar) you would have E A D G C F which would make most of the common chord shapes very difficult to play. "
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1oijg0 | why can't we modify tobacco to be nicotine free? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oijg0/eli5_why_cant_we_modify_tobacco_to_be_nicotine/ | {
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"Because then nobody would buy it. The only reason for smoking tobacco is to get the nicotine rush.",
"We might be able to. The more important questions, I think, would be why. While Nicotine is the addictive ingredient in tobacco that is the ingredient that people smoke for, generally speaking. \n\nEssentially what you are asking is why isn't alcohol free beer more popular. The fact is that, at least to a certain extent, doing so removes the point.",
"The whole point of quitting smoking is to elievate the intake of carcinogenics that comes along with \"smoking\". With a lack of nicotine your essentially smoking just for the harmfull chemicals and not to quench the craving of nicotine."
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28xqck | why are most of the intelligent people i know, socially awkward? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28xqck/eli5_why_are_most_of_the_intelligent_people_i/ | {
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"While you look at them like they are socially awkward, have you ever asked yourself if they are looking back wondering why you behave in strange and illogical ways?",
"Maybe because they don't share many interests with regular people, so they haven nothing to talk about or bond over. ",
"Source: Am intelligent and socially awkward.\n\nA lot of social interaction consists of talking about ordinary things. I dislike exchanging trivial pleasantries about the weather, or that Alice's cousin is now dating Bob's ex. If there's no interesting, non-trivial information to be exchanged, it's hard to see the point in having a conversation.\n\nSocial interaction almost requires following certain cultural conventions. I don't drink [1], and I don't care about or follow sports, and that eliminates a big chunk of common ground with a lot of people.\n\nI've heard that practice improves social interaction skills. But practice requires putting in time, which may be better spent elsewhere. It's difficult to make myself spend a night out, since I know I'll probably just end up feeling awkward and out of place because I don't have good social skills. Staying home and playing video games or whatever is basically guaranteed to be a much better experience. Of course, if I make the same decision with the same reasoning every night, then I'll never go out and never get much opportunity to improve my social skills by experience.\n\nA lot of social interaction is non-verbal cues. I don't really pick up on them or understand them very well. I don't notice a person's body language. I've fairly recently figured out I actually have to struggle to make eye contact with people -- I always have a really strong urge to look down when I'm talking to a person. Eye contact apparently simply doesn't come naturally to me. That quirk alone has probably sent all kinds of weird messages to people over the years, that I've been totally oblivious to.\n\nMaybe most people have areas of the brain [2] devoted to things like understanding body language, physics simulation, or mental visualizations [3], which I use instead for raw conscious processing power or learning about things I find interesting.\n\n[1] That is, I don't drink alcoholic beverages.\n\n[2] Or learning time.\n\n[3] I'm really bad at sports and somewhat clumsy. I find visualization difficult. My art skills are strictly limited to stick figures.\n",
"Because the vast majority of people are idiots. There's no common ground most of the time. \n\nThere's really no need to be socially awkward, tho - maybe there's not even an excuse for it. You can practice social interaction like you can any skill, and like any skill? You can master it to your advantage. It's just uncomfortable and takes a long time and isn't pleasant and might require a few years of failing to figure out. Thus, intelligent people tend to close themselves off into socially sterile little worlds and justify their own seclusion by saying things like \"I don't like drinking or sports\". \n\nGuess what? Neither do I. Neither do a lot of people. But If you're so intelligent, why aren't you working on a way to bridge the gap? Why aren't you solving the problem? \n\nBecause it's easier to sit on your ass and make excuses or self-diagnose than it is to put in the time and energy learning how to talk to people and be a universally enthralling personality. Because rationalizing your own faults comes easier when you're intelligent. Besides, there's the Internet! Now, it's easier than ever to shut yourself off from your peers, to grow up socially stunted. \n\nWhatever, I'm sure this reply will piss off some people. I don't deny the power of things like Autism and Anxiety Disorders. I just think that as an intelligent person, you're better equipped for change than most folks are, even if it is a cold and lonely road sometimes.",
"Paul Graham, the programmer/entrepreneur and founder of the Y-Combinator that helped fund Reddit, Dropbox, among others, wrote an [essay](_URL_0_) about it. TL;DR, being sociable and/or popular takes actual work, and nerds (meaning socially awkward intelligent people) both don't consciously realize that it does, and would very much rather work on other things that they are interested in. The same way knowing about sciences are boring to athletes, knowing about sports are boring to nerds, thus one doing the other is hard since they consider it non-essential.\nSource: Was also a semi-awkward a few years back and a Linux and design geek. "
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g0uc22 | what dictates the sizes, lengths, directions, and orientation of stretch marks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g0uc22/eli5_what_dictates_the_sizes_lengths_directions/ | {
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"Stretch marks are a type of scar. When the skin goes through rapid stretching (from events such as puberty, weight gain, or pregnancy) and it does not produce collagen and elastin well enough, the skin tissue breaks up and this causes marks on the skin. Specifically the middle skin layer. However, those that have lost weight can also get stretch marks, so it's not just directed towards a certain group.\n\nIf you think about the way humans grow, we grow up and out. The marks form perpendicular to the direction of the skin tension. For example, in the case of weight gain or pregnancy. The stomach stretches out and sideways, so the stretch marks are generally going to go up and down. In the case of growth due to puberty, the stretch marks would generally be side ways because the skin in stretched up. \n\nThe length/size is determined by how fast the skin is stretching, and how fast the collagen and elastin are produced to accommodate the skin changes."
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7yu9he | what are cc and bcc on emails and what do they do? | Edit: Can those who are CC’ed and BCC’ed reply/forward the email? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yu9he/eli5_what_are_cc_and_bcc_on_emails_and_what_do/ | {
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"Cc means someone isn't the main recipient of the message, but is kept informed. Bcc means the same, except hidden from the other recipients.",
"CC sends a Copy (CC=Carbon Copy) to another recipient. This is generally considered for FYI and does not require action from that recipient.\n\nBCC or Blind Carbon Copy also sends a copy to the BCC recipient without the To or CC recipients being aware.\n\nBCC is also useful for sending emails to multiple recipients without exposing their email addresses to each other.",
"As has been mentioned, \"Cc\" stands for \"carbon copy\". This is a relic of the days before computers came into the office, and people used typewriters. If you needed two or three copies of the same text, you could put two or three sheets of paper into the typewriter with sheets of a special paper coated with carbon between them. The result would be one original copy, and one or two (slightly faded) copies which can then be filed away.\n\nIn the world of e-mail, you can simply send an e-mail to as many people as you like. You can put them all in the \"To\" field, but if you want to send somebody a copy that you want them to read, but you don't expect them to take any action, you can put them in the \"Cc\" field.\n\nFor example, if my boss wants me to inform everyone of an important meeting, I can send them an e-mail; but I might also Cc the boss to say, \"OK, boss, this is the e-mail I sent.\" I don't expect the boss to RSVP -- after all, he scheduled the meeting -- but he might want to just know that I sent it.\n\nA blind carbon copy (Bcc) is an invention of e-mail. Suppose I need to send an e-mail out to a lot of my friends, but not all of those friends know each other. And not all them want their e-mail addresses to go out to perfect strangers. But if I put them all in the \"To\" or \"Cc\" line, they all get to see everyone's e-mail addresses.\n\nInstead, I can put them in the \"Bcc\" field. Each of my friends gets an e-mail, but they don't get to see the addresses of anyone else that I put in the \"Bcc\" field.\n\nI could, for example, send the e-mail to a dummy e-mail address (probably my own) and call it \"Undisclosed recipients\"; then I put your address and Harry's address in the \"Bcc\" line. When you get the e-mail, you can see \"Undisclosed recipients\", but you *can't* see Harry's address -- and Harry can't see your address.\n\nAnd yes, people have been Cc'd and Bcc'd can reply to and forward the e-mail. But if you hit \"Reply all\", you can't send it to anyone else who was Bcc'd (because you don't have their addresses)."
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4y1n8v | why does it feel politically incorrect to call the milwaukee rioters "racists" even though they're violently targeting white people based on the color of their skin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y1n8v/eli5why_does_it_feel_politically_incorrect_to/ | {
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"It shouldn't. But if it does, then it's because you've been conditioned to believe the \"racism = privilege + power\" nonsense that allows people to get away with this sort of thing."
]
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[]
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||
1opfkc | why do black people prefer to be called 'black' instead of 'brown', when if you actually colour matched your bedroom walls the same colour, you would never in a million years say you had black walls, thy are obviously brown? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1opfkc/eli5_why_do_black_people_prefer_to_be_called/ | {
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"White people arent white.",
"Because it's easier to distinguish between two polar opposites/extremes - up/down, right/wrong, black/white.\n\nCompared to a brown person I am white (white as far away from brown as you can get) and compared to a pink person a brown man is black (as far away from pink as you can get)\n\nIt's just _easier_ to call us white/black."
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dukvyz | why don’t body builders get stretch marks and excess skin like overweight people do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dukvyz/eli5_why_dont_body_builders_get_stretch_marks_and/ | {
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"They do get stretch marks. You can see it on guys who lift a lot of weight and start building up quickly.",
"Body builders absolutely get stretch marks. \nSource: am a massage therapist, i see/feel them all the time.\n\nThey also get excess skin when their muscles atrophy\n\nQuestion: why do you think they don't get them?",
"They do. If you want to see the most gnarly stretch marks look on the side of a pec running into the armpit. Mine were probably an inch wide and dark purple but have since faded. Most of my friends have this same stretch mark. Also, they fade and those spray tans will cover any up.\n\nSource: myself, my brother, and my buddies.",
"They do. Bodybuilders just retire before they get ugly. Schwarzenegger s last shirtless role was probably in 2003 \n\nThey don't get as big as obese people, who might be two of three times healthy weight. Bodybuilders might be 250 pounds but that's not extremely obese and muscle is denser than fat."
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6ygv5r | what is the point of the us congress drafting resolutions that just condemn something? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ygv5r/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_the_us_congress/ | {
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"Basically, its the \"sending prayers and good vibes\" of the politics world. They do it when they see something bad going on in the world but dont want to send people/money to help, but they dont want to be accused of doing nothing. \n\nOf course sometimes its all the government can do as trying to pass a resolution to send aid can be hard/impossible to pass. \n\nIs there an example that you were looking at? ",
"This clip from Yes Minister gives you a good idea: _URL_0_ "
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1k5dd7 | how do we just "develop" a mental illness? | It feels awfully strange how we can develop or just get a mental illness, especially when we are old. I know that there is something to do with cells getting old, but how come it arrives when we get old? Is there something different about the body when we get older that allows for illnesses and diseases to enter the body? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k5dd7/eli5_how_do_we_just_develop_a_mental_illness/ | {
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"We don't totally know. It is probably a combination of factors, but a lot of it seems to be genetic. It would depend a lot on the illness, too. ",
"Exellent question! Let me start by saying that I'm *no* kind of expert in any related field, but I believe I understand what you're trying ask -- How does mental illness *emerge* in people? -- and I believe my layman's grasp of this may be just barely adequate to provide some small insight. \n\nAs I understand it, the human mind is governed by two main factors -- neurological and psychological. Either or both can be behind any given mental illness.\n\n*Neurology* has to do with the physiological functions of the brain, meaning biological, chemical, and electrical. The physical structure of the brain or its chemical or electrical processes directly govern how our brains function, and aberrations or changes in any of those physiological factors can lead to mental illness of many kinds. Many perceptive, cognitive, expressive, and interactive disorders can be traced to *brain function,* and in many cases can be mitigated by addressing underlying physiological disorders of the brain.\n\n*Psychology* is, as best I understand, our cumulatively constructed abstract grasp of ourselves and the world outside our brains, including our bodies, and is shaped a great deal by experience and observation, as well as our cognitive processing of various inputs. In this way, *nonphysical events* can change our mental status, sometimes dramatically.\n\nYour question seems to presuppose that mental illness is typically innate, like something you're born with, and so you're specifically curious about what might be called 'late oneset' mental illness -- mental illness that is not evident earlier in life, but becomes apparent later on. This is a very good question, I have to say, and I bet many others wonder the same thing.\n\nAgain as best I believe I understand, emergent mental illness comes about due to either neurological or psychological changes, and very likely both in most cases. For example, an experience or cumulative buildup of experience may change your perspective, and that may then lead to chemical or even structural changes in your brain, which then alter your cognitive structure, which in turn changes your perception, which then alters your psychological impressions, and then that may lead to further neurological changes; this becomes a feedback loop of mental change, eventually leading to some kind of mental illness.\n\nMore common, I expect, is just regular physiological change over time, which everyone experiences throughout their lives. So the brain you have right now is not identical to the one you had ten years ago, or will have ten years from now. Some of the changes that inevitably come may affect how you think or perceive, which might either directly change your mental status, or lead to the kind of cycle described above, sometimes leading to some kind of mental illness."
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dokb76 | male razors with multiple blades on one side and one on the other. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dokb76/eli5_male_razors_with_multiple_blades_on_one_side/ | {
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"The single blade is meant to be used as a precision blade for spots that you may need to shape around but not get rid of entirely. For example, you may need to get rid of some mustache hairs growing too close to your nostrils, but want to keep the rest of the mustache."
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4ls4vp | how does a complex system like an ant colony govern and regulate itself without an 'intelligent' leader? | I understand that ants use pheromones and chemicals to communicate and will have instincts that govern an individual ant's behaviour. How do millions of them function together essentially as one organism without any of them really knowing what they are doing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ls4vp/eli5_how_does_a_complex_system_like_an_ant_colony/ | {
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"text": [
"Emergence. _URL_0_\n\nRadiolab did an excellent episode/podcast on it. But in essence, we don't *really* know. How does the brain work when it is 'just' a collection of cells?"
]
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3re80k | what would happen if a meteorite hit an aircraft? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3re80k/eli5_what_would_happen_if_a_meteorite_hit_an/ | {
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"Depends on the size of the meteor and where it hits. (Meteorite is what's left after they hit the ground.) If it's relatively small and hits the fuselage, it would depressurize the plane but not necessarily cause the plane to crash - planes have [survived worse](_URL_0_). If it hits the fuel tank or an important control surface, then you probably will have a bad time."
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243"
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8yw8yy | how exactly did steve irwin die from a stingray sting when there’s plenty of videos on the internet of people touching/handling stingrays? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yw8yy/eli5_how_exactly_did_steve_irwin_die_from_a/ | {
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"Because those people didnt take a stingrays barb directly to their heart. That is basically as effective as taking a knife to the heart. ",
"He got stabbed in the pericardium (it’s a sack that surrounds the heart) and died of cardiac tamponade — the pericardium fills with blood and smushes the heart so it can’t pump anymore. ",
"Did those videos show the other people getting stabbed repeatedly in the heart by the ray?\n\nStingray-related fatalities (in humans) are extremely rare, partly because a stingray's venom, while extraordinarily painful, isn't usually deadly -- unless the initial strike is to the chest or abdominal area. In Irwin's case, the barb actually pierced his heart. James Bertakis was also stabbed in the chest, and possibly in the heart, but he did not attempt to remove it, which could prove to be part of the reason he survived the attack.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Didn't the stinger puncture his heart? I guess the mistake they made was pulling it out in the field before he got medical attention. If they'd left it in, he may have lived.",
"He spooked it accidentally and it stung him in the heart. Stingrays aren’t exactly a majorly dangerous creature, but their stingers are their defense mechanism. It was just a unfortunate accident. "
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5x5l0o | what's the difference between a chef and a cook? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5x5l0o/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_chef_and_a/ | {
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"Technically, there is only one chef in a restaurant kitchen--that's the head guy. In other words, chef is a title, cook is a job.\n\nEdit: According those I know in the restaurant industry, only someone very pretentious who works in a kitchen would refer to himself as a chef instead of a cook.",
"The chef is in charge of the kitchen, usually in a gourmet/fine dining place at that. In some places, they come up with new dishes and instruct the cooks on how to prepare them.\n\nA cook is someone lower ranking who has no creative input. They follow the recipes available to them. In chain restaurants there is no actual chef, only cooks and kitchen managers, because they still have to follow the policies outlined by corporate headquarters.",
"The term originated in France from a kitchen hierarchy system called the brigade. The head chef oversees the operation with the sous chef as their second in command (larger operations have chef de cuisine as second and more than one sous chef). The sous chef oversees each of the lead cooks of the various stations (grill, sauté, sauce, etc.) called chef(s) de partie. Each chef de partie has their own assistant(s) known as commis. To become chef de partie requires years of commitment and training and earns you the title of chef. This system is rarely used outside of large hotels and fine dining establishments. "
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29cmrv | what is guantanamo bay, and why is it bad? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29cmrv/eli5_what_is_guantanamo_bay_and_why_is_it_bad/ | {
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"When people refer to Guantanamo Bay, they are referring to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, located in Cuba, that is controlled by the United States. The camp is used to hold enemy combatants who are said to be a danger to the United States.\nA large number of people are angered by the existence of this camp as its detainees are often held without charges, are not generally arrested where the US has judicial authority, and are not granted a jury trial in front of their peers, but face a military tribunal, if they even reach a trial. The fact that some detained at the camp are Americans makes the camp even more controversial."
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8ud5y9 | with so many pigeons, squirrels, rats, and other critters living in urban areas, how are cities not filled with the carcasses of animals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ud5y9/eli5_with_so_many_pigeons_squirrels_rats_and/ | {
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"I believe it's because the animals eat the other animals. Circle of life and whatnot.\n\nPlus there's Dave the Critter-Eater, but we don't like to talk about him.",
"Lots of scavengers. Rats eat anything. Plus coyotes, stray cats and dogs, occasional cougar.\n\nBesides if nothing else, streets and sanitation or parks & rec dept clean up carcasses.",
"Many animals go off to secluded areas when they are about to die. They will hide because they are more vulnerable to predators. They don't want to be taken by those predators. Eventually they will die in those secluded areas, decompose and/or be found by scavengers. Pet birds are notorious for trying to hide in a corner of their cages when they are ill and usually about to die. That behavior is a sign to get to an avian veterinarian. \n\n"
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98y3co | are cabin windows on commercial jets literally just there for the passengers to lookout? if yes, then why are the windows always either too forward or too back? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/98y3co/eli5_are_cabin_windows_on_commercial_jets/ | {
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"Different airlines buy the basic jet and outfit it with their choice of seating. Seats may be different sizes, provide different amounts of leg room, have more/less/no first class (which has more space per row) and either some divider or maybe a bathroom between first class and economy sections.\n\nThe windows are located where possible, based on the structure of the plane body itself (you can’t have a window where you have a metal “rib” holding the shape of the plane). It’s safe to assume this spacing is as reasonable as possible, based on the designer’s guesses of how the plane might be set up, but there’s no way for it to fit the location of every seat, with every way the plane could be set up. ",
"Yes. They are just for the passengers. The plane hull would be stronger without the windows but then flying would be a more claustrophobic experience.\n\nThe windows used to be aligned with the passengers' seats before airlines realized they could squeeze more people in a plane by compressing your legroom. Because the seats are closer, they don't line up with the windows very well.",
"There are some safety elements to having windows. It's helpful to be aware of what's happening outside the plane should an evacuation be required. If the left side is on fire and the right is not, it will be easy for everyone to see. Some airlines (not in the US) even require the window shades to be opened for take off and landing for this reason. \nThere are also some things the pilots are able to inspect from the windows, like wing icing or the position of the flaps if there is a malfunction."
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j5583 | explain what "the 14th amendment thing" that obama can do is! | I've heard about "the 14th amendment thing" but don't know what it is. ELI5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j5583/explain_what_the_14th_amendment_thing_that_obama/ | {
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"Section 4 of the 14th amendment says that all debt that the federal government creates is valid and legal. \n\nThere is the arguement that President Obama can use this section to justify raising the debt ceiling all on his own without needing Congress to do it. If he did, though, it's legality would probably end up before the Supreme Court because it's controversial.\n\nInterestingly, because of the 14th amendment, having a debt ceiling that creates the possibility of default may in fact be unconstitutional!\n\nThere have been a few of these questions the last few days, and most were answered well, so check out the search box and see what you think.",
"Depending on the interpretation, some people believe that it gives power to the president to raise the debt ceiling under Section 4."
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64om1t | the difference between narcissism and inherently loving the person who you are | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64om1t/eli5_the_difference_between_narcissism_and/ | {
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"Narcissistic people are obsessed with themselves and think that they are above everyone else. They often talk about themselves in order to show off. \n\nIf you're simply happy with who you are, it's just that. You're content with your life and the way that you live it.",
"Narcissistic people don't love themselves. They love the idea of other people loving them.\n\nBecause of this they create a \"false self\" and hide their \"true self\". They act like they're perfect because they can't stand the idea of anyone thinking otherwise.\n\nIf anyone threatens their \"false self\" (the idea of perfection they're trying to portray) they rage and set out to destroy that person. \"It's not me it's you, always.\"\n\nIn reality narcissists are incredibly insecure.\n\nPeople who love themselves are perfectly comfortable being themselves. They love themselves, they are genuine and therefore they can love and care for other people.\n\nPeople who love themselves are the exact opposite of narcissistic people. They are secure in who they are, good bits, bad bits and everything in between.",
"Like most disorders, the answer is that Narcissistic Personality *Disorder* is a disorder when you can't control it and it negatively impacts your quality of life. You like things to be clean and tidy and have little rituals? You might be obsessive and/or compulsive. Your need for things to be clean and tidy is crippling such that you are incapable of leaving something untidy or unclean, and failing to do your ritual(s) sends you into a spiral of anxiety that leaves you hyperventilating on the floor sobbing? You have Obsessive Compulsive *Disorder*.\n\nLikewise, liking yourself is fine. You might legitimately be an awesome person worth liking! That's not a problem. You might not be as awesome as you think you are, that's ok, you're just a little narcissistic. It becomes NPD when you are *pathologically incapable* of accepting criticism, acknowledging flaws or mistakes, or treating people around you with respect. You don't just think highly of yourself, you know with every fiber of your being that you are amazing and if anyone tries to criticize you for any reason, at all, ever, *they* are wrong. You could steal a car and crash it into a wall, and when your \"best friend\" tells you \"That was kind of a shitty thing to do,\" your response is to tell them (and yourself) that if *they* didn't want their car stolen they shouldn't have left it lying around and *you* are just so amazing that you *deserved* that car, it should have been yours, they didn't deserve it because they're not good enough. And also f & %k your \"best friend\" for saying anything bad about you.\n\nWhen your friends start dumping you because you're acting like a shitty person, that's *their* loss, not yours. When you become abusive and beat your partner, it's because *they deserve it* and when you get arrested and go to jail, it's the system trying to keep you from being awesome because the system is jealous. Obviously, this behavior negatively impacts your life, but it's pathological. You can't stop it even if you wanted to. That's what makes it a disorder - *you can't stop it*. Unfortunately, when it comes to NPD one of the biggest problems is that those people very rarely *want* to get better. Most people with OCD or ADD or Borderline Personality Disorder are well aware that their quality of life is suffering, and while there's plenty of room for people to want to stay true to themselves and feel too different without their disorder, most of them still want to be able to control it. So someone with ADD might get really weirded out by the feelings they have while taking Ritalin and choose not to take it, but they still understand that their ADD needs to be under control so they use other coping mechanisms. People with NPD...well, they think they're the greatest person on the planet so why would they want to change? If their quality of life is suffering, it *cannot* be their fault - that thought process is already a part of NPD. So why would they think they need to change?\n\nThere are some people who manage to understand that they do, in fact, have NPD and *need* to change, but it's still pathological - they can't just easily act differently, any more than someone with ADD can just \"pay attention\" at will.\n\nSide fact: you can accurately gauge how narcissistic someone is simply by asking them to honestly rate themselves on how narcissistic they are from 1 to 10. A narcissistic person has no problem admitting that they are extremely narcissistic, because in their minds they *deserve* to be in love with themselves, so they should be, so they are. They will readily rate themselves as a 7+. Someone who just thinks highly of themselves will understand that narcissism is a disorder and that, regardless of how narcissistic they might be, they don't want to come off like an asshole, so they will rate themselves lower.\n\nTL;DR: People who love themselves may struggle to accept criticism, but they can still accept it if they choose to and try. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are fundamentally incapable of accepting criticism about themselves. Their narcissistic behavior negatively impacts their quality of life.",
"The key difference is a sense of entitlement. They don't just love themselves more than other people, they feel the whole world should do the same. They should go to the front of the line, they should have the better job and the better SO and the last piece of cake because they deserve it more than everyone else. \n\nThey don't care about hurting others in their pursuits, because the universe is there to get them what they want, and anyone who gets in the way stands against the natural order. It is beyond mere selfishness, it is being oblivious to the possibility of being selfish."
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1aktkj | why don't flies drop dead after repeatedly ramming head first into my mirror? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1aktkj/eli5_why_dont_flies_drop_dead_after_repeatedly/ | {
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"Newton's second law is that force equals mass * acceleration. Flies don't have much mass, so even if they really quickly change speed (like suddenly stopping when they hit a mirror) there isn't *that much* force. Things like this are often called \"laws of scale\". Basically, as you change the size of something, different traits will change in different amounts. For example, if you make something 1/2 as tall it will have roughly 1/8th the amount of mass! This is because mass is related to volume and volume is length * length * length (so 1/2^(3) is 1/8). Another way to think about it - a fly might weigh about 1 gram, while a full grown human might be 75-100 kilograms. That means it will take 75,000 times as much energy to stop the human than to stop the fly.",
"They (insects in general) are built differently than us (mammals).\n\nGenerally, what kills you is the force of stopping (\"It's not the fall that kills you...\"). Force is defined as the product of mass and acceleration (F = m\\*a). A fly has a very small amount of mass, and not that much acceleration when it hits the wall (about 4.5 mph to 0 in a short amount of time). So the force they feel isn't that much.\n\nAlso consider energy lost to bouncing. If you slam your fist down on the table and hold it there, it will hurt a lot. If you slam your fist on the table and let it bounce, it won't hurt as much. That's because some of the energy from the collision is used to bounce the fist away from the table (or the fly away from the mirror).\n\nBoth of these mean that what the fly feels is very different than what you would feel bashing your head against a wall."
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dbdlcf | how does braking your car not destroy your engine? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbdlcf/eli5_how_does_braking_your_car_not_destroy_your/ | {
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"In an automatic car, your transmission is connected to a torque convertor which just absorbs the rotational motion of the engine without transferring power to the wheels",
"If you've ever driven an automobile, you'll no doubt have noticed that it has either two pedals (automatic transmission) or three pedals (manual transmission).\n\nIn the first case, which concerns the overwhelming majority of cars in the US, you have two pedals: one for the gas (to accelerate) and one for the brake. Because you're only supposed to drive an automatic car with one foot, you can't technically apply pressure to both the gas and the brake at the same time, unless you're doing it on purpose.\n\nIn the second case (manual transmission), you have an extra pedal,n for the clutch, and you need to use two feet to operate the car. One foot either brakes or accelerates, just like an automatic transmission, and the other foot applies the clutch when you need to change speed on the manual gearbox or when you are stopped.\n\nConsequently, any time you remove pressure from the gas pedal to apply pressure to the brake to slow the car down, the engine immediately slows down. Conversely, when you want to accelerate, you remove pressure from the brake pedal and apply pressure to the gas pedal.\n\nThis system was designed so that you wouldn't both brake and accelerate at the same time, or the other way around.\n\nFurthermore, as a general rule, the engine is going to be more powerful than the brakes, so if you gun the engine and brake at the same time, the car will still keep moving, so it's very hard to actually break an engine this way, especially when you take into account the fact that the grip of the rubber tires of an automobile isn't sufficient to prevent the engine from turning the wheels to begin with.\n\nHope this helps.",
"If you have an automatic transmission, your engine and drivetrain are not mechanically interlocked; they're independent. You have this device called a torque converter - it's a drum filled with oil, and a turbine. The drum is bolted to the engine crankshaft, the turbine is attached to the transmission. As the engine spins, it rotates the drum, which gets the oil sloshing. This creates hydraulic pressure, which runs over the turbine. This pressure CAN rotate the turbine, and move the car, but the brakes can overcome this pressure. If this is the case, the oil just flows around the turbine.\n\nIn a manual car, you have a pair of friction plates held together by a spring. The clutch pedal pushes the plates apart. The engine and drivetrain are physically linked, but if you're going to stop, you have to step on the clutch pedal and disconnect the engine from the drivetrain, or you'll stall the engine and it'll be a bumpy stop, as you imagine.",
"It depends on if your car is an automatic or a standard (manual) shift car:\n\nAutomatic: Your engine isn't connected straight to the wheels. The engine turns a sort of fan in this thick goopy stuff that blows on another fan. That makes the second fan turn, and that one is connected to the wheels. So when you stop the wheels only that second fan stops.\n\nManual: There are no fans and no goop, but there is something called a clutch that does the same thing. Clutches are like a bunch of dinner plates stacked up. If you spin the top one, it will spin the bottom one too, but if you lift the top one a bit first it won't spin the bottom one. The bottom one is the one connected to the wheels just like that second fan in the automatic car.",
"Imagine your engine running, and that crankshaft is just driving a huge fan. Now, a few inches away, your transmission is there motionless, but also has a big ass fan attached. Rev the engine, fan blows harder, and starts to push that transmission fan, so the transmission starts to move your wheels. That's pretty much an automatic transmission, but it pushes fluid through the fans, not air.",
"Automatic cars have no mechanical connection between the engine and transmission. It uses a torque converter. The simplest way to explain it is it's like putting a fan face to face with a wind mill. The fan is the engine when it turns on the air blowing into the windmill turns it. But if you put a brake on the windmill the air will blow over it and not turn it. Then when you let the brake go it starts turning again. In practice it uses oil instead of air and is way more complex.",
"it comes down to the fact that the cars engine is not connected to the wheels in a \"solid\" way there is something that will slip or give in-between. in an automatic it is the torque converter and in a manual it is the clutch. the closest you could get to damaging the engine would be in a manual car with a really grippy clutch. even then you just force the engine to stall and while the engine doesn't like it, it doesn't hurt it. this last example happens 100's of thousands of ties a day when new people are learning to use a manual car or when someone stalls trying to go up a steep hill, same effect as braking, in that the engine is forced to come to a sudden stop.",
" > When pressing your brake, you stop your wheels from spinning but the engine is still cycling and producing RPMs. If you let go of the brake you immediately start moving forward. Is the brake on an automatic car connected to a clutch of some sort that disengages your engine from the axles? \n\nThere is a torque converter that absorbs some of the rotational motion, but most Automatic tranmission just put you in neutral. If you were talking about a manual transmission, then yeah - you are putting pressure on the engine. For example if you pressed brakes while in gear hard enough so that rpms fall below 1k rpm, the car will stall. If you released the clutched under heavy acceleration AND braking, you would either stall or overcome brakes and move. Still it puts a lot of pressure on the engine.",
"\"RPMs\" don't \"go\" anywhere. Rounds-per-minute is a measurement of the rotational speed of the main shaft of the engine. It's not a unit of work, or power.\n\nEveryone references the torque converter but more modern automatics do not feature this part any longer, eg. Volkswagen groups automatic ZF gearboxes use 2 mechanical (robotic) clutches to do the dirty work but in essence it's the same as a manual transmission with 2 clutch pedals. It's just much easier to build a robotic clutch than to grow an extra leg. \n\nELI5: In modern automatics, the gas pedal sensor gives a signal to the robotic clutch to disengage the engine from the wheels if it would get close to stalling. Otherwise it allows for enginge braking which is explained by a guy on a vid linked down below.",
"Because it the same as going up a hill. You are just putting more load on the engine but usually you don't break while pressing the gas so the engine doesn't have to deal with being under a greater load because it is already slowing down.",
"[Clutches](_URL_0_)\n\n[Manual gears](_URL_1_)"
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41bkda | which current american english accent is closest to the "original" american english accent? | I've heard a lot of theories and speculation on how the "American" accent has evolved since the time of the earliest European settlers in the country. Obviously there are no recordings or anything of the sort to determine exactly what the original settlers sounded like. However, I'm curious if there's any facts or research behind which current American accent (Southern, Wisconsin, Bostonian, New Yorker, etc.) is the closest-sounding to the way America's English settlers spoke. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41bkda/eli5_which_current_american_english_accent_is/ | {
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"My guess would be the Tidewater areas around Chesapeake Bay and Virginia; also isolated communities like Appalachia. And rural New England.\n\nFor comparison, one should tour coastal towns od England from which emigrants were known to have departed; also Ulster.",
"Tangier Island, VA was long super isolated and they're considered to have the oldest original American accent in the country\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThey speak how Americans were believed to speak in the 1600s",
"There is no original American English because it was the exact same accents as spoken in England because the people came from there. So depending where the person came from in England that was the accent he spoke. If you mix it all together and add a bunch of non-English immigrants you get quite a mix.\n\n[This video](_URL_0_) makes a compelling argument that the Southern accent is closer to a British accent, and therefore closer to the 'original American accent'."
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2z0686 | why is a lower bodyfat percentage considered attractive? in an evolutionary sense, wouldn't a plump person look more attractive since they are obviously doing a good job finding food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z0686/eli5_why_is_a_lower_bodyfat_percentage_considered/ | {
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"I guess it actually depends on your geographical location. Such that in western society, we see having muscle and being skinny as a plus (more attractive), where as in Asian countries (Or poorer countries), it is seen as good to be fat because you represent wealth.",
"The plump person was attractive way back when food was hard to come by and it was hard to be fat. Nowadays shitty fattening food is cheap and plentiful and now its easy to be fat and harder to be fit. ",
"These are some of my favorite old-timey adverts...I believe society's opinion of beauty is largely formed from clever marketing. [caption](_URL_0_)[caption](_URL_1_)[caption](_URL_2_)",
"Good health and athleticism. You're not running an animal to death while fat.",
"Being plump is seen as more attractive by most, to a point. There is a line that you cross where it is no longer a sign that you are a good provider, but a sign that you are poor in health. \n\nYou also have the tendency that societies that have problems getting sufficient food set that line of plump being attractive higher. So the line that someone would be considered unhealthy and therefore unattractive would be much higher than in more stable and well supplied cultures. \n\nAttraction has many innate automatic components, but it has as many if not more learned components that you get from your family, your local culture, societal culture as a whole, and the experiences you have in life. ",
"If you live in a poor society where not everyone has enough food, thrifty genes are indeed valued. So in the past, many societies did value fat people, if they were female. After all below a certain percentage of body fat a woman cannot even get pregnant...a fat woman also has fat to spare to help her through lean times while she is nursing the baby and cannot hunt / gather food / work in the field or whatever. I'm not sure fat men were ever valued...\n\nBut in a rich society everyone has enough food, so being fat is no longer an advantage. Instead, it's an indicator of lack of self control ... modern societies require a greater degree of self-discipline that earlier ones, almost everything we do requires self-control (Saving for a house, for a car, studying for a degree, learning a new job, a new language, etc). Someone who cannot control something as simple as their diet is recognisably deficient. In a rich society, a fat person is a poor bet as a partner. They have health issues, lowered life span, are less able to do anything that requires self control.\n\nI'm a fat person myself (120 kilos) by the way...\n\nNote: Last time there was a thread like this discussing weight a mod came in and deleted most of the comments, and ungilded the highest-rated comment.",
"In one sense, it's cultural and varies over time. There are periods/cultures where being fat is considered a sign of wealth, definitely.\n\nBut evolution works over longer periods than cultural tastes. It would have been unusual to see an obese person in the ancestral environment, since food required more energy to obtain. Our ancestors were also more in fight or flight situations in response to danger, rather than playing video games or sitting in a car without moving, so fat that would get stored tended to get burned up quickly. \n\nWhat would have mattered more for mate selection was how the fat was distributed, as this shows something about hormones and fertility. There are big gender differences. For example, estrogen tends to distribute fat towards the breasts and hips. Fat around the belly in women is associated with polycystic ovaries, a cause of infertility. So there is a lot of information about a potential mate that comes from fat.",
"Being overweight is associated with poor health and disease",
"Because it reflects wealth and privilege in the modern world, the same as being fatter showed in years long ago. We're as much social creatures and biological creatures, and the absolute most important thing in choosing mates, in many cultures, is that they have money or some other equivalent resource with which to raise a family.\n\nIf you want to go from a purely biological standpoint it's not about \"has enough food\" anyway. It's about \"is healthy enough to create healthy children\" which means strong and active and able to work hard / be free of disease / run away from predators.\n",
"Technically speaking, in ancient times it was more difficuilt to be fat, because you had to be a really, really good hunter to stay alive and fat. And fat women were more likely to produce healthy kids.\n\nToday, the trend has turned, and it is more difficuilt to stay in shape, showing mental strength, determination and good health. ",
"Coronary heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.\n\nType 2 diabetes.\n\nCancers, such as endometrial, breast, and colon cancer.\n\nHigh total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides.\n\nLiver and gallbladder disease.\n\nSleep apnea and respiratory problems.\n\nDegeneration of cartilage and underlying bone within a joint (osteoarthritis).\n\nReproductive health complications such as infertility.\n\nMental health conditions.\n\n\nAll of these have been linked to obesity. From an evolutionary standpoint, why would I want to risk my offspring falling prey to one of those? It makes no sense at all to reproduce with obese individuals. \n\nPeople tend to look for mates who aren't going to die soon. \n\nNot to mention the implications obesity has regarding the lifestyle of the individual. Fat people tend to be lazy, selfish, and have poor hygiene. No one looks for those qualities in a mate. \n\n\nSurvival of the *fittest* not survival of the *fattest* \n\nThere are so many more variables in the equation for \"suitable mate\" than just \"ability to find food\". ",
"I have always thought of it as a sign of good health and by extension, quality human DNA. Finding someone sexy can be reduced to your brain saying \"share your DNA with that person and your offspring will be healthy and thrive.\" So if you see someone fat and with all associated complications of being fat, your brain I'll make sure you keep your DNA out of it. You can trick evolution sometimes, but not in this instance. ",
"It used to be a sign of wealth but now anybody can be fat so it's much more attractive to show that you take care of your self than to be over weight.",
"Old images of Succubi were overweight women. \n\nIt's not just a straight \"thin\" or \"hefty\", it's \"traits that the rich have\". When the rich were the only ones who could stay inside all day, pale skin was considered beautiful, now when the rich are some of the only ones who can go outside during the workday tan skin is considered beautiful. Same with weight, fashion, etc, etc. It's all about association.",
"A) fat people will try less to do most things.\nB) it's so common nowadays\nC) in most cases its disgusting.",
"Take two people of the same weight and height. What would make one more attractive? Smoother skin, symmetry in their face and body, a younger appearance, a toned body vs a skinny one. \n\n\nAll of these go away as you gain fat. It affects your skin and how young you look. Fat can grow unevenly which will affect your symmetry. Obviously your tone goes away. \n\nAll of the cues we use to determine appearance in general also make fat unattractive. ",
"There are outward signs of good health which we look for subconsciously in a mate. Well proportioned healthy looking mates are in demand and they include people with certain traits: unblemished healthy skin, athleticism, healthy hair, youth in women, strength or ruggedness in men etc.\n\nSome traits are grounds for immediate dismissal though and they are usually outward signs of genetic flaws: lesions or other skin defects, gross obesity, poor hygiene, emaciation, possibly overt genetic issues like dwarfism.\n\nChubby in america does not represent a person who is a bit better off financially. It is much closer to \"thyroid problem.\" 8-15% bodyfat in men and 12-25% in women is a range we may have seen all the way up to about 1950 and anything outside of that would have been extraordinary.\n\nSocietal pressure may guide who you choose as a mate but won't have any effect on who you find attractive.",
"Everything else aside. An attractive,fit naked women gets my dick hard. A fat woman does not. Nature is telling me all I need to know right there. ",
"Yea, washing down a whole bag of doritos with a 3 liter of dew everyday does show you know how to work hard to gain food stuffs.",
"Curves look sexy (pretty much universal).\n\nFat looks ugly (amount of bodyfat where this kicks in depends on culture).\n\nLower bodyfat - depends what you mean. In an evolutionary sense younger looks better and if you ignore the influence of civilization bodyfat tends to increase with age (also with motherhood). All these up to a point.\n\nThe lean working out bodytype is a modern thing so our perception of it is heavily influenced by culture and individual taste.",
"I always assumed whatever was most difficult to do was most attractive. Food is scarce and people are poor, fat nobility is attractive. Being fit and trim in a world of cheap fast food is attractive. Being able to breed with someone who has attained a difficult and therefore revered status means the person mated up. Don't know if it's true, but makes sense in my head.",
"There is some debate here.\n\nOn one hand, you have people that suggest that a fat person means they have easy access to resources and should be attractive. On the other you have people that say fitness and the ability to move fast and address's problems physically makes you more attractive.\n\nObviously it is the latter that is true, and the reason is that being overweight, excess resources, don't exist in nature. So even if it makes sense, it hasn't been selected for.\n\nIn general the need to move fast and fix problems quickly and effectively was encountered more than excessive easy resources, so as a result that was selected for and thus that's what people find attractive in a mate.",
"No. Before civilisation and agriculture getting fat wasn't a thing. A strong healthy human body has visual cues of good genes, i.e., female curves (contrary to tumbler obese women are not \"curvy\" they're shapeless), muscles on a man etc. Obese people don't have these visual cues. Hence they're not attractive. "
]
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"http://imgur.com/wNnLq3p.jpg",
"http://imgur.com/e02GAsz.jpg",
"http://imgur.com/6bixo2g.jpg"
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1iamf7 | how hot is it in space? | i was just thinking about how weather, atmosphere, area of the world etc you are in determines how hot it is, so how hot is it if you had nothing but the rays of the sun on you in space? for examples sake.. whilst orbiting earth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iamf7/eli5how_hot_is_it_in_space/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb2m8r8",
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"text": [
"Deep space is at roughly -269 degrees centigrade, four above absolute zero, but without any air or other gases around you it's very hard to lose heat. We naturally radiate some heat in the form of photons (light), but this effect is not very noticable for cooler objects - that's why only really hot objects glow visibly. This means that in space any heat added is very hard to get rid of again, so if you were near a star the side of you facing it would heat up very quickly, while the side facing away slowly froze. If you can avoid generating too much heat of your own, and keep turning to distribute the heat from the sun you would liely find that it would still be hotter than Earth - astronauts need special cooling systems in their suits. ",
"You are thinking in exactly the right way to answer this question. \n\nSpace is cold, but it isn't absolute zero. There is still heat. To figure out the temperature you need to count up all the light that is hitting it. Let's look at some important sources of light. \n\n * The Sun. The sun is really hot and it is really big. The sun is about 6000 degrees above absolute zero (each degree is the same size as a Celsius degree) and the sun covers about 0.1% of the sky. \n * The earth or other planets. The earth isn't nearly as big or as hot as the sun but it is still important if you are kind of close to it. The earth is about 280 degrees above absolute zero. From a place in space that is really near to the earth it covers a lot of the sky, almost half the sky. From the international space station it covers about 48% of the sky. \n * Heat from the big bang leftovers. There is still light everywhere from the left overs from after the big bang. It is about 2.7 degrees above absolute zero and is everywhere in every direction. That means that no matter how far you are from anything else it will always be at least 2.7 degrees.\n\nTo get the final temperature we need to average out all the sources of heat by how much of the sky they cover. What temperature it is depends on where you are. The farther away from the earth you are the smaller the earth looks so the less of the sky it covers. Same for the sun.\n\nExample: The International Space Station if we didn't heat it at all. The sun is too small compared to the earth to matter so we are only looking at the earth here. \n\n Earth Temp * Earth coverage = 280 *0.48 = ~140 K = ~-130^o C = ~-207^o F\n\nYou get about half the temperature of the earth because the earth takes up about half the sky. Since it is only about 48% it would be lower than 140 but the other stuff brings it up a couple degrees above 140. \n\nNow let's look at something far away from the earth or other planets but about the same distance from the sun. \n\n Sun temp * sun coverage = 6000 * 0.001 = ~6 K = ~-265^0 C = ~ -450^o F"
]
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[],
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|
6ix0iw | if i was disassembled into atoms and then instantly rebuilt would my consciousness transfer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ix0iw/eli5_if_i_was_disassembled_into_atoms_and_then/ | {
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"text": [
"We really don't know. Conciousness isn't the combination of atoms that make up the neurons that make up your brain. It may not even be the electrical states of the atoms that make up the neurons. We really don't know if there is a \"soul\" that exits out of the picture of mass of atoms and electron states.",
"This is a speculative question so you're going to get the \"your post was removed because...\" message. \n\nUltimately, we don't know what consciousness is, so we don't know what it would take to make it persist through the imaginary \"rebuilt from the atoms\". We do know that a clone wouldn't have any memory connection to you - it'd be a different person with identical genetic code, that's all. "
]
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[],
[]
] |
||
4w8k2j | why do some lawn sprinklers pulsate rather than having a constant stream? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4w8k2j/eli5_why_do_some_lawn_sprinklers_pulsate_rather/ | {
"a_id": [
"d64y4em"
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"score": [
5
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"text": [
"Some use the pressure from the water stream to rotate, with each pulse providing a slight rotation along a fixed axis after a \"clapper\" (not sure of actual term) hits the stream and then a counterweight, (or a sightly less pressurized stream on the opposite side) works in the other direction. \n\nAs far as the why, because the water travels further when in an isolated stream instead of being dispersed all at once, thus covering more area."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1fkaxr | polymerase chain reactions | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1fkaxr/eli5_polymerase_chain_reactions/ | {
"a_id": [
"cab40dr"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"You mix together water, buffer (keeps pH constant, some salt so the polymerase folds and functions right), primers (short pieces of DNA that match the beginning and end of the sequence you want to amplify), dNTPs (raw DNA bases), the template DNA you want to amplify off of, and DNA polymerase (the protein that extends a DNA molecule by copying a template).\n\nYou then cycle the temperature.\n\nAt 95ºC the DNA is denatured (uncoiled to single strands).\n\nAt 55ºC the DNA primers anneal (bind) to the template DNA sequences that they match.\n\nAt 72ºC the DNA polymerase is active. It extends from the primers to copy the DNA sequence you want.\n\nTheoretically, each time you run a cycle the number of DNA strands is doubled. This makes it very good at rapidly amplifying specific DNA sequences."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2tcm6p | are there any benefits if the usa defaults on it's debt? | Also, if Obama somehow wanted to, how would we go about defaulting on our debt? Is there like a default form we sign? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tcm6p/eli5_are_there_any_benefits_if_the_usa_defaults/ | {
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"text": [
"There are no benefits to defaulting on our debt. The US is one of a very short list of countries that have *never* defaulted. That gives us the highest possible credit rating and gives us virtually unlimited borrowing power.\n\nObama can't default the country, he doesn't even begin to have that kind of power. Congress would have to do it, and then its not a form its a declaration that we cannot pay our debts.\n",
"There are no benefits in defaulting on our debt, but the US has never defaulted and is not likely to. Also the President does not have that kind of power, it is Congress that would have to do it. "
]
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[],
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