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ria9n | why music streaming services like 8tracks and pandora are not "allowed" to let you skip more than a x songs per hour? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ria9n/eli5_why_music_streaming_services_like_8tracks/ | {
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"IAmTopher is not correct.\n\nThe reason is because of the license agreement they made with the record labels to allow them to stream music in the first place. Under copyright law, these music services can either be classified as \"interactive\" or \"non-interactive\". Interactive services allow you to select a song individually. Spotify is one such example. Pandora is non-interactive, which meant they had cheaper licensing they had to pay, but more restrictions on how their service could be used.\n\nIf you could rewind, select individual songs, or skip more than a certain number it would violate their license.\n\nSource: American Copyright Association panel earlier today."
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9ywes2 | how did nasa contact with astronauts during the first apollo mission without satellites? how did the frequencies work with that range? | I've looked online but couldn't figure out how these frequencies worked for them to radio each other. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ywes2/eli5_how_did_nasa_contact_with_astronauts_during/ | {
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"Really strong radios. You can keep adding power to make it reach farther and you can make really big antennas to hear a weaker signal. Because the earth spins, there are a bunch of places all over the world with the big radios and they take turns talking to the astronauts so that when one radio can’t see them a different one can. \n\nAlso, the moon always faces one side to earth and the astronauts only landed on that side. When their spaceship went around the moon before they landed they couldn’t talk to earth for half the time: when they could not see it. \n\nNote: this is explain like I’m five so I explained like I would to a 5 year old. If you wanted something more in depth then try r/NASA or r/Space"
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22691l | the mathematical constant e (euler's number) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22691l/eli5_the_mathematical_constant_e_eulers_number/ | {
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"**e**\n\ne (2.71828...) is a number like pi (3.14159...) because they are both exact fixed quantities, but the process of calculating that quantity goes on forever.\n\ne represents a special type of \"doubling\"!\n\nTake $1 and put it in a bank at 100% simple annual interest. After a year, if the bank calculates the interest *only once* at the end of 1 year - you get $2. This is normal \"doubling\".\n\nBut if you want the 100% interest rate *compounded* monthly, you get a better return. What about interest calculated *daily* - even better right? How about every second, or, at \"infinitesimally small increments\"? Then after a year you get $2.718281828... or \"$e\".\n\nSo when \"growth\" happens step-wise/digitally/**discretely** over a given interval of time, 1 grows to 2 at a 100% growth rate. It \"doubles\".\n\nAnd when \"growth\" happens smoothly/**continuously** over that same interval, 1 grows to 2.718281828.... at a 100% growth rate. It... \"e-doubles\".\n\n\"Doubling\", or a simple ratio of doubling, occurs everywhere in nature, because that is what life does - grows and dies by \"whole units\" of individuals/things. 1 branch of the tree becomes 2 branches, 16 cells divide into 32 cells. Or a family of 2 become 3, or 4, or 5 or 6...\n\nIf you zoom out of any such discrete process of growth, taking more and more discreet intervals, you approach what looks like a *continuous* process of growth. A population growth curve, for example, zoomed out, looks exponential and smooth, you can't see the individual growth steps.\n\nThis is why you can find \"e\" in many processes of continuous growth in the real world.\n\n"
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1qdgjp | the relationship between the price of a commodity that wall street trades on, and the actual thing. | So, in Trading Places, Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd buy lots of FCOJ on the futures market. They never actually see any FCOJ, they just trade in it. I understand the futures market, that's fine.
What I'm not sure about is where the actual, tangible FCOJ comes and goes. The guy who makes it and takes it into town to sell: what price does he get, and how does it affect, or is it effected by, the price on Wall Street?
Another example: a jeweller buys gold to make into rings. He doesn't buy it from Wall Street, does he? He'll buy it from a supplier, who will get it from a mine. Yet Wall Street does trade in gold. Are the two related, or is there some abstract notion to it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qdgjp/eli5_the_relationship_between_the_price_of_a/ | {
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"In the case of [orange juice](_URL_1_), when you buy the commodity on the Intercontinental Exchange (symbol OJ,ICE), what you are buying is a physical supply of orange juice, which is kept in a storage warehouse in Florida, New Jersey or Delaware.\n\nWhat you do with that orange juice is then up to you. You can leave it in the warehouse if you want, and sell it to someone else on the commodities market. Or you can physically remove it from the warehouse and sell it to someone else.\n\n[Edit: in Trading Places, they are buying futures in OJ. So they are not buying OJ to be delivered now - but they are picking a date in the future when it will be delivered. So long as they sell their futures before that date, the OJ will be delivered to whomever buys the futures from them. It won't be delivered to them, since they will no longer own the futures when the delivery becomes due.]\n\nIn the case of gold, because lots of people want to invest in gold without taking physical delivery of it, it's possible to [trade gold](_URL_0_) in various countries' commodities markets through a system which backs up your purchase with physical gold that's stored permanently in a vault."
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"http://www.exchangetradedgold.com/",
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1p4s29 | why is there so much hate between to the two genders? why is it more acceptable to be sexist on the internet (and irl) than it is to be racist? | I'm specifically referring to the more extreme strain that has taken root as of late. Its two groups of people who want to be considered superior AND the most underprivileged at the same time. Its two groups who react with such tribalistic rage that there isn't a chance at having a reasoned-out debate. If you are nodding your head and thinking about the "team" you most dislike, well, I'm referring to the OTHER "team" too. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p4s29/eli5why_is_there_so_much_hate_between_to_the_two/ | {
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"You sort of answered it with your question by mentioning \"teams.\" People like to pick a side, and don't want to see their side lose. Sexism, racism, etc. is just an extension of this, with other factors thrown in (genetics, upbringing, wealth, culture, opportunity, etc.).",
"If anyone can answer this really well, they'll probably get gold. I'm willing to say that sexism runs deeper than racism, though as a white male I am exactly the least qualified person to make this claim. Here are a few things that come to mind.\n\nSexism seems more entrenched in cultures and mindsets, and is often more subtle. Perhaps this is because both genders exist in all societies (duh), so all societies have been able to develop this prejudice. Many societies grew up without racial diversity and thus weren't always able to be racist, so racism is a newer/less developed prejudice. Yeah, this idea isn't terribly convincing to me, either.\n\nAlternately, maybe it's precisely because the gender gap is smaller than the racial gap. I don't have the numbers, but socioeconomic status in the US almost certainly correlates *much* better with race than with gender. It will probably be long time before minorities will be in control, but it's very conceivable that women could soon be in control. Thus we (need to) work harder to keep women down and are more afraid of that power shift.\n\n\nAs to your second question, racism has been tackled on a large scale more recently than sexism, and so it's more popular to be sensitive to it. Also, many people hardly know how to *not* be sexist - so many things we do, we don't even consider sexism because they're simply part of daily life. In contrast, racism and racist thought patterns are often more overt.\n\nSexism runs so deep that many women even buy into it, whether or not they see the trap they're caught in (act like a woman and get treated like a woman, ask to be treated equally and get marginalized). I can't say definitively that racism has not bred the ideas of inferiority into minorities, but it seems less likely, or at least less thoroughly accomplished.\n\nYour comment about both groups want to be superior AND underprivileged is a good observation, but I might say that's an effect of the situation, not a cause (or rather, it's how the situation manifests itself and how people try to take sides in any argument about power dynamics)."
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78aai9 | why is three such an important number? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78aai9/eli5_why_is_three_such_an_important_number/ | {
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"Might not be the true answer, but three is the smallest form of a pattern.\n\nOnce was an accident.\nTwice is a coincidence.\nThree is intentional.\n\nIt's also the sides to a triangle, which can support itself given the proper foundations. (see: stools) ",
"\"I've never really thought about my favourite [number], but if pushed, my answer would be three. The number one is the most important. It feels like proof that something is there. Then again, zero is the most amazing discovery. The concept of nothingness is proof of human civilization. After one comes two in order of importance. The number two lets us divide things and put numbers is order. These three number (Zero, One and Two) would have been sufficient. As a number, three is enchanting. It was created even though it wasn't needed. Perhaps it was born out of creativity?\""
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5r0l7x | what are those sudden, weird, sharp pains that you sometimes get, usually in your chest, out of nowhere? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5r0l7x/eli5_what_are_those_sudden_weird_sharp_pains_that/ | {
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"if they quickly come and go and feel like someone is squeezing your heart then it is not harmful. They are called precordial catch syndrome and they are not harmful as far as we know. they tend to dissipate with age. We currently do not know the cause of them.",
"It might be a result of \"dryness\" in the pleural space (area between your lungs and interior wall of your chest), any friction on internal organs is incredibly painful.",
"Heartburn, maybe? What's your diet like?"
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5ei2dh | why is it that rivers are freshwater but oceans or seas that are supplied by them are saltwater, like the nile and the mediterranean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ei2dh/eli5_why_is_it_that_rivers_are_freshwater_but/ | {
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"Well, it's pretty simple. All fresh water has some salt in it. Not enough to taste, but it's there. Over millions of years, that salt has washed into the sea, then the sea evaporates, makes clouds, which make rain over the mountains, which then makes rivers which run down to the sea. And so the process repeats, ad infinitium. \n\nOver time that tiny amount of salt has built up until the sea is salty.",
"When it rains, fresh water flows down rocks and dirt dissolving and collecting salts and other minerals which accumulate as it flows into the ocean. The energy from the sun evaporates ocean water to form clouds, but the salt and other minerals stay in the ocean. The clouds then rain down fresh water again as part of a complete cycle.\n\nThe ocean is salty because rivers push salt into the ocean. Rivers start as fresh water because the salt stays in the ocean and didn't evaluate to form rain.",
"As a matter of fact, the Nile gets its water from Lake Victoria and pours into the Mediterenian. "
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1j5qrx | why does something travelling at supersonic speeds make a loud bang? | With my fairly limited knowledge of physics I would guess it has something to do with the distortion of sound waves, similar to [red-shifted light](_URL_0_), but that doesn't seem right to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j5qrx/eli5_why_does_something_travelling_at_supersonic/ | {
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"When things fly through the air, they produce sound waves. As long as the thing is flying slower than the speed of sound, the sound waves can propagate in front of the object and the waves don't really overlap very much.\n\nHowever, when an object breaks the speed of sound, sound waves created by the object can no longer keep up with the object itself, and the object passes the sound waves as it makes them. The sound waves are now thrown out behind the object and to the side, like a wake on a boat. They also overlap and combine with each other, making a huge BOOM of noise where before there would have been a continuous roar at a lower volume.\n\nI hope that helps."
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dwqm52 | the difference between a front vs top load washer | I've read a few tech reviews that seem biased and paid, so I want facts the differences between the two. I am gathering that all front load washers are HE; is this a by-product of design or an intentional design? It mentions that they clean more; how so, and is this inferred or actually proven that they clean better? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dwqm52/eli5_the_difference_between_a_front_vs_top_load/ | {
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"Front load washers are by design HE; they don’t need to fill the whole drum with water to soak your clothes and the clothes actually move inside, as opposed to “oscillating” in place while the water around them gets agitated.",
"Front load is able to clean with less water. The clothes only need to be soaked, not completely submerged. Front loaders suffer problems of mold growth and seal failures which top loaders don't have as much just by design. Top loaders don't need big door seals, gravity keeps the water inside. Top loaders also have advantage of being able to add clothes mid cycle.",
"Front load allows the clothes to tumble with less water. And the tumbling action in a top load requires more water and back and forth of the drum. And many top loads have a center agitator - to better facilitate the tumbling needed. But this center agitator can also cause more stress on clothing and cause them to wear out more quickly. (And some top loads have no center agitator b/c their goal is to \"mimic\" the front loading system better.) \n\nI have used both and find the efficiency of the front load spectacular. But when I have occasionally wanted more water or more agitation for dirtier loads the front load had few options for that. I could sometimes trick the machine by wetting items before they went in so they were heavier and tricked the sensors into thinking it was a heavier load. This way it would add more water. \n\nWith the top load the major downside seems to be that the weight of individual items impacts the agitation. All the items kind of need to be similar in size and weight. If there is something heavy it may end up on the bottom and lighter items don't move as much. Having to pay so much attention to what goes in can be a little annoying. I may have a load full of cotton t-shirts. But the heavier/thicker cotton seems to weigh down thinner jersey. I know when I have had a more \"traditional\" top load - the kind that fills with water - this is still a problem, but I've never pulled something out and felt like it got missed completely. My super low-water top load sometimes gives me that impression.",
"Efficiency is determined by how much water the washer uses. All the mechanical work that's being done doesn't take much power. Heating the water is where the vast majority of the energy goes.\n\nTop loaders need more water because all the clothes need to be more or less submerged. \n\nWhen the drum of a front loader rotates slowly, it lifts the clothes out of water and them drops them again, but the ones that used to be at the top are now at the bottom and vice versa. That means even though the water level inside the drum isn't high enough to submerge everything, everything will still come into contact with the water.\n\nAs a result they need to heat up a lot less water overall, and that's why they use less electricity.",
"TIL that top loading washing machine means different things in different parts of the world. In my country and I assume in most of Europe toploaders work on the same principle as frontloaders. The toploaders just have door in the side of the drum to allow access from the top, but the drum still rotates in a vertical position.\n\nThe only time I've seen a US style top loader was in a hotel in South Korea.",
"The UK mostly uses front loaders and I believe the same goes for most of Europe. The washing action is actually a softer approach to the old manual process whereby the clothes are bashed against each other, the agitators and the drum by the tumbling action. As such suds are a reduced necessity as they are only used to capture whatever grease does not get broken down by the enzymes etc.\n\nHowever, a thing to consider is that in North America where top loaders prevail some clothing may not be able to stand up to the front loaders washing action. So you might want to use gentler wash cycles for T-Shirts and the like. I base this on some Nike T-Shirts I received from the US which whilst extremely soft and light (100% cotton) started to show small holes post washing whereas no others do. Spin speed may have a difference as well, mine has 1800 but I rarely set it that high as drum perforation has a greater effect on water extraction than spin speed does. If you buy a washer with a highly perforated drum it is able to extract more water at lower spin speeds and so drying time is decreased meaning more efficiency."
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3hhpnq | why is shrugging one's shoulders associated with confusion? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hhpnq/eli5why_is_shrugging_ones_shoulders_associated/ | {
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"I don't know, man.\n-shrugs shoulders-\nI think it is because the act of shrugging evokes a feeling of vulnerability, youth and misunderstanding. If you think about it, when you shrug you make yourself look smaller and it seems to convey a message of innocence, informality and the result being a chance to be forgiven by the other human. Good question though, quite the brain teaser.\n"
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3nbfk3 | why is it so common for people to get sick during seasonal shifts? | Twice a year, regardless of my diet and regardless of how much I exercise, I usually get sick when we transition from summer to fall and spring to summer. It's not debilitating sickness, but it's enough to make me feel groggy and unmotivated to do anything (stuffy/runny nose, stomach unrest, itchy throat, etc.). This is true for a lot of other people I know like my coworkers and friends, so I'm thinking that this can't be coincidental. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nbfk3/eli5_why_is_it_so_common_for_people_to_get_sick/ | {
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"I think the fall change coincides with back-to-school. All the bugs that have had all summer to mutate get swapped around during the first week of school. Over the next few weeks they find their way to gyms offices etc. \n\nI'm not sure about spring but I'm thinking allergies. ",
"There is less sun, so your body does not get enough vitamin D, affecting your immune system."
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byscm1 | why is some lighting not followed my thunder | I’m sitting in a thunderstorm right now and the skies are lit up with lightning 24/7 non stop but there is absolutely no thunder with it why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/byscm1/eli5_why_is_some_lighting_not_followed_my_thunder/ | {
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"I'm not really an expert but I know sound doesn't travel indefinitely. And the speed of sound isn't really that fast. So basically that lightning is too far away for the sound to travel to you. There could also be other reasons I'm unaware of, for instance I have no idea if a lightning strike on the ground and a chain of lightning moving from cloud to cloud would sound any different than the other or not. This is just a MAJOR layman's explanation lol",
"Maybe you are now deaf.\nJust joking. \n\nAs far as I understand it, lighting has to create sufficient pressure by compressing and decompressing air (it does this when the lightning \"lights up\" and heats the atoms on air) to make the air move fast enough (trying to fill the vaccum created when air compresses) to break the speed of sound and create the sound explosion we hear."
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2wr0dm | do insects and other lower animals ever get demotivated, lazy or depressed? | It seems that ability to get depressed or demotivated comes from the ability to question the natural/genetic motivation, but I wonder if sometimes this "genetic motivation" breaks down in lower animals like insects, fish, etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wr0dm/eli5_do_insects_and_other_lower_animals_ever_get/ | {
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"Ants can rebel against their queens: _URL_0_\n\nI also remember reading that sometimes low-ranked members in another kind of social insect---forget if it was bees or wasps---would try to steal more than their fair share of the colony's resources and get ganged up on by the other drones for their crimes, but Google's not finding anything on that, rather unfortunately.",
"I read that 20% or so in ant colony are slackers (or reserves?) and that if you remove those 20% another 20% form the remaining will start slacking. Not sure if helps but it's interesting."
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6u197d | why do the normal bacteria in our mouth attack out teeth and gums,but those in other parts of the body do not attack those parts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u197d/eli5why_do_the_normal_bacteria_in_our_mouth/ | {
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"The bacteria in your mouth are like junkyard dogs. They are there because they are good at breaking down things that are coming into your body, but they are also aggressive and not well-trained. They'll stop someone from stealing stuff from you, but they might also bite your friend they've never met before.\n\nAlso, there are other bacteria in your body that are even worse. The stuff that lives in your intestines is like a pack of wolves. As long as they're contained in your guts, they are great at breaking down almost anything that comes through. If they ever get out, though, they'll try to eat everything they come across.",
"Actually, they don't. They just leave a residue after processing sugar and carbs. Try this. Eat a diet consisting of only meats, fats and dark green veggies. No sugars. No bread, rice, cereal, noodles, chips, fries, breading, added sugars, sweet drinks, potatoes, carrots, beets, etc. Look at the carb content of everything you put in your mouth for a week. Your teeth and gums will thank you.",
"If I remember correctly, the bacteria eat the leftover food in your mouth and expel acid as a waste product. Therefore, it's the acid that is attacking you, not the bacteria itself.",
"This is not really true. There can be bacteria residing in any part of your body that can become a problem given the chance. There's something called 'dysbiosis' when the normal structure of the bacterial communities in or on your body is out of whack. Maybe one kind of bacteria that is not usually a problem will bloom, causing inflammation and disease. These are called opportunistic pathogens. For example, Staph aureus is a 'commensal' (a bacteria that normally is found in the human microbiome) and most people have it in their nostrils and on their skin. MRSA is a drug resistant strain of Staph aureus, but in people who are vulnerable it can cause nasty skin ulcers, osteomyelitis, or sepsis. I work with MRSA all the time and probably have tracked it onto my skin at some point, but I have never been infected because my immune system works normally, it hasn't encountered open wounds, and I take proper clean up and containment measures. Another example: Candida albicans is a yeast that causes the common female yeast infection. It's also a commensal, meaning that most women have it in their vaginal area at low levels. If given the chance, it can bloom into a full blown infection but by no means is it a infectious transmitted disease like HIV. In short, the bacteria in your mouth in normal cases shouldn't be any more virulent than the bacteria in other parts of your body. In a healthy state bacterial populations are overall stable and avirulent. But if conditions allow a virulent strain to do much much better than its competitors then by god it will take over and wreak havoc. \n\n",
"Cavities are caused by the waste products of sugar-consuming bacteria. It wasn't normal, during our evolution, for humans to consume sugar-dense foods day after day. The occasional bounty of fruit or honey might feed those bacteria for a day or so, but that usually wasn't enough time to allow cavities to develop. Cavities are mainly a modern problem caused by modern diets.",
"These 'normal' mouth bacteria can indeed affect other parts of the body. Having bad teeth can lead to complications like heart disease (if the bacteria enter the bloodstream) or meningitis (if the bacteria go through the jaw to the brain).",
"Dental student here. Like most have said before bacteria have evolved along side us for millions of years to foster a mutually beneficial relationship (symbiosis), harmful relationship (parasitism) or neither beneficial/harmful relationship (commensalism) with us humans. Now with that in mind, bacteria in your mouth are quite comfortable where they are and under normal circumstances, in a healthy adult with good oral hygiene, they do us no harm and are just along for the ride. \n\nHowever, if a change in environment presents itself, such as excessive sugar consumption coupled with improper oral hygiene, they can become what is called opportunistic pathogens. They take this excess sugar and eat it for energy and release acid as the waste product. This acid is what destroys your teeth, and cause cavities. \n\nMany of the species of bacteria that reside inside/on us present this ability to do harm if displaced to another body cavity or their immediate surroundings change in condition (acidity, nutrient supply, less competition etc)\n\nMore like an explain like I'm 12 but you get the point. ",
"You ask excellent questions! There is one difference between the mouth and any other part of the body. The teeth do not shed. Skin sheds, intestines shed, hair sheds, but teeth do not. Keeping the cuff of gum around the teeth healthy and tight around the tooth is essential to health. Allowing biofilms, organizations of microorganisms, to thrive on teeth will lead to these organisms entering the body and creating havoc: periodontitis, cavities, pneumonia, cardiovascular disease...Prevention is actually MUCH easier than treatment. Your friendly neighborhood dental hygienist can save your life and make your old age much more pleasant because you will be able to eat what you want.",
"Dentist here. \n\nThe bacteria in your mouth aren't \"attacking\" your teeth. They just live there. \n\nYou need 3 things to get a cavity. \n1) a place for bacteria to hide out and around (teeth)\n2) food for them to eat up (the crap you leave on your teeth)\n3) bacteria\n\nAny one of those things missing, and you can't get a cavity. \n\n\nThe bacteria are just hiding out in your mouth (and your teeth are one of the places they hide out). They're happily just chillin' and eating the crap you forgot to brush and floss off. And they take a big dump and leave it there. It just so happens the bacteria create acid. When they take a dump on your tooth, they leave acid behind. It's that that causes your cavities. \n\nAll that acidic byproduct is what causes tiny holes in your teeth that turn into bigger holes. \n\nNext thing you know they're like- \"holy crap, I just built myself a nice condo and that muthafucka isn't brushing! Hells yes! It's the muthafuckin' Golden Corral up in this biz\"\n\nSo, yeah. That pretty much sums it up. "
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7wk3j9 | why can't we use vacuums for buoyancy? | So, I was looking at dirigibles, and thinking of how buoyancy works, and how the material of higher density pushes below material of lower density. Wouldn't a space with no material in it have a much lower density? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7wk3j9/eli5_why_cant_we_use_vacuums_for_buoyancy/ | {
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" > Wouldn't a space with no material in it have a much lower density?\n\nIt would! The problem is the materials we have that could support such a vacuum chamber without it crushing are too heavy for the displacement of the vacuum. If we somehow had a magical material which wouldn't collapse under the pressure but was light enough for it to support then it would work, but we don't have anything like that.",
"tl;dr It would work in theory but it's impractical.\n\nIt would take a lot of structure to create a vessel capable of withstanding outside pressure. That's heavy. [Watch this video to see a multiton structure succumbing to air pressure](_URL_0_)\n\nWe can investigate 3 cases of lighter than air fillers for our balloon. \n\nVacuum - density zero. Provides no internal pressure so it requires a lot of structure to withstand the external pressure of the air. In case of any damage will explosively decompress. Any small leak will quickly lead to loss of buoyancy as the outside air will rush inside. There is no known material light and strong enough to build it.\n\nHydrogen - density 0.09, very light but extremely flammable, will always leak and will react with the walls of the vessel. Hydrogen is a nasty thing and can leak through solid walls. Any leak is an explosion hazard. Oh, did you hear that Hindenburg story? that was hydrogen. \n\nHelium - the most popular, density of 0.18kg/m^3. Does not react with any ordinary substance. Does not burn nor explode. Leaks will not cause immediate danger, as there is no pressure difference/\n\nThe buoyancy we get from those fillers is 1.2, 1.1, 1.0, respectively (air being 1.2 density). This means that compared to Helium, vacuum gives us 20% better results at the cost of complicated and most likely heavy internal structure, Hydrogen gives us 10% gains at the cost of a proclivity to go BOOM.\n"
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yauib | why don't we have access to at-home sti/std tests and why is hiv the only sti with a rapid test? | Why are there not widely marketed urine or skin prick tests for common STI/STDs? Why is this technology not available? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yauib/eli5_why_dont_we_have_access_to_athome_stistd/ | {
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"Is the reason bayesian/statistical? I imagine there'd be a lot more false-positives if everyone were frequently testing themselves for STI's at home, instead of going to a clinic after doing something risky."
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fspkug | how do artists "scan" their drawings so they look completely flawless digitally? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fspkug/eli5_how_do_artists_scan_their_drawings_so_they/ | {
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"Yes. Most of them have specialized scanners that allow them to accurately upload these pieces. Additionally, it helps for digital touch ups which can be a bit more versatile with some programs.",
"Scanners bigger than 11\"x17\" are rare and expensive so artists usually use photography for something this big. There are special rigs and [tripods](_URL_0_) for photographing large flat art. The image lays flat on a bed and the camera is mounted parallel to the art on an arm that can move in three directions. Art can also be photographed hanging on a wall. Art schools typically have studio lighting and photography classes where students learn to do this stuff themselves."
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2capns | how can somebody smoke a cigarette after 10+ years after quitting and not hack and cough like somebody who smokes for the first time? | This is my first post on Reddit ever. Been lurking for a while. I did a stupid thing, I picked up smoking for about a month after having quit for over ten years. I was drunk and took a drag off a friend's cigarette, I expected it to be awful, but it wasn't. Its like I never stopped. I'm wondering if this is because I mentally knew what to expect, or another reason?
P.S. I officially quit again... stupid cancer risk | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2capns/eli5how_can_somebody_smoke_a_cigarette_after_10/ | {
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"Not coughing when you smoke is not as much about your lungs being used to it as it's about knowing how to react. You haven't forgotten how to smoke. "
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2j7ubc | why is recording movies on the computer like using a screencast considered bad, but using a dvr on the tv is fine? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j7ubc/eli5why_is_recording_movies_on_the_computer_like/ | {
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"If you're talking about from the perspective of those in the film industry, I think the idea is more what you plan to do with the movie. Generally speaking, people copying movies to their DVR intend to watch them. People copying movies on their computer are more likely to distribute them.",
"It is a perception promoted my the Film industry because they think you will violate copyright.",
"I can't speak for other countries, but in New Zealand, recording movies/TV shows/anything is legal only for time shifting purposes, ie, you're going to watch it later but then erase it. DVRs are typically for that purpose (Though whether or not people actually erase it later is another matter), so that's fine. Recording movies on the computer though is usually so that you've got your own personal copy of the movie.",
"Here's an interesting question as a follow up to a comment further down. What if I have netflix, but for whatever reason netflix is fucked up one day and I can't access it (account is still in good standing, just can't hit the server or service is ungodly slow). What if a movie I want to watch is on netflix (which I can't watch right now) and I download it instead. I'm still paying my monthly subscription for a service that HAS that movie.\n\nAm I doing anything inherently wrong?\n\nThis actually happened to me. Got a warning from my ISP about it (was a shitty movie too, but whatever).",
"It's not bad, but that doesn't stop them from making it as hard as possible. They wanted to make dvrs illegal as well, and vhs recorders once upon a time. My last computer I built with DVR in mind. I used an HD home runner to get qam off the cable line, which were basically hd rebroadcasts of over the air transmissions required by cable companies offering service. I was in the mountains so an antennae wasn't an option. I also used free software that automatically cut the commercials with over ninety nine percent accuracy in my experience and was the main reason I put a quad core processor in at the time. Life was awesome. Haven't done it in years but I assume harder with set top boxes. \n",
"Am I not allowed to record broadcasts if I am using an antenna? ",
"DVRs are legally required to have DRM. The content is partially encrypted. On devices like TiVo, there is a special security chip, which has had several pins burned off to keep the keys locked into the chip. Attempts to extract the keys would destroy the chip. Each chip has unique keys. Basically, even if you could get the keys, you would only be able to decrypt what you have already recorded. The chip could never be used again. For set-top boxes (cable boxes), the keys are exchanged periodically from the headend, though not as frequently as they should. MSOs are not a diligent lot. \n\nSource: I work for a very large enabler. ",
"Some good explanations here, let me try this.\n\nMedia Companies have a bunch of rules and they charge pay TV companies huge dollars for the rights to distribute content. Those rights come with rules. \n\nThe DVR carefully follows those rules, your screen recording does not. Not following the rules is more than just a matter of pissing off the rule-makers, in some cases it runs afoul of the law. \n\nCapability | DVR | Screen Recording\n----------|---|---------------\nStored with DRM (Encryption)? | Yes | No\nContent \"expires\" after specified time? | Yes | No\nPlayback only on Permitted Devices (e.g. TV, not Mobile) | Yes | No\nPlayback is counted toward Nielsen Ratings? | Yes (in many cases) | No\nCan enforce Unskippable Commercials? | Yes | No\nMedia can be shared with non-paying parties? | No | Yes\n\nUltimately the simple reason is this: \n\nUnder the law, the content coming into your home via your pay TV subscription is not yours to keep and do with as you see fit. Media delivery and temporary storage is a service offered, for a fee, that confers no additional rights to store, modify or redistribute content beyond a certain, very narrow, definition of \"fair use\" ",
"In a quick summary, DVRs have loads of DRM which prevent you from offloading the recordings and uploading for re-distribution. All you can do with a DVR is record and watch. As far as I know, it's near impossible to remove the recordings on a DVR. ",
"Because you generally can't pull content off a DVR and place-shift it, but you can with a pc. You'll hear the bullshit excuse of \"zomg piracy!11\" but the truth is most publishers are convinced you owe them a separate fee for each device if you watch the same show on your phone, pc, tv, tablet, or projector. \n\n\nPublishers claim they're not renting you a copy, they're selling you a short-term license to view the content. They claim the license is limited in how, when, and where you can view the content. They claim the same thing applies to buying a dvd--you're only buying a license to view the content as the publisher sees fit. Book publishers tried this in the early 1900s, claiming that libraries should pay the publisher every time you check out a book. Music publishers tried it when cassettes came out, claiming people should pay them for taping songs off the radio, let alone copying a bought tape, then complained about iTunes...they wanted to make you buy an entire album of 12 crappy songs for $18 instead of 99 cents for the one song you wanted. Movie publishers went nuts over vcrs. People went to jail for learning how to copy dvds. Video game consoles tried to claim each game dvd could only be played on one console (no bringing it to your friend's house). ",
"Basically, after failing to ban the VCR (not a lot else you can do when even [Mr. Rogers thinks you're a bunch of greedy assholes](_URL_0_)), the content industries colluded with the electronics industries and that's why you now have devices like DVRs, that do what the content industries want and not what you want.\n\n\"Bad\" is a relative term. Personally, I don't feel that I owe my eyeballs or eardrums to any corporation in exchange for watching something they produced. If I go to a friend's house and watch HBO they paid for but I didn't pay for, am I committing a crime? If the end result of watching a Game of Thrones torrent and going to someone's house to watch it when it airs is the same thing (I watched it, didn't pay for it or watch any ads) then how come one is okay but the other is not? \n\nThe answer is corporate greed, and I leave it to you as to who is 'right' and who is 'wrong' in that equation. \n\nI believe that no one can own a sensory experience. If I can remember a concert I attended in detail, then why can I not also record it and play it back? Will I have to submit to a memory wipe after each concert next? Perhaps the record execs would enjoy it if I had to pay them a reasonable fee to access my own memories of their protected intellectual property?\n\nIt is in our nature to share music, stories, art - humans have been doing it for millennia. Now that we have the tools to perfectly reproduce such things infinitely, a lot of people in the business of reproduction have had a hard time making ends meet, well, I have to say I'm not shedding any tears for them. Plenty of artists are surviving giving content away (selling advertising, merch, and other things) nowadays. The content industry's failure to adapt to the internet is their problem, not yours. The people that made washboards did not get any special dispensation once washing machines came onto the scene. \n\nLook, I believe in artists getting paid, I just don't believe that they need to monetize every single fucking eyeball and eardrum that pay attention to them. I buy blu-rays. If you make a show I like, I'm gonna torrent it, and then if I respect you and your creation I will go out and buy the discs. There have already been several studies disproving the notion that pirates don't spend money - in fact pirates spend MORE money on entertainment than other people do. I watched Breaking Bad beginning to end, without paying anyone a dime. Then I went out and bought a very expensive plastic barrel containing all the blu-rays. I don't believe someone who makes less money than me, and can't afford such luxuries, should be prevented from watching Breaking Bad, I don't think someone in a country where the show didn't air should be prevented from watching it, and I think that people who DO think so are brain-dead fools. If you ever made or listened to a mix-tape, you broke the law. If you ever had a bunch of friends over to watch a movie, you broke the law. If you ever played a CD loudly on a crowded beach, you broke the law - therefore: the laws are stupid, and deserve to be ignored. I will never own a DVR because I believe I have the right to record things and play them back and to lend them to or copy them for others. With the VCR, we won that fight and I refuse to give up those hard-earned rights. Now, if you burn a bunch of BDRips to disk and start trying to sell them, I believe in throwing the book at you, but non-commercial infringement is mostly harmless and more importantly, inevitable, and it shouldn't be illegal.",
"I don't think anybody has said this yet so here's the real answer -\n\nAll of the cable companies pay royalties to content owners, covering DVR use. \n\nWhen you record copyrighted work independently, and most importantly, not with the consent of the service provider or copyright owner, the copyright/content owner is not getting paid for that use. ",
"\"Because f#@% you! That's why!!\" - The Film Industry",
"Lawyers need work. Make rules/laws, enforce rules, when broken sue people.",
"If you are asking about copyright law, the reason that DVRs are legal has to do with the way the copyright statutes are written. DVRs do not violate the reproduction right because they have a 1-2 second buffer behind live TV that is constantly being overwritten. If the user has not requested recording then the 1-2 second chunk gets deleted. DVRs also do not violate the public performance right because cable companies keep your DVR'ed material on separate hard drives and then send it to the user upon request. This is a private transmission and therefore not public. See Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings. Although this may have changed post-Aereo case, I haven't kept up. \n\nRecording via screencast would be a violation of the reproduction right.",
"If you record it on your computer, you can easily burn it on a disk or sell it online. When you DVR, you can only watch it on your TV; you can no longer copy it on a disk or sell it. ",
"Not to mention it was only a few years ago we were taping things on our vcr.",
"Companies hate permanent storage. Notice there's no device that is readily available to record HDTV onto disc like there was during the VCR era. Execs even compared VCRs to rapists. \n \nThere's a big effort to take away entertainment ownership and make it all accessable through monthly payments",
"Dvr records commercials too. Even if you fast forward them, you still know there was a Snickers commercial in there. Money made. ",
"If a corporation isn't making money, it's evil.",
"There's no functional difference. I don't want this to come off as me pushing my political opinions, because I'm sure to some degree that's unavoidable, but the reason for the difference in how these things are viewed really *is* political. The \"DVR=Good, Screencapture=Bad\" mentality is how the media/cable companies frame it to the public/government to serve their own interests, even though they really do the exact same thing.\n\nIn my best attempt to remain neutral in tone, it works like this:\n\nThe cable company has a vested interest in controlling how the TV signal is used after it reaches your home. Originally they did not have the ability to do this, because analog signals could essentially be routed anywhere once they arrived in your home. The cable company had no way of knowing what you did with that signal. If you hooked it up to a splitter and ran a line to your neighbor's house, your TV didn't report back to them and tattle on you or anything. You could hook up the whole block, and who would know?\n\nThe push for cable boxes and digital signals is essentially an effort to monitor and control the signal. When you just have a coax line running into your TV, the signal isn't encrypted, or *scrambled* to put it in ELI5 terms. You can hook up a VCR between the wall and your TV, and record any shows you want. Howevever, many cable companies are trying to eliminate this kind of setup by having you install a cable box. \n\nThe cable box allows them to send a scrambled signal to your house, that your TV alone can't understand. The box can decrypt, or unscramble, this signal, and then pass it to your TV. The utility of this, for the cable company, is that they have essentially replaced your TV's tuner. The cable box tunes the channels, so your TV is just a monitor. This adds a few security features, from the cable company's perspective. First, let's draw a mental diagram. 'P' is the cable provider. 'W' is the wall. 'C' is the cable box. 'T' is your television. The signal is represented by arrows.\n\nWithout a cable box, your setup looks like this (fig. 1): \nP- > W- > T.\n\nWith a cable box, your setup looks like this (fig. 2): \nP- > W- > C- > T. \n\nIn figure 1, you can connect multiple TVs to the wall. Each TV has a tuner in it that lets it select the channel. If you wanted to, you could amplify the signal and split it to as many TVs as you like, and each one could watch a different channel.\n\nIn figure 2, the cable box is between your TV and the wall. Your TV can't understand the signal without the cable box. If you were to split the signal from the wall and connect it to lots of TVs, all you'd get is static. Each TV needs a cable box to unscramble the signal. So, what stops you from splitting the signal on the other side of the cable box? Simple: the cable box is now the tuner. Your TV has to be tuned to Channel 3 to watch the box. Effectively, your TV no longer has any channels -- it's just a viewscreen. If you split the unscrambled signal coming from your cable box, each TV you connect will only be able to watch the one channel that it's sending out at a time. \n\nIn figure 1, you can put a VCR between the wall and the TV. The VCR has a splitter in it, and the VCR has its own tuner. Your VCR can record one channel, and your TV can watch another.\n\nIn figure 2, you cannot connect the VCR to the wall, as it will only have a scrambled signal. You can connect the VCR to your cable box, but it will only receive the one channel that your cable box is tuned to, so you cannot watch one show while recording another.\n\nA DVR is basically just A VCR built into the cable box, but being in that box means the cable company has control over how it's used. If you have a VCR, you can copy the tapes, distribute the tapes, etc. With a DVR, you can only access the recordings in the way that the cable company wants you to, by playing them back through the cable box. This stops you from recording *Friends* and *House* and then taking the tape over to your friend's house. If he wants to watch those shows, he has to get his own cable hookup and his own DVR. \n\nWhile this *does* fight illegal piracy, it also limits your ability to do legal things, like make recordings for personal use. The more they impose limits on how the signal can be used, the more leverage they have in trying to sell you something like a DVR. After all, why should I pay them $30/month for DVR service if my VCR works just fine? That's why they have an interest in taking away control of the signal and making my VCR *not* work fine. This is why all the big companies are pushing HDMI and digital content. They have much more control over those signals. \n\nTo round up the original question: you are the administrator of your PC. It's yours, you own it, you control the hardware and software and can do anything you like with them. Nobody else controls *your* computer. Take game systems as an example: you don't have a choice of operating systems on your PS4. You can't just download programs and drivers from anywhere, there's an officially sanctioned PlayStation Store and that's it. It's not really yours the way your PC is. Sony really controls a lot about the game system, the same way the cable company controls the cable box and the DVR. Media companies don't have control over the signal to your computer monitor, so they demonize that kind of recording. They can't control what you do with it: it's *your* signal. This is *great* from the consumers' point of view. It's only \"bad\" for the people who have a vested interest in controlling how you use the signal.",
"Legally speaking if you pay for the cable package that the show in question plays on, you can torrent it, record it, and use it for personal viewing. You cannot however distribute it or anything like that. So the guy seeding the torrent is technically in violation of the law, but you are not by downloading it. Merica for ya."
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5qa3h6 | what can the public to do force a vote of no confidence/impeachment for potus, that does not involve courting senate/house members | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qa3h6/eli5_what_can_the_public_to_do_force_a_vote_of_no/ | {
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"There is essentially nothing that can be done. In the US there is no such thing as a vote of no confidence. So the only way to remove him is impeachment.\n\nImpeachment is something done for \"High crimes and misdemeanors\". So Trump would have to do something illegal for him to be impeached. But even more than that impeachment is done by a hearing and a vote in the House and the Senate, both of which and controlled by Republicans. Republicans are not going to vote to impeach their own President.\n\nThe long and short is there is 0% chance Trump is removed from office in the first 2 years he is in office, and almost 0% chance for the last 2 years of his term. If you want rid of Trump you have to vote him out in 2020."
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8g1wsd | why do people kick each other in the balls so rarely during fights? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8g1wsd/eli5why_do_people_kick_each_other_in_the_balls_so/ | {
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"A.) People do, in fact, take those shots if they have them.\n\nB.) It's a more difficult target than you may think, if you want to have any momentum.\n\nC.) Men are aware of the vulnerability and broadly avoid giving their opponent a clean shot to the groin.\n\nD.) While painful, even a successful kick to the crotch is unlikely to be particularly debilitating, and may only anger an opponent without slowing him much. ",
"Many self-defense classes do encourage you to go after hits to the groin, throat, or eyes if an opportunity presents itself in order to get away. The problem is they can be difficult to hit reliably, as most are small targets.",
"I've been in a fist fight or two when I was in school, and I have no martial training. From that experience I can tell you that if you're pumped enough to actually want to hit someone, the only thing you'll want to do is pound their face into submission. You don't really concentrate much on tactics.",
" > But that doesn't apply to all fights? If you're actually fighting to win, like if you're being assaulted for real I see no reason not to kick your opponent in the balls, especially if you're a woman and that's your one natural advantage (and you don't have to appear manly).\n\nIf you've ever taken a self-defense class, this is one of the first things they teach you, and one of the things they focus on. There's no such things as rules or honor codes when your life is in danger. So they teach you the vulnerable spots - crotch, eyes, throat, solar plexus - and the best ways to hit them and run. The goal in that sort of fight is not to knock the other guy out - it's just to get the hell away, so the crotch is a very valid and useful place to aim. In sport fighting, where the goal is to show skill or technique over your opponent, it's discouraged because every fight would just be crotches and eyes. Nobody wants to watch that.\n\n\n\n",
"A point of contention: A woman getting struck in the womanly bits is definitely painful for them. The aim is just a bit different (you have to get fully under there rather than up near the front, though any hit to the pubic bone is going to smart as well)\n\nBut that aside; some people do, some people don't. I've been in a decent number of fights and have had people go for the ol' twig and berries before. And I've been in classes that have taught us to do that in self-defense situations: go for *every* vulnerable spot you can, including the gonads.",
"Despite what you might see on *America's Funniest Home Videos*, it is not an easy move to pull off. It is a small, hidden, fairly well-protected target, you put yourself off balance trying to kick, and you have to land it really well to debilitate rather than annoy.",
"Most fights people watch are entertainment and \"combat sports\". This means there are rules (many of which disqualify or penalize \"low-blows\") when victory is the intent. And if victory isn't the goal then not only do rules exist but also the fights will be scripted to be interesting, and low-blows are rarely interesting in their own right.\n\nIn actual fights, it's a double-edged sword. Kicking someone in the balls leaves you open. The target can grab your leg and reciprocate with a punch or a kick to YOUR balls. And if you instead punch them (because you are short enough to do so), they can grab and restrain you, allowing them to pummel you without consequence.\n\nThis, and the testicles are a small area that is rarely left open to attack (hence why people can retaliate against it so readily...it's naturally only partially opened which means it's partially protected). Inversely, the head is larger and the arms don't provide as much protection as the legs do (you can always potentially bypass an enemy's arms to hit an ear, chin, cheek, or whatever)...and the chest is the largest and most-direct target, thus being the main target normally as you are most-guaranteed a hit on the torso rather than the head or balls.\n\n-----\n\nUsing rough math, let's say that you have a 50% chance of hitting someone's torso. You have a 25% chance to hit someone's head, and a 10% chance to hit their balls.\n\nIf we say that someone punches at 1 point of damage normally, hitting the head doubles the damage to 2 points and hitting the balls does, let's say quadruples the damage. Personally, this makes sense as (from experience) taking a soccer ball to the balls is about 4-times as painful as taking it to the chest.\n\n---\n\nTen swings to the torso mean 5 points of damage: 5 punches hit dealing one damage each.\n\nTen swings to the head mean about 5 points of damage: 2 or 3 (the average is 2.5) of the punches hit, each punch dealing an effective 2 points of damage. The result is either 4 or 6 actual points of damage, averaging to 5 points of damage.\n\nTen swings to the balls means 4 damage. After all, only one swing will hit and it will do an effective 4 damage to the target.\n\nThis might not seem like a lot, but if we make it 20 swings instead then aiming solely for the balls will result in only 8 points of damage, while both torso and head specification will result in 10 points of damage. Obviously the better strategy is to thus aim for the head or chest instead of exclusively trying to get the \"not-so\" \"weak spot\" of the balls.\n\n-----\n\nAnd please note that the numbers are an abstraction. The calculations aren't exact. People don't do arbitrary 1's and 2's and 7's of damage, and there's no outright absolute 50% or 30% or 2% chance to hit some specific body part.\n\nBut when actually fighting someone, the principles and points discussed comprise the prevailing train of thought. You know it's gonna be hard to hit someone in the balls, and you know that even if you hit them there it might not be enough to stop them for long. You want to do something easier to hit, something like the head or chest, so that you are guaranteed to make progress and potentially take down your enemy before they take you down."
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3y3jha | why tim tebow is not playing in the nfl (especially this year with so many injured qbs)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y3jha/eli5_why_tim_tebow_is_not_playing_in_the_nfl/ | {
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"If Tim Tebow were good enough to be playing in the NFL, he would be. He certainly wants to. But its clear that no team feels he is up to task.\n\nAdditionally, for a QB, its very tough to just get put into and learn a new system quickly and effectively, especially moreso if you haven't been playing constantly.\n\nAll that said, there are plenty of QBs ready to go, currently playing or on practice squads probably much better than Tebow anyways.\n\nBeing a good college player doesn't always translate to the different style of game played in the NFL.",
"He is not good enough to play. The NFL teams are not blacklisting him for some arbitrary reason. He is not good enough. It really is that simple, no matter how hard his fans wish otherwise. ",
"I think he's gone about things the wrong way. He should be in the CFL or Arena right now (he's had legitimate offers from both), getting valuable experience and exposure rather than sitting behind a desk on College GameDay, where he'll probably live out the rest of his life rather than on the field where he belongs."
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52b3yw | why do people get pounding headaches after laying down for long periods of time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52b3yw/eli5_why_do_people_get_pounding_headaches_after/ | {
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"That can happen if you're laying in such a way that your neck is bent, or that the muscles in your back, neck, and/or shoulders are tense, or if it causes too much of a change in blood pressure either while you're laying down or once you get back up. ",
"This is not a normal healthy response. Most people can lie down for a long time and not get a pounding headache. \n\nIf you are experiencing this personally, ask in /r/askdocs or another wellness subreddit rather than ELI5."
]
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[],
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||
3i0h4n | why are immigrants from the middle east and africa so difficult to integrate into a western society while immigrants from asia (china, vietnam etc.) seem to be far easier to integrate? | Please don't come with any racist comments, I am just curious as it seems like a lot of Europeans are against immigrants from Syria and Eritrea | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i0h4n/eli5_why_are_immigrants_from_the_middle_east_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuc7chs"
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"text": [
"Your question itself demonstrates insight into some possible \"answers\". \n\nFor one look at the first part of your sentence. You use the word \"are\" in reference to Middle Easterners whereas you use the word \"seem\" in the second part of your question when referring to Asians. May this suggest your own preconceived notions tainting your ability to explore answers objectively? Rather than ask \"do immigrants from __,\" you ask \"why,\" hence asking for only a confirmation of your biases. May this suggest further lack of objectivity?\n\nSecond, you reference specific countries when referring to Asia but don't do the same for the entire continent of Africa. Then, you presume all of China is the same while it's larger than all of the Middle East. Perhaps this suggests an inability for some of us to see differences between Nigerians and Egyptians. Or South Africans to Vietnamese? Note how Indians/Pakistanis in Houston are significantly different than Indians/Pakistanis in Houston. So is the issue of integration understood through national lines or socio-economic ones?\n\nThen in your opportunity to expand on your question, you group Europeans together as if attitudes in London are similar to Slovenia. \n\nFinally, you use the word \"integrate\" without giving specific examples. To discuss the merits of integration and whether it happens, you should explain what you mean. I'd say that most immigrants have integrated well into a capitalist economy. Moreover, they've contributed to cultural evolution like in food (chicken tikka masala?) in Britain? Perhaps you mean in terms of clothing? Or values of modesty? Feminism? Religious tolerance? \n\nAsking questions for answers is easy. But asking questions to ask more astute ones--now that's powerful. There are no answers, especially ELI5 ones for most social-cultural ones. \n\n\n\n"
]
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[]
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|
55cvfo | how is the internet physical network set up | I'm sorry if this has been asked already, I've only found so far questions about how its software part is handled.
I'm asking more about how the optic fiber and the wiring. I'm aware local companies are managing the network in a country. But when it comes to the international territory, it's more complicated.
Is there an authority that manages the global effort?
If some company specializes in the world' s wiring, how does it get remunerated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55cvfo/eli5_how_is_the_internet_physical_network_set_up/ | {
"a_id": [
"d89h2nq"
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"text": [
"All the Internet companies have areas where their cables connect. The world is filled with submarine cables, tube containing fiber optic cables that run along the ocean floor. [Here is an interactive map](_URL_0_), as you can see, they are jointly owned, Google, AT & T, etc. are just some American companies that co-own specific cables. For how they lay these cables, [here is an animated gif](_URL_1_)."
]
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"http://www.submarinecablemap.com/",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Undersea_cable_laying.gif"
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39bep4 | the difference between cpu sockets besides the structure of their pins. | Many high end CPUs have different sockets, what is the difference between these? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39bep4/eli5_the_difference_between_cpu_sockets_besides/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"I think it's because different cpu-s require different chipsets to work(sadly you can't choose chipset, you have to buy it with motherboard). note: might be wrong, haven't checked it"
]
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[]
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39g2yb | where the terms 'port' and 'starboard' originated. | I understand designating parts of the ship 'port' and 'starboard' saves you from having the "my left or your left?" confusion but where did the terms actually originate?
And; I assume port, as in where you can dock a ship, was already a term so why was it used again? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39g2yb/eli5_where_the_terms_port_and_starboard_originated/ | {
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"The common origin story is related to of all things, the rudder.\n\nRudders are a relatively recent development of being placed on the centerline. Previously you needed an oar or something on one side to steer.\n\nSo Starboard is an evolution of the side being called the steer board side. While port was indeed then the side you docked on because it wasn't helpful to have the steering oar pinned against a pier. ",
"Starboard comes from the old english word 'steorbord,' which is derived from old germanic terms referring to the side of the ship that the steering was controlled from (in old germanic boats, steering on the right-hand side of the ship).\n\nThe predecessor term to 'port' when referring to a ship was 'larboard.' Its roots aren't certain, though its old english form of 'laddeboard' is thought to be derived from latin 'laden', meaning 'to load' as the left hand side of the ship was the side that was docked when the ship was in port. Before larboard, there was the term 'bæcboard' which literally meant 'back-board.'\n\nAnyways, 'port' replaced larboard in order to avoid confusion. If you hadn't picked up on it, 'port' was used because that was the side of the ship that faced the port when you were docked. This was made official in the US Navy around 1846."
]
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481l48 | why are seeds so much more expensive than baby plants | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/481l48/eli5_why_are_seeds_so_much_more_expensive_than/ | {
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"text": [
"I've never noticed that they were, especially since packs of seeds usually contain 50+ seeds, while seedlings/baby seeds are sold as individuals.\n\nWhere have you seen/purchased seeds that were more expensive than plants?"
]
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[]
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||
4qebzv | is the wage gap real and why is there so much disagreement about it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qebzv/eli5_is_the_wage_gap_real_and_why_is_there_so/ | {
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"I'll assume you're talking about the gender wage gap. In absolute terms, it's definitely 'real' - men make more money than women on average.\n\nHowever, the reason women make less money is due to their life choices: they pursue lower-paying careers and they invest less time in those careers. Moreover, the nature of heterosexual mating patterns - where women strongly value their partner's income but men do not - indicates that this gap is the product of intrinsic human nature.\n\nThe disagreement is largely a result of partisanship trumping facts. If you're strongly invested in an idea, evidence contrary to that idea tends to be discarded. Even worse, if a significant number of people are strongly invested in a certain idea - even if that idea is factually incorrect - it becomes useful for public figures to cater to the falsehood to gain the support of those people.",
"Yes, the gender pay gap is real, but it is more complicated than either side usually makes it out to be. [Here](_URL_0_) is a well made, well sourced video breaking down the claims with data to see how much of it is attributable to various sources, ranging from life choices to sexism.",
"It's real in the sense that the average woman earns far less income than the average man each year.\n\nIt's not real in the sense that most of the wage gap can be accounted for when you take into consideration (and match men and women on factors such as) education, qualifications, skill sets, work experience, number of hours worked per week, industry/trade, etc.\n\nSo, on average, women more often choose to complete (lower value) arts degrees whereas men more often choose to complete (higher value) STEM degrees. The job opportunities and earning potential for the average woman is already more limited as a result.\n\nAlso women are also much less likely than men to complete apprenticeships or other training/education programs to develop technical skills and earn trade qualifications that may lead to higher paying jobs.\n\nFurthermore, women (on average) tend to work less paid hours than men, and also less days per year. Women are also more likely to take extended time off work for maternity leave and raising kids.\n\nAdditionally women are significantly less likely than men to apply for job positions that involve danger and risk (which are usually the positions that receive higher pay).\n\nIn the end though, there is still a small wage gap that is unaccounted for even after matching all these factors. It's estimated to be around a 1-7% difference in pay depending on who you listen to. The theory behind this 'real' wage gap is that men are more likely to ask for and negotiate pay raises whereas women feel less comfortable doing so.\n",
"Factually I don't disagree with the answers already given, but they all seem to assume that women are making these different life \"choices\" for reasons that have nothing to do with institutional sexism, and that's hard to credit. For instance, there's the claim that men \"tend\" to pursue STEM while women don't. But there's research that women in STEM are just as successful academically as men. Moreover, preadolescent girls are as likely to be interested in STEM as boys and as good (or better, in some research) at math above grade level. Then around middle school the number of girls interested in pursuing technical study drops way down within just a period of a couple years. We don't know precisely why, but it sure seems like girls are getting messages somewhere that this is a boys' field or that it's geeky to be interested in it.\n\nThe poster also mentions that women don't tend to take on work in the skilled trades, but might that be because sexual harassment is prevalent? Or because women are socialized to not as my for or demand opportunities but to wait to be asked?\n\nFinally, parenting. We just assume it's \"natural\" that the mother in a couple with a new baby will be the primary caregiver. But that doesn't have to be the case. Most women do not have to take extended absences while pregnant, and after a natural childbirth most women could return physically to most jobs within a week or less. (C-sections require more recovery, but it's not *that* long.) Women usually take much more time away from work than their partners. But there's no physical reason it has to be that way. \n\nThe thing about these \"sophisticated\" pay gap analyses that make them, in my view, fundamentally flawed is that they identify some of the *factors* that lead women to make less money over the course of their careers. And tgats where the analysis tends to end. But these factors are the ways in which institutionalized sexism *operates*. It's not for no reason that we have a work system that just happened to be designed exclusively for the convenience of men. "
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489eb6 | out of all online games, why are mobas (lol/dota/smite) have the least trouble with hackers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/489eb6/eli5_out_of_all_online_games_why_are_mobas/ | {
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"At least partially, all the data people get is sent to you from the server. This is standard to prevent people from using programs to \"find\" the data that is required. Essentially, what you see is all your computer is allowed to see. The positions of everyone else are not sent to you unless you can see them. This is calculated on the servers, not by your computer. This means there's nothing for hackers to mess with, because all you see are your own data points. Messing with this is much more difficult, and very easy to catch. \n\nWhile they could alter their own files to do it, they can't alter files on a far server without special permissions. Which they don't have. Essentially, a hacker can't say \"I want 1000k hp. And to see everyone\" The server ignores that command, as they don't have the authority to say it. \n\nImagine playing Battleship with someone watching over your shoulder. They don't accept bribes. You can't say miss, they can't say miss, without each action verified. It's going to take a lot, and be a complicated mess to cheat. You can't find your opponents ships unless you're allowed to by the game. You can't say they missed unless they did. You can't say your ship is smaller than it is. \n\nIn the actual games, usually the best you can do is \"scripting\". This means a computer program is running to perform your actions with split-second timing and calculations. Such as : \"When an enemy steps on my explosive traps, detonate exactly enough to kill them, taking their health, armor, and other resistances into account\". Or activating other abilities at pixel perfect ranges. These are harder to detect, as it's not actually modifying the game itself, but running as a standalone program. They're usually caught through a much closer analysis of \"Hey, this guy selected exactly 6 explosives in this 18 cluster of explosives , which killed the guy with a margin of 8 hp, all in .002 seconds! Multiple times!\" ... It's usually not too hard to tell, if you get the input data from the servers. But there's hundreds of thousands of games to look through, and automated bans get people grumbly when they actually are just good.",
"MOBAs are \"server-side\", meaning everything you do has to be greenlit by the server before you actually can do it. \n\n\nThe server knows how much gold your character has, how much agility points or whatnot, how much said agility will increase by if you buy item X. Where you're moving, how fast, what you can see or not see. Etc.\n\n\nIn contrast, client-side games stores this information on each client. So if I hack my client to say that I have unlimited health, that's the truth. Other players can still do damage to me, but my client will never surrender or tell me I'm dead.\n\n\n\nBut even if a game is \"server-side\", some cheats can still be used. I can for example mod the skins on my client to give every opponent a pixel of a certain color right between the eyes. And I can set my client to automatically aim for this colored pixel whenever it pops up on my screen. The server can't do much about this, but it wouldn't give me an advantage in Dota either. In CS/BF/CoD however.."
]
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6h9v5e | why do some people say usa and others say america? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6h9v5e/eli5_why_do_some_people_say_usa_and_others_say/ | {
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"text": [
"Because both are commonly accepted ways of referring to the United States of America, which is also something you can call it. Neither response typically causes confusion, and so it is a matter of personal taste and social learning."
]
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[]
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||
3ov9wh | the negative conspiracy behind chemtrails and cloud seeding (weather manipulation). | California resident here, in the past few years I have overheard several conversations regarding government manipulation of our weather. I always wrote it off as crazy talk, but I just heard it again for the fourth time. What are they on about? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ov9wh/eli5_the_negative_conspiracy_behind_chemtrails/ | {
"a_id": [
"cw0q747"
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"score": [
9
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"text": [
"You may be mixing a couple concepts up here.\n\nChemtrails are not 'weather manipulation'. They're what nuts think is the trail of brain-affecting chemicals that are sprayed out of passenger aircraft so the government can keep us mind-controlled, dumb and happy or stuff. \n\nCloud seeding is weather manipulation. But that's to help it rain or clear away overcast skies. They spray silver iodide or other chemicals into the clouds, those chemicals help the cloud condense into droplets that fall as rain.\n\n**TL;DR**: *You live in* **California** *for crying out loud. Stop listening to people!*"
]
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|
636338 | why does zodiac astrology work or not work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/636338/eli5_why_does_zodiac_astrology_work_or_not_work/ | {
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"Well there's no real answer to why it doesn't work, if it doesn't work it's because it doesn't work. The onus is on people who believe it works to say why, and importantly to prove it. But so far despite some considerably research, albeit it mainly in the early 20th century, with little modern research, it's still doesn't really hold up. ",
"watch James randi and decide for yourself \n\n_URL_0_\n",
"Because there is no scientific or medical theory that says everyone who is born the same time of the year over different years will display the same characteristics or have similar experiences. No theory even comes close to explaining why that would happen.",
"In Portugal last year, there was a stunning proof of astrology. In a series of freak accidents, several people were killed by donkey wagons in various parts of the country, all on the same morning. Investigators discovered that all of the victims had been born in the early afternoon of September 31, 1982.",
"Astrology works from time to time due to the prediction being so general in scope that it ends up being true for most people. For example, I am a Pisces, which means I'm inherently a logical and curious person by nature. However, the same number of people in all other astrological signs are equally curious and logical. You can test this yourself. \n\n* 1) Take an astrological prediction from a magazine or a newspaper\n* 2) Cover over the astrological signs so they can't be seen\n* 3) Have your friends and family pick a random prediction from the list of 12\n* 4) After they read the prediction ask them if they felt the prediction related to them or not (record these answers)\n\nAfterwards, look at the answers people gave. You'll likely find that most people said the prediction related to them, however they were reading from a sign at random, not specifically their sign.\n\nAstrology also **doesn't** work and is harmful for the same reasons above. Let's say someone reads this prediction and they also happen to have a serious, deadly condition. In these predictions there are often some which are health-related. These could direct that person away from handling their condition in a way that will harm the person more than help. Many lawsuits in the past have been due to this exact thing and have forced lawmakers in the US to enact laws stating that these predictions need to be labeled as \"for entertainment only\"."
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90c2qi | why do huskies "talk"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/90c2qi/eli5_why_do_huskies_talk/ | {
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"They are team players, or pack hunters to be a little more specific. You are clearly the pack leader, as you're the one that uses the strange magical machine to open the cans of dog food and then gives them all of it. That's super generous, as pack leaders usually eat the best stuff themselves to make the point that they are top dog.\n\nWhen you are around the other non-huskies in the pack, you seem to spend a lot of time doing this weird \"talking\" behavior. It's non-sense, so far, but maybe with more practice the husky thinks he can figure it out. So, they try stuff. So far it hasn't worked, but \"anything worth doing is worth doing 110%\" is the huskie breed motto."
]
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[]
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||
1tp1ov | why does my butthole clench when something startles me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tp1ov/why_does_my_butthole_clench_when_something/ | {
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"Being startled stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the 'fight or flight' response. It does *many* things, such as release adrenaline, increase your heart rate and slow digestion. The point of all this is to make your body ready for extremely dangerous time sensitive situations. Contraction of the anal sphincters (clenching your butthole) is part of the response because, well can you imagine releasing your bowels during a lion attack? It seems slightly comical, but relaxing the sphincter could be life-threating in the situations the response is intended for, not to mention distracting.\n\n(Edit) Tl;dr: shitting whilst running from or fighting something dangerous is bad.\n\nSource: student paramedic",
"So you don't get the shit scared out of you.",
"Sympathetic nervous system stimulation. Norepinephrine and epinephrine have different functions in the body. NE in general is a smooth muscle contractor. It squeezes the smooth muscle blood vessels as well as in the sphinters as to not defacate during times of extreme stress as this well lower chances of survival. In contrast, deer when experiencing stress will do the opposite of clench. They open wide and blast out poop so they can make a fast get away.",
"Militarily referred to as the pucker factor. The greater the pucker factor, the crazier the situation is. ",
"In line with this question, why does my butthole clench when I see gross stuff (i.e. : the rusty nail going through the thumb and thumbnail in the movie that kills people in The Ring)?",
"to keep your shit together"
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1kly7y | how do north koreans leave their country? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kly7y/eli5how_do_north_koreans_leave_their_country/ | {
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"The show Vice did a documentary following a North Korean refugee who wanted to escape North Korea. The first step was illegally crossing the border into China and meeting with someone who specializes in getting North Koreans out (kind of like a *coyote* who specializes in smuggling Mexicans into the U.S.). These men were paid by a South Korean preacher who devotes his time to getting people out of North Korea. Next, the defectors took a several-hour-long journey across China into Laos. They are still not quite safe because the communist government of Laos does not recognize the refugee status of North Koreans and so would deport them back to their native country. After hiding out for the day, at night the defector and her party crossed the Mekong river into Thailand, which does recognize North Korean defectors as refugees and allows them safe passage to South Korea. Once in South Korea, the defectors go to a processing center that the SK government has established to teach defectors the basic skills needed to live in modern society. The documentary mentioned that for young North Korean women, the journey has an added risk of the Chinese middlemen selling them into sexual slavery."
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5lhovu | what causes your nasal cavity to sometimes "burn" when there is liquid entering it, but other times it isn't painful? | I thought it had to do with the salinity of the liquid (hence why saline solutions work to clear your nasal passages) but I recently got that burning feeling from my own mucus. I had a very runny nose and while trying to blow it I got that burning feeling associated with getting water up your nose. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lhovu/eli5_what_causes_your_nasal_cavity_to_sometimes/ | {
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"You are very much correct. Fresh water will burn, but an isotonic saline solution that's close to your blood plasma will soak in and rinse through quite comfortably. \n\nThe burn from runny nose mucus was probably concentrated enough to be TOO salty, which hurts just as much. Or else your mucous membranes were inflamed, which makes them very tender, so it might have been strictly physical irritation.\n\nI personally prefer a Neti pot over a squirt-bottle, with a pinch of baking soda in the salt mix. One thing to remember with this is that it's not directly sluicing up into your sinuses. It's hydrating your nostrils, and creating a mild vacuum to gently suck the snot out. But it's also less of a feeling of \"OH MY GOD I JUST STABBED MYSELF IN THE BACK OF MY EYES WITH A WATER JET.\" Your mileage may vary."
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5p9tey | calculating pi | How did they find the infinite series of pi like pi=4-4/3+4/5-4/7+4/9...? Because, we can't just divide circumference by diameter since we never know the proper value of pi. And how did they find the "proper", true value of pi, i.e. the infinite series? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5p9tey/eli5_calculating_pi/ | {
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"Picture a circle of diameter 1\n\nNow draw a square around the outside of the circle. This will result in a sq with side length = 1 and a perimeter of 4. Now draw a sq inside the circle that touches the circle at 4 points. Now calculate the perimeter of this square (2.8). You now know that the perimeter of your circle with diameter 1 lies somewhere between 2.8 and 4. \n\nRepeat the above steps with an octagon and your potential range becomes smaller...keep doing this with shapes as n number of sides approaches infinite and you converge on pi as the perimeter of the circle"
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3v6b4q | what is the 'scientific purpose' behind japan's resumed whaling operations? | Or is 'scientific purpose' as far as they have gone in explaining it?
inb4 whale sandwich experiment jokes | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v6b4q/eli5_what_is_the_scientific_purpose_behind_japans/ | {
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"They sell the whale meat and make money off of it.\n\nthe \"science\" is complete bunk and changes constantly but it's usually about studying whale biology, growth etc. Most of the reasons they give for studying whales are studies that are already being conducted by other scientists in other countries who are doing so without harming any whales.\n\nThey have to say \"science\" because it's the legal loop hole they were allowed but it couldn't be a more flimsy excuse. There is 0 evidence they've actually produced any kind of scientific discover through their hunting."
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ejaj7r | all cells in a living organisms share the same dna but develop into different types of cells. what mechanism tells these cells which type of cell to become? how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ejaj7r/eli5_all_cells_in_a_living_organisms_share_the/ | {
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"It all goes back to when you were conceived. The fertilized egg begins to divide. The cells start out undifferentiated, they could turn into anything. Then as the cells work through the genetic instructions they start designating certain cells for performing certain functions, making them \"differentiated\". Once differentiated those cells basically turn off all the parts of their DNA that doesnt work towards fulfilling their new role. So a muscle cell and a nerve cell may have a copy of the same instruction manual but each is working from different chapters.\n\nAs an adult a stem cell divides creating a new undifferentiated cell. That cell then responds to signals being sent out from surrounding cells. Skin for example. It is made of many layers of skin cells which are being produced on the bottom layer,then gradually get pushed up by newer cells and eventually reach the surface, die and flake off.\n\nThe stem cell is like your mom or dad, and they just made you and they tell you \"you can be anything you want\" and then the other skin cells are life and they say \"no you're going to be a skin cell\", so you become a skin cell.",
"You and your friends are working to assemble a lego village, with each person building their own structure\n\nDNA is the manual that you all use, which contains the blueprint for every single building. Naturally, you (the cell) would only use a few pages of the manual while your friends use other pages.\n\nAt the start of the project, you and your friends communicate to determine who is building what. Cells can do a similar thing during development to tell its neighbouring cells what to be (what pages to use) - this starts as early as when you are only comprised of 8-cellsl",
"This is a huge topic and a lot of is is still unknown.\n\nI don't think I'm able to explain this for a 5 year old but I'll try to make it as simple as possible.\n\nA fertilized cell (egg+sperm) is called a zygote. This cell is called \"totipotent\", which means it can develop into any other cell type including tissues surrounding the embryo. The zygote starts dividing and becomes pluripotent, which means it can form all cell types of the body but not the extraembryonal tissues. Different stem cells are then dividing and differentiating into different tissues, e.g. there will be stem cells than can build the skin or stem cells forming different organs. At some point, a cell is fully differentiated (e.g. the cells on the outermost layer of your skin) and cannot divide anymore.\n\nAs for how this all works:\n\nOn DNA level, there are different mechanisms to switch genes on and off. This is called \"gene expression\".\n\nDNA can be packaged to make it inaccessible and thereby switch genes \"off\". Also, DNA can be chemically marked for activation or inactivation. Some of these marks can be copied to daughter cells when a cell divides which explains how cells can keep their identity when they divide. This is called epigenetics.\n\nAlso there's proteins present in a cell called \"transcription factors\". These go to target genes and switch them on. When a cell divides, the two daughter cells can inherit the proteins of their progenitor. However there is also asymmetric cell division. Some proteins build a gradient within a cell, so when the cell divides, one offspring can stay a stem cell and the other one can differentiate into a more specialised cell type.\n\nIn 2012, Shinya Yamanaka was awarded a Nobel prize for generating inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPS). The trick he used was to introduce a combination of transcription factors into a differentiated cell. These transcription factors then reverted the cell back to the pluripotent state by resetting the epigenetic state of the cell. This means the profile of genes that were switched on and off in the iPS cell was comparable to a stem cell.\n\n**TL;DR: A cell divides, stuff in the dividing cell it distributed between the two daughter cells. For stem cells, one daughter cell gets different stuff than the other making one stem cell and one skin/brain/liver/whatever cell. \"Stuff\" in this context means proteins and chemicals floating around in the cell or sitting directly on DNA. There's still lots we don't know about this.**",
"This music video does a surprisingly good job explaining the concept behind the differentiations: _URL_0_"
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2rzyz1 | is it possible to 'put out' a volcano by pouring the necessary amount of water? if so, what would the effects be? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rzyz1/eli5_is_it_possible_to_put_out_a_volcano_by/ | {
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"I think it is safe to say no, as there are active volcanos at the bottom of the ocean. If that isn't enough water to cool one down, what is?",
"I'd imagine if you could pour enough water to cool it down and harden the lava it would just break through again. Volcanoes are like vents that release pressure underneath. This is pressure that is already strong enough to push through the earth's crust in the first place.\n\nImagine you have a pipe and you crimp one end shut then try to run water through it. At first no water comes through so you increase the pressure. Eventually the water forces the crimp open and comes out, relieving the pressure a bit. You crimp the pipe closed again, pressure builds again, and the water comes out again. I think this is like what would happen if you could actually 'put out' a volcano.",
"You could of course cool down the top of a volcano, but the problem here isn't heat but pressure. There is a magma bubble with enough pressure to let the volcano become active and it will only go dormant again when the pressure has fallen enough. If you cool down the top of an active volcano you are essentially putting a cork in it. If the pressure is still high enough, this cork will be blown off, if not, you have successfully inactivated a volcano.\n\nWhat will happen in any case? Lots of steam and thus clouds that can have effects on the global weather."
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742ehd | why do some people with depression lose their appetite and not eat much, while others eat more than usual? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/742ehd/eli5_why_do_some_people_with_depression_lose/ | {
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"Depression causes you to feel sad or numb. Eating can give you a feeling of being \"happy\", but it's very short lived. We have a term for it - \"comfort food\". So people eat more, and generally unhealthy food.\n\nOr, depression can make you uninterested in normal activities, like eating. It just takes too much effort to make a meal and consume it.\n\nI've experienced both.",
"Depression is a really complicated disease. Currently, the prevailing theory for why it occurs is reduced serotonin signaling in your brain. Serotonin signaling is related to mood, but it is also related to things like movement, digestion and appetite, sleep, motivation, memory, and probably a bunch of other stuff as well. A reduction in serotonin signaling can affect any and all of these, and which ones it affects depends on both the magnitude and location in your brain of the reduction.\n\nThe reason why it can swing either way is really just because our brains are complicated. In some places serotonin signaling can increase a drive (like appetite) and in other areas it can act to decrease that same drive. It's also true that many other types of signaling also affect drives like appetite, and those can also be out of wack. It all really depends on the person and on the brain.",
"Serotonin is probably relation to depression in some way,* and most of the serotonin in your body is in your stomach! Your enteric nervous system, which basically runs the length of your digestive system, is your second brain. It's responsible for a lot of things, including all of the movements that push food through the digestive system. When you feel really upset, your stomach can feel unsettled because it really is moving strangely. If you interpret that feeling as 'sick,' you won't have a lot of drive to put more food in there. If you interpret that feeling as 'hunger,' you'll want to put more food in there.\n\nIn all likelihood, the explanation is more complicated than that. There is a lot of emerging research around the role of the gut biome in mental illnesses. Depression itself generally makes it hard for people to care for themselves, and things like grocery shopping, preparing meals, eating, cleaning up, etc. can be overwhelming. There are all sorts of disordered eating habits that might come into play, like relying on food for self-soothing/comfort. Depression can be a pit of apathy, so people may not care enough to eat or may not care enough about themselves to eat well. There is probably a little of everything involved.\n\n*It's already in this post. The depression-serotonin link is more correlation that causation at this point. There is a bunch of newer research that suggests lower serotonin may be a result of depression, not the cause of depression.",
"It involves serotonin and serotonin receptors. 90% of your serotonin is in your gut. Many of the serotonin receptors effect hunger and nausea such as 5-HT3. ",
"I'll chime in anecdotally as a depressed person who overeats. My eating has ZERO to do with my appetite or the way my stomach feels. It is completely divorced from drives relating to hunger and nutrition. The only reason I might pay attention to the way my body feels about eating is waiting until I feel only full (as opposed to nauseatingly stuffed) before eating again. The motivation to eat is entirely based on the pleasure I get from eating, which seems to be the only thing that gives me pleasure. I know I would be happier if I lost weight, but I would have so much less pleasure in my life.",
"Psychotherapist here. It's very similar to why some people develop binge eating disorder and some develop anorexia; the underlying cause is similar but the coping skill is different. The unconscious can either want to bury feelings with food or starve them out in an effort to avoid them.",
"There are several sub-types of depression. Eating more often goes along with atypical depression. Eating less often goes along with melancholic depression. \n\nThe same goes for sleep, as well. Some people sleep more, some people struggle with insomnia. ",
"It can't be ELI5 because even the experts don't know. There are a ton of contradictory symptoms under the umbrella term \"depression\". Symptoms can change dramatically with different depressive episodes with the same individual, too. There are so many metrics involved that it becomes too complicated to account for all the factors. It is also difficult to study ethically.\n\nI wrote an undergrad paper on these problems that I'm quite proud of to this day. It was something pretentious like \"The viability of the diathesis-stress model for affective disorders: a meta-analysis\", but damned if it wasn't actually good.\n\nEdit: The title was \"The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the viability of the diathesis-stress model of depression\" for a neuroscience course",
"I have depression, anxiety, and IBS, and they are related. When I have episodes of depression and anxiety, the extra sensitive nerves in my stomach flair up. I often get nausea and diarrhea when I am under stress and it makes me not want to eat. I believe that this is why I am only 100 lbs. It seems to be genetic because my mother has the same issues. She quit her job and went from about 125 lbs to about 110. ",
"Not attempting an ELI5, but sharing what I learnt from \"*Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers*\" by Robert Sapolsky. Though the explanation is about sustained stressors (physical or psychological), I believe that medical depression is a ceaseless psychological stressor (based on literature and second-hand experiences with family and friends) and hence, could help shed some light.\n \nFirst, some terminology - People who eat more during stress are called '*Hyperphagic*' while those whose appetite goes for a toss are termed '*Hypophagic*'. \n\n**Claim?**\nDepression can take on a rhythmic nature (less in morning, grows with the day, or reverse). So, the degree of depression varies with time. How often and for how long the coping mechanisms are engaged in the body depends on this. This makes timing critical. If it is a very long bout - it is most likely going to suppress appetite. If it fluctuates rather rapidly, it is more likely to cause people to gorge on food. This might be the case when the person is somehow able to distract himself on to a task that demands concentration. For that while, the body kind of temporarily forgets about the depression and tries to restore the vegetative state. As soon as the task is over, the mind gets back into its low depressive gear and up goes the coping mechanism. The problem is, turning the coping mechanism on is fast, but bringing it back to normal is slow. \n\n**The Why?**\nHormones released during onset of stressor (CRH) tend to inhibit appetite. The other hormones that are released as a result of these hormones (like Glucocorticoids) tend to stimulate appetite. During the onset, the suppressors outweigh the effect of stimulators. While we are in the middle of it, there is a tussle between the two as both are present in rather large quantities. Depending on which hormone outweighs the other tends to determine if we'll end up hungry or will lose appetite. During the end, recovery of body starts, so it tries to get more energy to do repairs and construction. Thus, inhibitors are removed from circulation in the body, leading to increased appetite.\n\nOf course, this isn't completely accurate as there are many variables that determine the outcome. But it is a decent generalization. To quote Sapolsky \"The type of stressor is key to whether the net result is hyper- or hypophagia. Take some crazed, maze-running rat of a human. He sleeps through the alarm clock first thing in the morning, total panic. Calms down when it looks like the commute isn't so bad today, maybe he won't be late for work after all. Gets panicked all over again when the commute then turns awful. Calms down at work when it looks like the boss is away for the day and she didn't notice he was late. Panics all over again when it becomes clear the boss is there and did notice. So it goes throughout the day. And how would that person describe his life? 'I am like, SO stressed, like totally, nonstop stressed, 24/7.' But that's not like totally nonstop stressed. Take a whole body burn. *That's* like totally nonstop stressed, 24/7. What this first person is actually experiencing is frequent *intermittent stressors.*\" And what's going on hormonally in that scenario? Frequent bursts of CRH release throughout the day. As a result of the slow speed at which glucocorticoids are cleared from the circulation, elevated glucocorticoid levels are close to nonstop. Guess who's going to be scarfing up Krispy Kremes all day at work?\n\nSo a big reason why most of us become hyperphagic during stress is our westernized human capacity to have intermittent psychological stressors throughout the day.\n\nAnother variable that helps predict hyperphagia or hypophagia during stress is how your body responds to a particular stressor.\" The roots of this may lie in reasons well before you were even conceived. So, that's a long story. \n\nAlso, hyperphagics don't just eat more but crave a particular type of food - sweets (comfort foods). Glucocorticoids not only stimulate appetite, but appetite of a certain type of food, and also where it is to be stored - abdominal fat. Why? \"...based on some fascinating recent work by Mary Dallman from the University of California at San Francisco: consuming lots of those comfort foods and bulking up on abdominal fat are stress-reducers.\"\n\n\n[Endocrinological changes in hormones during a stressor]:\n\n[1] Why Zebras don't get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky\n\n[Rhythmic nature of Depression]: \n\n[2] The Depths – The Evolutionary origins of the depression epidemic by Jonathan Rottenberg\n[3] Darkness Visible by William Styron",
"Jury is still out on this. There's 2 schools of thought. One is a anhedonia which is a diminished sense of reward from rewarding or satiating things. So where a non depressed individual might be satisfied with two cookies, a depressed individual with anhedonia may require 8 cookies to get the same feeling of relative satisfaction., thus more of the cookie is eaten.\n\nThe other school of thought is that with depression, there is a loss of motivation for initiating the rewarding or satisfying behavior. In behavioral science there is evidence for both mechanisms. I do sucrose preference on social defeat stress model of mice to see if depressed mice drink more sucrose water vs plain water or vice versa, and results are quite variable. ",
"Jury is still out on this. There's 2 schools of thought. One is a anhedonia which is a diminished sense of reward from rewarding or satiating things. So where a non depressed individual might be satisfied with two cookies, a depressed individual with anhedonia may require 8 cookies to get the same feeling of relative satisfaction., thus more of the cookie is eaten.\n\nThe other school of thought is that with depression, there is a loss of motivation for initiating the rewarding or satisfying behavior. In behavioral science there is evidence for both mechanisms. I do sucrose preference on social defeat stress model of mice to see if depressed mice drink more sucrose water vs plain water or vice versa, and results are quite variable. "
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8ar9vo | why bananas bruise 🍌 | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ar9vo/eli5_why_bananas_bruise/ | {
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"Fruits bruise because the peel/skin acts like a protective barrier to keep oxygen away from the part you eat to keep it fresher longer.\n\nWhen you drop (or punch) the fruit, the cells in the peel/skin break down in that area and can’t keep the oxygen away as well, so oxidization occurs (the fruit chemically reacts with the air) and that area changes colour.\n\nAn example of this is when you cut an apple and it turns brown and a little squishy/slimy after a while, that’s because the outer part that’s touching the air has been oxidized.\n\nRipe bananas bruise more easily because the peel gets thinner as they ripen, so it gets harder to prevent cell damage.\n\nIn humans, when we are hurt we bruise because there’s blood trapped under the skin. So it’s not the same as when bananas bruise but it’s acts the same (get hit — > change colour) so they just called it “bruising”."
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33d45h | why do windshield wipers go from right to left. is there an advantage or engineering reason? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33d45h/eli5_why_do_windshield_wipers_go_from_right_to/ | {
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"If the wiper arc was the other way then the driver's side would have the large unwiped section of the windshield that the passenger side has.\n\nIn right hand drive countries, it's the opposite way.",
"Not all do. Older cars and trucks had them where the both whispers started in the center and traveled in an arc to the outside of the windscreen.\nBut as time has gone on windscreens have gotten more angled to be more aero dynamic, that change made the wipers bigger to the point where to advoid interference the wipers had to move in the same direction. You also want the greatest visablity on the side with the diver so that's why in left hand drive countries the whipers go right to left and vise versa in wrong hand drive counties. "
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c2sgm5 | how do electric fences shock things if they are only touching one end of the wire, not allowing it to complete the circuit. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c2sgm5/eli5_how_do_electric_fences_shock_things_if_they/ | {
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"Electricity likes to flow to earth ground via the path of least resistance. The wires on electric fences are not insulated. When built, the electrical resistance of air is greater than simply continuing along the wire. When an object that also has contact with the ground touches an electric fence, the object is now the path of least resistance to earth ground, so the electricity flows through the contacting object to the ground.",
"So, in theory, if I was to jump in the air and touch the wire briefly while airborne, i wouldn't get a shock, right?",
"Everyone here is pointing out the type of fence where one end is grounded (wire literally placed into the dirt with a metal stake) and the other is the fence. This isnt practical for miles of fence. In those instances they use 2 thin bare wires woven around an insulator. So the animal touches both at the same time and it doesn't feel too good."
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x89zi | what are ketone bodies? are they good for the brain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/x89zi/eli5_what_are_ketone_bodies_are_they_good_for_the/ | {
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"Fats and sugars are broken down to a 2 carbon molecule called acetyl coa, which can enter a process in the mitochondria called the Kreb Cycle. This process releases energy trapped in the acetyl coa. \nWhen you are low on sugar, the body must start using fats for energy and the brain switches to using ketone bodies (it can not break down fats). These are made in the liver which breaks down the fat into many acetyl coa molecules and 2 acetyl coa molecules combine to form 1 ketone body. This ketone body is released into the blood and delivered to other tissues. \nKetones aren't bad for the brain, its just an alternate energy source for when you have not eaten any carbohydrates and the internal stores run out. \n\nThe biochemistry of this process is too detailed for a 5 year old but I can get more detailed if needed."
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2gm038 | how can normal people become depressed in first world countries like my own ('merica) excluding people experiencing traumatic events? | I've been seeing a lot of depressing medicine commercials and can't understand how so many people with such a good standard of life and opportunity get diagnosed with depression. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gm038/eli5_how_can_normal_people_become_depressed_in/ | {
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"Because depression is a mental illness caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. How affluent you are doesn't affect it.",
"Depression isn't solely the providence of people who are downtrodden. Heavy work load, difficult life issues, interpersonal stresses and even things as simple as diet and lack of exercise or the weather can have profound impacts on a person's psyche. The mere fact alone that the western world appears to provide adequate comforts does not in and of itself ensure a happy or healthy life without any difficulty or strife. ",
"Because depression is caused by the brain not working properly. It's the most complicated object in the known universe - things are going to go wrong, and for a lot of complicated reasons...\n\nSo complicated, we're not actually sure how it all works yet. But, this is just the loading screen answer, until you get a real one..eventually, someone will come here with an post that gives a better overview of what's already known..."
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d5yu8w | why do semi trucks and large vehicles emphasize they make wide right turns and not left turns? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d5yu8w/eli5_why_do_semi_trucks_and_large_vehicles/ | {
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"Left turns are naturally wide on most roadways since you're crossing several lanes.\n\nTheir turning radius is roughly the same in both directions, they will make wide lefts on one-way roads.",
"When they turn right at an intersection the turn is much sharper and they cross into the left lane. In left turns they have a whole intersection to turn across and so they don't cut lanes.",
"Short answer: Because there are lots of idiot drivers out there.\n\nLonger answer: When a large vehicle is making a right turn, they will often have to swing to the left prior to turning in order to complete the turn safely. Because of this, there can be enough space to the right of the turning vehicle that another vehicle could conceivably believe they have enough space to pass on the right (almost never a smart move). However, because the larger vehicle is turning right, another vehicle trying to pass on the right would T-bone the turning vehicle. So the sign is basically saying, \"Don't be an idiot, and please watch for my turn signals.\" Left turns are pretty much always wide turns, because they typically require crossing at least one other traffic lane.",
"In addition to what was previously mentioned , in the US we drive on the right most side of the road. I would assume the sign says “Wide Left Turns” in countries where they drive on the left side of the road."
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474zcb | what's happening when my phone battery completely runs out, but i am able to turn it on with some battery left later? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/474zcb/eli5_whats_happening_when_my_phone_battery/ | {
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"There are chemical reactions in the battery that generate the electricity. The new compounds that form from those reactions can and will build up and either separate the chemicals that need to react, or prevent the electricity from flowing. If you let the battery rest, those compounds have a chance to dissipate, allowing the chemicals to react, or electricity to flow, again."
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o2jns | - an outline of the republican nominees | Hey guys
Australian here. Could someone please give me a run down of all of the Republican nominees (or at least the main ones) with information like what they stand for and what the public (or various subsets of the public) think of them?
Cheers! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o2jns/eli5_an_outline_of_the_republican_nominees/ | {
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"Found this from three days ago. Should answer your questions.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"I've just been using this \n_URL_0_\nJust a quick snapshot of where they stand on various issues",
"_URL_0_\nThis is a nice source of information.",
"**Mitt Romney** is the former governor of Massachusetts and prior to that he was a businessman. He is very wealthy. He is a social and economic conservative, but many voters feel he may actually be more moderate based on his history of changing his official stance on certain key issues. \n\nRomney ran for president in 2008 and has an extensive campaign network.\n\n\n**Rick Santorum** is a former senator and he is extremely socially conservative. He is known for likening homosexuality to beastiality and pedophilia.\n\n**Ron Paul** is a social and economic libertarian. He believes government exists to take away individual rights and he wants to remove as much of the government as possible. He also doesn't believe in financial regulation or much of the current US foreign policy.\n\n**Newt Gingrich** is the former Speaker of the House. He is an economic conservative but his record as a social conservative is somewhat suspect. One of his major campaign issues has simply been to bash Obama.\n\n**Rick Perry** is the current governor of Texas. He is a religious social conservative and financial conservative. He is in many ways comparable to George Bush. ",
"I'm a Conservative (Not the right-most kind, but still), and my outline:\n\nThey're all retarded.",
"Let's say your class is having elections to decide who gets to be the President of Kindergarten.\n\n**Mitt Romney**: That kid in your class who has a lot of money and sucks up to anyone he can to get what he wants, and usually does. A lot of people don't like him, but he'll probably end up being the front-runner anyway. Some of the Christian Evangelical kids who are from the South additionally don't trust him because he's a Mormon. In his defense, he has successfully run many lemonade stands and seems to kind of know what he's doing.\n\n**Rick Santorum**: One of those insane Evangelical kids I told you about. He's been against anyone who's... different... for a long time now and it earned him some nasty nicknames. You probably shouldn't Google what his last name is slang for now. You know, since you're five and all.\n\n**Ron Paul**: He's sort of an outsider kid with some rather unusual opinions. For one, he says that you guys shouldn't play with regular monopoly money that is only worth what you say it is, but that it should be valued in terms of something real that you can hold, like shiny things (gold). He also doesn't trust the school and thinks they're only there to take away your rights. His supporters are very big fans of his, but he's found it hard to win elections in the past regardless.\n\n**Michelle Bachmann**: Another crazy Evangelical girl. She has a boyfriend, but the word around the merry-go-round is he is more interested in other boys than her. She is regarded as either being actually insane or just not particularly smart by some, if not many, of the kids in your class. Fortunately for her, she decided that it isn't worth it to pursue the post any more.\n\n**Rick Perry**: Poor Rick. He tries, really, but he's just not all there. He's kind of like that kid in your class who has to wear a helmet all the time and eats mud, then says stupid things like: \"If I were President, I would get rid of homework, naptime and um... what was the third thing... ooops!\" To make it worse, he tries to recover from that by being even more hateful than that Rick Santorum kid.\n\n**Jon Huntsman**: A nice, smart kid, but he doesn't stand a chance. Quite sad, really.\n\n**Herman Cain**: We're not sure if he was really in this to win or just to attract attention to himself. "
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274r0a | catch 22 | I think I understand what it is but can someone give an example of a catch 22? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/274r0a/eli5_catch_22/ | {
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"A real life example is: You need 2 years experience to get an entry level job. There is no way of getting that experience because all entry level jobs require 2 years experience. ",
"In the original novel, catch-22 was a situation that really couldn't exist. If you wanted a discharge from the amry for being crazy you had to ask for one. If you ask for a discharge, you're not really crazy (since it's very sane to want to escape the violence). The whole novel is about the absurdity of war.\n\nOther examples:\n\n1. Needing experience to get a job, can't get a job because you have no experience.\n\n2. Can't get a bank account without an address, can't rent a place without showing bank statements.\n\n3. Working for money to spend on your free time. No free time because you're always working.",
"The best example might be from the novel of the same name.\n\nIn the novel it is noted that going on a bombing mission over Europe in WW2 is something only a crazy person would do because it was so dangerous.\n\nBut there was a rule stating that if an airman was insane, they should be grounded, so they couldn't go on the mission.\n\nIf you asked the doctor to ground you because you were crazy for going on the mission, then they would declare you \"sane\" because you understood the risks.\n\nBut the doctor couldn't evaluate your sanity unless you asked him to evaluate it, and everyone knew this.\n\nSo if you asked to be grounded, you were sane. If you didn't ask to be grounded you were probably insane, but you couldn't be declared insane.\n\nEither way, you had to do the mission.",
"The original use of the term was from a novel (Catch-22 by Joseph Heller) in which combat pilots could get out of combat duty by claiming insanity, but this never happened because anyone who would claim insanity to get out of combat was showing rational thought and was therefore obviously sane.",
"You have the last box of crayons on Earth, and you love to color. The more you color, the sooner you won't be able to color anymore. If you save them, you won't color as much, which you enjoy."
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376lio | how can little mice run up walls? these things are driving me insane the places they can get to | How THE SHIT are they getting on top of the fridge??? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/376lio/eli5_how_can_little_mice_run_up_walls_these/ | {
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"Rodents have very sharp claws, low body mass, and can squeeze through impossibly tiny spaces. Wood, plaster, gypsum, wallpaper, stone, brick, almost anything we make walls out of in residential homes is easy to climb for a mouse (they don't do so well with tiles though)"
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[]
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2uv1af | how is physical money converted to digital money ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uv1af/eli5_how_is_physical_money_converted_to_digital/ | {
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"That usually happens at a bank. For example, you have a 50 dollar bill in your pocket. You go to the bank and you tell them you want to deposit that 50 dollar on your bank account. The bank takes your 50 dollar bill and than makes an entry into their computer system adding 50 bucks to your bank account. Than the money is digital.",
"You give the bank some money, say, a 50 US dollar bill.\n\nThe bank then, in return, writes down that they owe you 50 dollars. You can ask the bank for your 50 dollars back (At say, an ATM).\n\nYou can also tell the bank that you transferred your debt, or part of it, to someone else.\n\nLet's say you want to buy something at an online store for 25 of the 50 dollars. You tell the bank that the store now owns 25 dollars of the debt the bank had to you, they will write down that they now owe 25 dollars to the store, and 25 to you.\n\nThe store can then go to the bank, and ask them for the 25 dollars in physical money.\n\nYou might also notice that this way, there are actually 100 dollars in the economy after you deposited the money, the bank owns 50 physical dollars, and you own 50 dollars worth of debt from the bank, there are 50 physical dollars, and 50 digital dollars.\nThe money was never 'converted' to digital money, the bank simply keeps track of to whom they owe money (And who owes money to them). This debt is much easier to transfer since the bank only has to write down who they owe money to, instead of having to go to everyone and hand them the money, this also means it's much faster for transactions over a large distance, and safer for large transactions, since there is no chance the money gets stolen during travel.",
"To oversimplify the explanation: existing physical money is EXCHANGED for digital money. It isn't converted.",
"I use a scanner, but I think copiers and fax machines could do it also."
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7pxw4n | what happens to smoke or other gases in a sealed container? | If I blow out a candle and immediately cover it, smoke accumulates inside but eventually fades away. The next day when I open the candle there is no smoke inside. What happens to the smoke inside? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7pxw4n/eli5_what_happens_to_smoke_or_other_gases_in_a/ | {
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"The smoke is made of tiny particles that either fall to the floor of the container or cling to the sides of it. \nTobacco smoke particles, for example, can be as large at 3 microns.",
"Smoke is typically comprised of very small solid particles suspended in a gas. Given enough time, these particles will fall under gravity to the bottom of the container. Some of these particles may carry an electrostatic charged and can be attracted to the sides/bottom of the container by electrostatic forces (with glass, for example). \n\n"
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5uwaar | what is the difference between a department (eg. nc department of motor vehicle) and a commission (eg. nj motor vehicle commission) | In most states I have seen, they have a Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) that runs everything related to motor vehicles while New Jersey has a Motor Vehicle Commission which seems to do the exact same thing. What is the difference between a department and commission when the DMV and the MVC seem too be the exact same thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uwaar/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_a_department/ | {
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"Every state is different. They can name the department anything they want.\n\nSo essentially there's no difference except for what each individual state allows. ",
"Typically a commission is a group of individuals (frequently five) that are charged with setting policy in a certain area, although the bulk of the work is done by the permanent staff. Frequently commissioners are chosen by the governor, but he doesn't have direct say on their decisions. Often, commissions are designed so that the minority party gets some input in who gets chosen.\n\nA department in government is just like a department in a company -- it's headed by a single individual (usually called a secretary or administrator, but there are other named) who makes decisions on how it will run, but that person is directly answerable to the governor.\n\nAll of that said, each state can have different rules, and some departments are more independent while some commissions are more directly supervised, and there's no law that says you have to name an agency one way or another. From the perspective of an individual citizen, most often the particular form of the agency is of less importance than the content of the regulations they promulgate."
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60smp8 | why do the symptoms of hunger become less painful/obvious after 48-72 hours | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60smp8/eli5_why_do_the_symptoms_of_hunger_become_less/ | {
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"Because your body is a survival machine.\n\nPain serves as an indicator that there is an issue; continued pain does nothing to help the issue other than to serve as a reminder. Your mind starts to ignore continued unchanging pain which significantly dulls it. The same is for when you physically injure yourself such as getting a bruise. The initial injury will hurt and for a few minutes afterwards its all you can think about but very quickly you forget its even there unless it is agitated and you receive a sharp reminder of your injury.\n\n",
"It wouldn't help our survival much if we were too distracted and lethargic from hunger to go hunt. Your body reminds you to eat with hunger pangs, but when food still doesn't come, it backs off a bit so you can fix the situation. \n\nThere are also different ways your body gets energy from stores in your body. Much of the energy you get between meals comes from your liver which is kind of like a high revving energy machine but it can only run a few days before it's out of gas. \n\nThe more long term energy comes from fat stores, but it takes longer to make use of this energy and it's more of a slow and steady energy source rather than a quick and powerful one. \n\nNeed to run from a predator? Liver to the rescue (and faster energy stored in the muscles). Need to survive a month without food? Fat finally gets to do something good for a change. \n\nSo generally when you fast, the first few days are the hardest as your liver depletes and your body begins changing over to a fat burning metabolism. Once the fat burning is in full swing, you are a little sluggish, but the energy you do get lasts a long time. "
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1se9e7 | what constitutes a generation | So we say generation x and y but who is in which? 2 people born in the same year would be the same generation but what about a sibling 5 years younger would they still be the same generation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1se9e7/eli5_what_constitutes_a_generation/ | {
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"Depends on context. If they have a common ancestor A, then the children of A are of the same generation, the children of those children (being siblings and first cousins) are of the next generation, the children of those are the next and so on - to find your generation, count the levels to the common ancestor. \n\nIf you are speaking more generally (Gen X vs Gen Y vs Millenia, etc) they are defined by date ranges and span about 20 years each",
"Depends on what year they were born.\n\nGeneration X is usually considered anyone born between 1961 and 1981.\n\nWhere Generation Y or Millennials are born between 1982 and 2004.\n\nThese dates are not set in stone and are just agreed upon ideals of societal commentators.",
"It depends largely on context. For example, in my family, I have cousins who were born in the same time frame as I was, and so we are all members of Generation Y as far as social commentary goes.\n\nHowever, within the family itself, the shared ancestor is their great-grandparents, who are my grandparents (i.e. their parents are my first cousins). As a result, within the family, I am a member of an older generation, and my genetics are technically closest to the the our older ancestors among myself and my same-aged cousins."
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9s91md | can we imagine new colors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9s91md/eli5_can_we_imagine_new_colors/ | {
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"No. Our eyes have 3 cones (aka color receptors): one for red, one for blue, and one for green. That means we can only pick up those colors and the variations that come with them, making up our color spectrum. Other animals may have more cones than us, allowing them to see different colors. We cannot create a new color because we already see every single one that we are capable of seeing (due to having only 3 cones). \n\nI will forever be jealous of the bluebottle butterly with at least 15 cones, able to see way more shades and colors than us.",
"How would you define \"new\"? Visible light covers a range of the electromagnetic spectrum, so there is a limited \"pool\" from which to draw new colors. With [deep color](_URL_0_) covering over a billion colors in that spectrum, it's hard to argue that anyone could imagine any new colors.",
"This question doesn't really mean anything. If you can visualize a color, then you can perceive it. And if you can perceive it, it really isn't a \"new\" color. ",
"Colors and other qualia are our interpretation of stimuli (sensory information). I think we could imagine new colors but, without additional, or altered, stimuli, imagining new colors would be something like a gestalt shift (a new interpretation of something) rather than the perception of something new. That is as far as sensory information goes. \n \nBut really, no one \"sees\" physical reality itself - every sensation is imagined (like hallucinated). i.e. The part of your brain that \"sees\" color doesn't see light - it sees electrochemical pulses and interprets (hallucinate) it as light/color. And the same goes for tastes, scents, sounds, etc. Think of it like we \"see\" sensation (qualia) as an interpretation of our senses (sensory organs: brain, eyes, ears, etc) sensing stimuli (physical reality) and we do this, presumably, to produce information that is useful to us. \n \nHonestly, I don't know if anyone knows why exactly we see colors or other kinds of qualia the way we do - at best we can just point to parts of the brain and say, \"this does it\", and we guess this is good because, \"contrast helps define things\". \n \nBut the short answer is, yes, probably... maybe. You could look into synesthesia and maybe get a different idea. lol",
"I like this question. The answer is, unfortunately, no - our monkey brains are limited to what we have seen before with our own eyes, mixtures of red, blue, and green. It is like imagining a 4th spatial dimension - it is impossible to wrap your head around, even though we can talk about it.\n\nThis concept was part of Aliens Ate My Homework by Bruce Coville - they entered a new dimension where light behaved differently and caused them to see new colors. It's a thought-provoking concept."
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5gvftx | what is the point of the adjustable piece on the bottom of a stapler? | You know the thing that you can flip around on the base of the stapler that makes the staples point out instead of in? In what situation would you ever need to use that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gvftx/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_the_adjustable_piece_on/ | {
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"When the staples face out instead of in they are much, much easier to remove. So you use it when you want a bunch of pages together for a short while, sort of like a paperclip, but less likely for the pages to fall out the bottom.",
"It's called pinning (like in sewing, pin something with a straight pin). Easier to remove if you don't want it to be permanently stapled. \n\n [Source](_URL_0_) "
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8975wx | why are there so many relationships that are proportional to inverse squares? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8975wx/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_relationships_that_are/ | {
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"The surface area of a sphere goes up as the [square](_URL_0_) of the distance from the center.\n\nSo things that diffuse into space, like waves, tend to get reduced by the square, resulting in an inverse square law."
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5c3j04 | if america engaged in nuclear war where would the nukes land and what plans are in place? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5c3j04/eli5if_america_engaged_in_nuclear_war_where_would/ | {
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" > What are the big targets (Both in america and in the countries we would be nuking)\n\nClassified! We don't really spread our secret nuclear strike plans around so the chances you will get particulars over the internet are slim to none.\n\n > who's downwind\n\nDownwind of global strikes? Everyone.\n\n > how soon would normal citizens know of the attacks/retaliation, \n\nFor most it would be when the flashes of light burn the flesh off their bones. Some lucky people would see the contrails from launching ICBMs and put things together from there, but the difference between the two would probably be about 30 minutes max.\n\n > and what formal protocols are in place?\n\nPut your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye."
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1d5tur | raspberry pi and examples of its various uses | I have done some googling, but I figure someone here can help give me a better breakdown and some examples using raspberry PI. Thanks in advance | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1d5tur/eli5_raspberry_pi_and_examples_of_its_various_uses/ | {
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"There is FAR more to it than what I am saying here.\n\nIt is a tiny computer. It isn't very powerful, but it can do enough to make it worth it for a lot of people, especially considering the low price. You could use one to connect to a media server in your home and stream movies/shows on your network. You could turn almost any TV into a sort of \"WebTV\" type device, and browse reddit. You can even play (a special version of) Minecraft.\n\nTL;DR: It is a small, cheap computer.",
"I use a Raspberry Pi as file server inside my house that's connected to a big USB hard drive. It runs a program called [Sick Beard](_URL_1_) that knows what TV shows I like, when they come out, and how to go on the internet and look for them. When a TV show comes out on TV, it finds information on how to download it, which it then passes to another program called [NZBGet](_URL_2_). NZBGet downloads the shows and then tells Sick Beard that they're done, so that Sick Beard can put it in the right place on the hard drive.\n\nIt then talks to another program called [XBMC](_URL_0_), which is running on a different computer that is connected to my TV. XBMC looks kind of like what you see when you're using the set top boxes that come with a satellite dish or a cable service, but it's mostly for playing movies and TV shows and stuff that's on your computer or on a network, and it also does a lot more.\n\nAnyway, Sick Beard tells XBMC that new shows have arrived. XBMC is able to connect to the Raspberry Pi using a method called FTP, and it also knows where TV shows are stored. So, rather than buying a PVR device to record TV shows for me off of my satellite, which can be pretty unreliable, I instead let my Raspberry Pi worry about downloading them automatically. And what's more, I can watch those TV shows from any computer or phone or tablet in my house. It's done a much better job of it for me, in my opinion.",
" > examples\n\n- A media PC that runs [XMBC](_URL_0_) and hooks up to your TV\n- a weather station that pulls weather data from the internet and displays it on a big LED matrix\n- a cheap, compact file server in your network with a bunch of USB drives connected\n- an automated alarm system that read data from a webcam, uses the openCV framework to detect human movement and sends you an email if a burglar arrives\n- a cheap, compact PC that you put in the guest bedroom with your old TFT screen where your guests can browse reddit and check their mail if they forgot their laptop.",
"I'm actually using one to build a functioning Pip-Boy for my friend",
"I plan to use mine for my wedding photo booth. Just buy a touch screen LCD with an LVDS connector, a 5V adapter that pushes 3 amps, and a micro usb cable to get the screen working.\n\nYou could also use a smaller touch screen with the Pi as a quasi-tablet."
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xoyx2 | as someone who hasn't been watching the olympics, why is everyone pissed at nbc? | I haven't been keeping up on team USA (other than hearing about Phelps and that our female gymnastics team are in the spotlight), so I have no clue why everyone is so upset. I recently read [this](_URL_0_) story, so I can see why the dissent based on that. What else has happened, though? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xoyx2/eli5_as_someone_who_hasnt_been_watching_the/ | {
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"From what I hear in the UK, NBC are being pretty lame about what they cover. They cut out the very moving war victims memorial from the opening ceremony and replaced it with an old interview with Phelps claiming that the war memorial 'wasn't suited for an american audience' which was pretty much a **HUGE** 'Fuck you' from NBC to the rest of the world. \nI hear that their coverage is Americans only, and only sports where the athletes are ogglable instead of covering the interesting and dramatic events. \nThis is just the perspective of a Brit who hasn't watched a minute of NBC in his life though, so take it with a pinch of salt.",
"1) Despite that many NBC viewers are American, they also want to hear the stories and backgrounds of non-American athletes. We're also missing out on some of the huge controversies because of the American-centric coverage. One that comes to mind was the gold medal that was given to a German fencing athlete over her Chinese opponent despite that the winning point would have never occurred if not for an error with the timer. \n\n2) The coverage is delayed, with no live options. NBC is also idiotic with spoiling the winners of the events *during commercials of the delayed broadcast*. It takes all of the suspense out of watching the events. One that sticks out is the unexpected win of the USA women's crew team, with a very close finish after a surprising lead. \n\n3) NBC cut out \"unimportant\" events, like the war victims memorial, as Y__M mentioned. That's just a slap in the face to Americans and internationals alike. It's already a delayed broadcast, there's no fucking reason not to include interviews *and* events taking place. ",
"For one the huge delay is frustrating. Several times I've accidentally seen the results for an event before I was able to watch it. They aren't showing half the events I care about, and all of the coverage is extremely USA centric. They say you can stream it live on the internet, but to do so you have to have a paid TV service, many of us don't."
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4kgz5r | why do nascar tires have to be changed so many times in one race? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kgz5r/eli5why_do_nascar_tires_have_to_be_changed_so/ | {
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"NASCAR tires are what are called \"slicks\" which means that they have no tread at all making them very good for gripping smooth surfaces like race tracks. They are also made of very soft rubber which increases traction further. A downside to this soft rubber is that it wears out very quickly compared to normal tires. The high speeds that they drive at also wears out the tire much more quickly than normal which means that they have to change them frequently or risk a blowout damaging the car or having to get towed.",
"Because the tires they use are designed for peak performance, sacrificing durability, and driving at such high speeds is very stressful on tires. Sure they could probably make tires that would last an entire race, but the trade-off would be that they couldn't go near as fast, and the short amount of time they spend in the pit changing tires cost less time overall than driving that much slower would. ",
"Besides what has been said, they also drive at high speeds which means the tires get incredibly hot, and since they turn as hard as they possibly can (imagine making a 15 second turn on the edge of sliding out) this wears them even further"
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j7uwf | please eli5 what happens in a microwave when there isn't anything in it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j7uwf/please_eli5_what_happens_in_a_microwave_when/ | {
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"The microwaves bounce off all inner surfaces, nothing happens.",
"Nothing at all.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > A microwave oven works by passing non-ionizing microwave radiation, usually at a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz (GHz)—a wavelength of 122 millimetres (4.80 in)—through the food.",
"The microwaves bounce off all inner surfaces, nothing happens.",
"Nothing at all.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > A microwave oven works by passing non-ionizing microwave radiation, usually at a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz (GHz)—a wavelength of 122 millimetres (4.80 in)—through the food."
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3rhwq9 | in the music industry, what does an audio engineer do and how is this different than what a producer does? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rhwq9/eli5_in_the_music_industry_what_does_an_audio/ | {
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"A producer is the logistical and managerial head of the production. He likely works for the record company that is funding the recording and is there to make sure everything goes smoothly. He hires the audio engineer and any other players (other session musicians, any other person that is needed). Any other session musicians hired for the day, he will be in charge of and have them sign their paperwork.\n\nThe audio engineer works for a recording studio or audio facility and is actually operating the equipment. He edits the music together, mixes it to make it sound good, sets up microphones, adds effects and sfx. He has creative input as well.\n\nThe producer manages money and schedule. So if it's the end of the day and the musician isn't happy with something, the producer needs to hire the engineer for the next day which has impact in both schedule and budget."
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3k1xkm | why do phones practically stop working when your at a large event? (i.e. sporting events or concerts) | If it is just because of the mass amount phones in the area, why hasn't that been fixed by now? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k1xkm/eli5_why_do_phones_practically_stop_working_when/ | {
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"yes it's because of the mass amount of phones trying to access the same data network at the same time. Basically, it's clogging the data lines up. Too much traffic = traffic stops. \n\nIt's not fixed because there's no reason to invest a ton of money to fix a problem that is so infrequent. If they did add enough capacity for those one-off events, they would have all this extra capacity doing nothing 99% of the time. That's a waste of resources from the company's perspective.",
"Cell towers can only handle so many devices at once. When you have too many devices trying to talk to one tower, you run out of time slices and lots of people don't get a chance to transmit/receive. The only solution is to install more cells in the venue, which can be very expensive depending on the desired capacity."
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1c7dov | why is n. korea considered a communist state and not a totalitarian state? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c7dov/eli5_why_is_n_korea_considered_a_communist_state/ | {
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"North Korea is a democracy...but there is only ever one name on the ballot. \n\nNorth Korea is totalitarian no one really denies that. Its an absolute, hereditary, military dictatorship. ",
"North Korea was founded by Stalinists, but technically their official ideology is called [Juche](_URL_0_).\n\nWhether you consider Juche, Stalinism, Maoism etc. to be Communism is a bit subjective, but historically the western media has tended to use the term \"Communist\" to describe states that practice any of these ideologies. \n\nAlso, I see no reason why communist and totalitarian are mutually exclusive terms (indeed, where there is one there is usually the other.)",
"It's just historical - it was founded by \"Communists\".\n\nCurrently it is just a militaristic monarchy, and it doesn't ressemble Communist states like China or former Soviet Union or its various European satellites at all.\n\nPretty much #1 rule of Communist was non-hereditary rule by the Party - which was technically worker's party, and civilian in nature, and although there was often a bit of militarism, there was never any kind of military-led government like in North Korea.\n\nThey don't even call themselves Communist any more.",
"Because it's often easier to put easy labels on things, rather than totally acurate ones. Sometimes it's because the thing being labelled wants to call itself something. Sometimes it's because the popular view of what the label means isn't what it \"really\" means. Sometimes because the people who can put the labels on the can are deliberately misleading consumers. There is no central authority regulating truth-in-labelling for governments.\n\nFor one classic example, the United States is formally a *republic*, but it often calls itself (or is called) a \"democracy,\" which isn't technically the same thing. Of course, you can find plenty of opinions as to whether or not, or to what extent, it has practical characteristics of a democracy, but that's beside the point. Although calling the USA a \"democracy\" isn't formally truth-in-labelling, many people figure it's close enough.\n\nNow, a lot of the \"communist\" countries have, for one reason or another, tended to decay into *practically* totalitarian states, whether or not they initially had good intentions (and many of them were communist only in name from the outset). Furthermore, in a lot of western cultures, \"communism\" has been widely portrayed as totalitarian craziness, even though that's not formally supposed to be part of the program. So conceptually, it's easy just to go ahead and call North Korea \"communist,\" especially if North Korea itself agrees with that label. Again, it's not formally truth-in-labelling, but in many people's heads, it's either close enough, \"seems true,\" or is convenient for some reason."
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cwtqtt | why does your hearing sometimes get softer and you begin to hear a slight high-pitched tone, then go back to normal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cwtqtt/eli5_why_does_your_hearing_sometimes_get_softer/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nIs this what you mean?",
"Do you have allergies? Any sinus issues? Does this happen most when you've been in one position for a while then move?\n\nIf \"yes\" to any of those question, then good news! You win a toaster.\n\nI'm kidding, you're just experiencing some pressure changes in the connected system of Ear-Nose-Throat. This can be the result of congestion, muscles constricting around the neck and altering the geometry of how your ear drains (the eustachian tube), and a few other things.",
"Hi! I'm an audiologist, someone who specializes in hearing and balance. \n\nThis phenomenon is known as transient ear noise. It's completely normal and can happen to anyone. It may last several seconds, possibly up to a minute. \n\nThere's lots of theories about why this happens, but it could be due to caffeine use, head position, tension, etc. It can also happen for no reason at all. \n\nThey're typically harmless occurrences and don't mean damage is occuring to the hearing system. There's no evidence to connect the events with hearing loss or more serious tinnitus (ringing in the ear).",
"This can very commonly also be caused by myoclonus (spontaneous rhythmic contractions) or spasm of the stapedius muscle in your middle ear or tensor tympani muscle, which makes your eardrum taut.",
"This may get buried. It has to do with the phenomenon of attenuation and the tensor tympani muscle. You have a muscle in the middle ear who's purpose is to limit the vibration of the ear drum. Normally to protect you from loud sounds. When it contracts or spasms, there is a decrease in the amplitude and range of vibration that is transmitted to the inner ear. \n\nNow your brain also has this mechanism where it tunes out stimuli that are present continuously for too long. That way you can focus on more important changes. When the tensor tympani spasms, and those static signals decrease, your brain interprets this as a change and you hear the difference. Similar to staring too long at a high contrast image and then looking at a white piece of paper.",
"Your ear can produce sounds that you can hear if you are focused upon them. They are called otoacoustic emissions, or OAEs. \n\nIn most people, OAEs can be evoked through certain types of stimulation, and this is used for clinical tests of inner ear health, called evoked OAEs or EOAEs. \n\nIn some, but not all people, OAEs happen spontaneously (SOAEs) and no one is sure why. Some people have a single sound that their ear produces, and some people have multiple sounds that their ear produces. For some people, their SOAEs are in one ear, and for others it’s both.\n\nOAEs are different from tinnitus in several ways - but one of the biggest differences is that OAEs can be heard by recording equipment (or other humans with incredible hearing); whereas tinnitus is a hearing experience created by your brain and there are no sounds coming out of your ears for anyone or any recording equipment to hear or record, although the experience is quite real and can be quite maddening. \n\nOAEs are quite subtle in volume compared to tinnitus, and often come and go, where a major complaint with tinnitus is that the sound is continuous.\n\nYou can think of tinnitus like a jump rope between two neurons - one in your ear and one in your brain. When all is healthy and working well, both ends communicate, and that’s how we get sounds from the outside world into our big thinkative brains.\n\nSometimes when the jump rope is damaged on one end (in the ear), the other end (in the brain) doesn’t know what happened, and it keeps trying to communicate with the other end of the jump rope, even though there is no one there now. It’s kind of like it keeps calling out, “Hey, can you hear me now?”, but the body has no easy way (that we know of yet) to say “shut the $ & @/ up, there’s no one there now”. So it just keeps calling (the person with tinnitus just keeps hearing this really annoying tone in their ear, regardless of what they do).\n\nFrom your description, it sounds like you’re having an SOAE and for some reason, your hearing attention is drawn to shine it’s light on the super soft sound of the SOAE within your ear; which would also cause the other sounds outside of your body to “seem” to get softer, because the light of your attention is no longer fully on them.\n\nYou can focus your hearing attention, just like your visual attention; which means you can focus in on something small or focus out on something larger. Sometimes (usually) our attention focuses reflexively, meaning it focuses on something in particular without us having to think about doing it on purpose. We can learn to control and point our focus/awareness on purpose as well (meditation is helpful for gaining control of the focus of your awareness, whether its visual, auditory or somatosensory, etc.). \n\nIt sounds like your attention is being drawn to the soft sound(s) in your ear reflexively. And then (totally guessing here), maybe because there’s nothing that interesting or threatening going on, your attention goes elsewhere shortly after.\n\nOr, SOAEs come and go. So it’s also possible you stop hearing it because it stops emitting sound.\n\nEOAEs are used clinically, and SOAEs are an active area of research, but not much is known about SOAEs. Surprisingly, Wikipedia had pretty good info on it - better than some of the big organizations in the field. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nI don’t think I’d be concerned about this, but it’s always good to check with your doctor if you are. It’s worth asking if they know about SOAEs, because not all audiologists will.\n\nRegardless, you’re not crazy. And it can be super fun to start to pay attention to the weird sounds your ears may be making on their own.",
"Thank you so much for knowing how to write this out. I get this and couldn't put it into words.",
"This happens to me at times due to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, my observation is that it happens because my neck is unstable to a degree and so when I have my head turned certain ways it can squish the flow of cerebral spinal fluid/ blood/ nerves a little bit as well as cause muscle spasm and thus temporarily effects the pressure in my head/ear. Here's a better explanation though:\n\n\n\"Rapidly appearing intense but short lived tinnitus is often associated with small muscle spasms located in the middle ear space. These very tiny muscles contract and tighten the eardrum area, causing a characteristic and noticeable 'loss of hearing' just prior to the onset of fairly loud high pitched tinnitus, which gradually fades over a few seconds or at most a minute or two. These little episodes are very common and are associated with jaw or neck tension, caffeine, or sometimes head position, although they certainly can show up spontaneously without obvious cause.\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"THANK YOU for asking this OP!!! I have always wondered about this, and thought it was just me.",
"Just someone adjusting the gain too high and then feedback occurring so turning that down a bit 🤔😅 #audioengineer"
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1ewjxf | how is uk local government financed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ewjxf/eli5_how_is_uk_local_government_financed/ | {
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"This is going to be a dull answer because it's a dull subject.\n\nIn the UK, we pay a range of taxes on a range of services, and fines for non-compliance with some aspect of the law. Some of this money goes to local government, some of it to central government, depending on what it is. The central government then allocates some of the money it has received to local governments for them to spend, and also gives them some money to manage (which isn't quite the same thing).\n\nExamples of monies that go to central government:\n\n* Income tax\n* National Insurance\n* Inheritance tax\n* Stamp duty\n\nExamples of monies that go to local government:\n\n* Council Tax\n* Business Rates\n* Parking fines\n\nThere is (and has been for many years) a lot of debate about how much money should be within the \"gift\" of central government, and how much autonomy the local government should have.\n\nThe councils can dictate what council taxes and business rates should be set at, but obviously work in a competitive system against neighbours where if they lower their rates too much they will not be able to invest in the services and infrastructure people expect, but if they raise them too highly then people will be inclined to move away unless the area has other qualities that make it highly desirable compared to its neighbours (cf. Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, et al).\n\nSome local authorities are able to give their bottom line a bit of a boost in various ways. The boroughs of Manchester, for example, own Manchester International Airport. Many councils will own car parks, shopping centres and other facilities that they operate commercially to generate revenue for the area.\n\nThis subject then gets a little more convoluted when you realise that local authorities can be responsible for delivery of some key services (e.g. education, social services, etc.), however the money for those services is pretty much entirely within the control of central government. So the Department for Education will hold the purse strings on how much schools should get, but it's up to the councils to make sure the schools get run appropriately.\n\nIt goes without saying that what applies in England is not what happens in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland: there are many subtle and not-so-subtle differences. This complicates it further, as I'm sure you can imagine.\n\nIt looks quite straight-forward at first, and the more you dive into it, the weirder and more obtuse it gets. If you were to walk around a Town Hall and figure out who paid for each of the services people in there were working on and how, you would quickly tire of the bureaucracy and paperwork involved in working that out.",
"I'll give you an answer based on actual facts, rather than guesswork and assumptions.\n\nAs /u/bigjo66 states, there are two primary sources of funding:\n\n* A grant from central Government, which is calculated according to the demographics of the area (the number of people who live there, what their age groups are, and so on). Typically this will meet about 60% of the local Council's annual budget requirements.\n* The local Council will then levy a Council Tax on its residents to make up the balance. However they are not free to choose any amount they like. Details below:\n\nFirstly, people's houses are placed into a band (from A = the cheapest to H = the most expensive) based on what was the value of the property in 1991. Council tax is then set such that an \"average\" property (one in band D) pays £X per year, and there is a sliding scale such that a band A property pays approximately 70% of the band D price and a band H property pays approximately 150% of the band D price. This formula is fixed nationally for all councils. So if a council sets its band D tax at £1,000 per household per year, for example, the values of all the other bands are calculated based on that.\n\nSecondly, councils are only allowed to increase their council tax year-on-year by a certain amount (typically only 1-2%). If a council increases it beyond this amount they're in breach of the law and in the past they have been fined and the councillors banned from office.\n\n**TL;DR** local councils are financed by a mixture of central Government taxation, and a local taxation which is based on property values, not on income.\n\n*Edit:* the above is certainly the case for England, there may be some subtle differences for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but I believe the general principles are the same."
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3zkbe1 | why are we told for example it is -2 degrees celsius but feels like -10 degrees celsius? | If it is x degrees then it feels like x degrees. And I would imagine that feeling something would be different from person to person. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zkbe1/eli5_why_are_we_told_for_example_it_is_2_degrees/ | {
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"This has been asked before, but it helps to know the right buzzwords for search, \"wind chill\": _URL_0_",
" > If it is x degrees then it feels like x degrees.\n\nYou can easily disprove that for yourself. If you heat an oven up to 500 degrees, then the air is 500 degrees, and the metal rack is 500 degrees. Do they both feel the same if you touch them with your hand? No of course not. \n\nIf it's freezing outside, does it feel the same to stick your tongue on a tree as it feels to stick your tongue on a telephone pole? No.\n\nThe rate at which heat is transferred between you and the environment informs your sense of temperature, not the actual absolute temperature. This rate can be modified by factors such as the conductivity of the material, and importantly here, wind.\n\nNow how to calculate windchill is another matter. There are a number of formulas at work to attempt to provide an estimate of what you'll feel. ",
"They're generally talking about something called the wind-chill factor. \n\nAir is a great insulator and if the wind isn't blowing, the air immediately around your body (both the immediate environmental air and the air trapped in your clothing) stays in place so it stays warmer. When the wind is blowing, it sweeps away all that air and replaces it with colder air in the larger environment. On top of that, your sweat evaporates faster when the air around you is moving faster which means the natural cooling system your body has ends up extra effective.\n\n",
"The \"feels like\" temperature takes into account things a thermometer can not detect, such as relative humidity and wind. \n\nYou already know that a breeze helps you feel cooler, that's why fans were invented. Humidity affects your ability to regulate your body temperature as well. Neither of these factors affect a thermometer.\n\nSo, while a thermometer will report the actual temperature, -2 in your example, the combination of wind and humidity *plus* the actual temperature will make it feel like -10 on your skin as the heat is pulled away from your body."
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2utotg | why is the fcc suddenly supporting net neutrality? | Everything I've heard up to this point about the FCC and its attitude towards net neutrality has led me to believe they have been staunchly supportive of corporate efforts to move towards a tiered internet. Why are they suddenly pushing for the classification of the internet as a utility? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2utotg/eli5why_is_the_fcc_suddenly_supporting_net/ | {
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"Are they pushing for it? From what I've heard lately they seem to be portraying themselves as on the fence.\n\nIf they *are* suddenly pushing for the Internet as a utility, it may be another SOPA moment. SOPA was ready to pass in Congress with a solid majority, but widespread public outrage, the blackout of Wikipedia, and the most phone calls to Congresspeople in recent history caused a historic reversal, and nearly half of Congress changed positions practically overnight, so that the bill failed by a sizeable majority.\n\nMaybe, just maybe, our government is actually listening to the people for once. "
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607xrl | why is financially supporting oneself and saving so difficult for people in the 20-30 year old range? | I am asking this as a relatively sheltered teen, so excuse my ignorance. Feel free to include some numbers. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/607xrl/eli5_why_is_financially_supporting_oneself_and/ | {
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"Once upon a time, people retired at a certain age. They got a watch and a party at the office, and went home to collect their pension. That freed up space in the company to promote people up the chain, eventually opening up a space at the bottom for someone to start.\n\nThat doesn't happen anymore. People die at work rather than retire because their retirement savings got wiped out by the investment banking industry, which has terminally clogged mid-and-higher level employment, forcing university graduates with years of practical experience to compete for entry-level positions against rich kids who can afford to take unpaid \"internships\", positions which have zero upward mobility, because when a space up top opens up, nobody gets a promotion, management just fills the one space from outside.",
"It's kind of an anecdotal question... no one answer would describe the entire 20-30 year old range. There are plenty of well off people in that age range. But as a general rule, it's the time in which people are getting settled into routines, settled into jobs (if they work). People also learn the routine of what their parents may or may not have taught them about saving, personal finances, debt management, etc. etc. \n\nCoupled with all that... the price of everything is going up, and people are taking on monumental amounts of $250,000 in student loan debt for a degree in German Polka History, in which the payment for the loans is crippling and the income a job in that field isn't sufficient to live on. \n\nSo in essence, as a TL;DR: People have too much debt, or not enough knowledge in finance, debt management, and living within their means. ",
"It's going to vary a lot from person to person, depending on what their income is.\n\nBut in general, young 20s is when people are just starting their careers. They're in the lowest bracket of earnings they're likely to be in their lives.\n\nThey might also be in larger amounts of debt, relatively speaking. Despite being lower income, they'll likely have student debt. They might also want/need to invest in a car/house early on. (depending on where you live, a car may be a luxury, or you may need it to commute). Similarly, many view renting as a waste since you aren't building equity, so there is pressure to buy early.\n\nThat's just for the lucky ones who have higher incomes. Many entry level jobs aren't high enough to sustain a lifestyle where you can actually move away from your parents (assuming you can even get something in your field. Many find themselves working odd jobs like Starbucks etc to make ends meet).\n\nAnd last, mentally, they might not have much experience in budgeting/saving, as well as mentally discounting what they need for saving. It's well known that we mentally discount things that will happen in the future - candy today is much more attractive than candy a week from now. This can make it hard for people to fund their savings/retirement as well as they \"should\" (as well as not splurge on a nicer car/house)"
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2n03gh | what's the difference between androids and robots? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n03gh/eli5whats_the_difference_between_androids_and/ | {
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"A robot is at it's simplest: an automated mechanical/electrical device that is made to operate with minimal or no human control and preform specific tasks. \n\nAn Android is a robot, a robot made to be specifically human looking or human like. \n\nA Cyborg is a combination of mechanical/electronic parts with biologic parts to make a half machine-half living organism thing.",
"Robots are used in assembly lines to take automobiles from start to completion.\n\nAndroids are used in hotels to take Japanese businessmen from start to completion."
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6xn462 | why do photography cameras take a maximum 24.2 megapixels whereas video cameras can shoot up to 8k resolution. | There is an obvious price difference between something like a sony A9 and a Red Weapon. But I have yet to see a photography camera that has more than a 24.2 megapixel sensor. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xn462/eli5_why_do_photography_cameras_take_a_maximum/ | {
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"I just found a camera with a 50 Megapixel sensor here: _URL_0_ and it is still much cheaper than the Red Weapon, but that's not surprising at all.",
"You have to consider the shear amount of data pushed per second from a sensor. A raw 24 mega pixel image averages about 51 mB per shot. At 30 fps you need around 1500 mB/s throughput rate. 60 fps you need almost 3000 mB/s. The true limitation is pulling data off the sensor at those speeds.\n\n\n8k video is roughly 19 megapixel in image size.\n\n\nOnboard storage is another problem. 90 minutes of raw 4k is around 6 tB. 90 minutes of raw 8k takes almost 18 tB. There is an 18k video. Images from it approach 200 mB each."
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f6wmsd | what is fxaa antialiasing and what does it do for pc gaming? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f6wmsd/eli5_what_is_fxaa_antialiasing_and_what_does_it/ | {
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"**F**ast Appro**x**imate **A**nti-**A**liasing.\n\nIt smooths out jagged edges in rendered animation/screens. It's also faster than some other methods and uses less CPU because it only smooths out edges as they appear on screen, not how they are actually rendered. It can also work on non-vector based images unlike MSAA (multisample anti-aliasing).\n\nIn games, it gives you a better image for less computational power which in turn means higher frame-rates."
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21ym5s | how are above poverty wages bad for anyone? | The idea of above poverty wages has been stated as "wealth redistribution" and "socialism". Why? Why do a few people need to have all the money? How is this good economics, or even capitalism? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21ym5s/eli5_how_are_above_poverty_wages_bad_for_anyone/ | {
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"Basically the idea traces back to a primitive time when economies most limiting factor was labor. The physiocratic school of economic thought realized that people will work very hard up until they are paid the minimum wages to get by on. Once they get paid more than that however, they will start substituting work hours for leisure hours, because they can afford to and who wants to work 16-18 hour days? So at that time, the best economic policy to promote economic growth was to allow wages to sink to the bare minimum, which forced people to work a maximum, and thus resulted in maximizing economic output.\n \nIn today's developed economies, however, with our production technology, people really just don't need to work that much anymore. In fact I would argue that the biggest thing limiting current economic growth is lack of demand. Companies can produce all they want, but if people cannot afford to buy stuff they don't need, then so what? \n \nKeeping wages super low keeps corporate profits high, and that's what corporations care about. As a result, there's been much propaganda drawing on the old physiocratic idea of low wages = economic growth to justify keeping wages as low as possible. Hopefully enough people will wake up to the fact that we aren't living in a 1600's era, labor-limited economy and we can fix the system."
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6utgkp | how do your teeth detect cold and hot foods when it's just a bone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6utgkp/eli5_how_do_your_teeth_detect_cold_and_hot_foods/ | {
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"Because there are living nerves inside.\n\nYer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Do you feel your teeth? or is it an illusion? ](_URL_0_)\n1. [ELI5: what's the point of having nerve endings in our teeth, when all it can do is hurt for the rest of your life, as they won't heal themselves or grow back if they get a cavity ](_URL_1_)\n1. [ELI5 Why in hell do we have nerves in our teeth? ](_URL_3_)\n1. [ELI5 - why do we have nerves in our teeth?](_URL_4_)\n1. [ELI5:Why are our teeth so sensitive? ](_URL_2_)\n",
"There is a nerve inside your teeth that detects pain, otherwise you would just ruin your teeth because you wouldn't be able to detect anything at all."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gopqn/eli5_do_you_feel_your_teeth_or_is_it_an_illusion/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36qhnw/eli5_whats_the_point_of_having_nerve_endings_in/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wh8wn/eli5why_are_our_teeth_so_sensitive/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4iwwfb/eli5_why_in_hell_do_we_have_nerves_in_our_teeth/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27lw80/eli5_why_do_we_have_nerves_in_our_teeth/"
],
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||
cn5yxu | how do we instinctively know whether music 'sounds' right or wrong? | For example if someone is singing off tune, or a piano player hits the wrong note, we seem to know that this is wrong. But how do we know that even without music training? Is it innate or learned? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cn5yxu/eli5_how_do_we_instinctively_know_whether_music/ | {
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"It's actually math.\n\nSounds correspond to specific frequencies of vibration in the air. Low notes have longer, slower vibrations and high notes are shorter and faster.\n\nNotes that harmonize together have complimentary frequencies, which add up in clean integers or simple ratios to produce a complex but repeating frequency.\n\nNotes that sound terrible together don't add up and instead produce interference, cracking out an irregular garble of sound waves with no short-term repetition.\n\nThe complexity of the resonances has increased over the years as talent and instrument quality has increased, but the scales and harmonies in music are almost always designed to play on this mathematical base. You can usually tell immediately when a note is out of resonance with the others.",
"The phenomenon of notes sounding 'off' is called [dissonance](_URL_0_).\n\nIn western music we have become culturally familiar with the sound of certain [intervals](_URL_1_) and certain [harmonies](_URL_2_) that sound pleasant to us. Over centuries these intervals have become the standard building blocks of western music.\n\nIf you use a note that falls between these standard intervals (a microtone) or if you overlap two notes that don't function harmonically well together, then you can get dissonance. The music of some non-western countries utilizes microtones and different accepted harmonies and so can sound abrasive and unpleasant to western ears.",
"A lot of it is instinctive. I love this video by Bobby McFerrin:\n\n_URL_0_",
" > Is it innate or learned? \n\nIt is both. We naturally develop capacity to distinguish between sound frequencies as a part of developing language skills (both speaking and listening) and in some unique ways specifically for music.\n\nYour sense of what sounds right is shaped by the culture your grew up within. For example, musical notes or combinations of notes that might sound 'wrong' to you may work in a different culture's musical theory. For example, Western classical music vs Indian raga music, if you were raised listening to just Western Classical music then a lot of the notes and changes between notes in a Raga will sound wrong. This is true even though both styles divide a full octave into 12 semitones, they make different choices about note transitions and combinations. \n\nThere are different reasons notes could sound 'wrong' either when played together or in sequence and the theory gets complicated. But even if you have not studied music you will still hear combinations that sounds wrong. Ultimately this comes down to expectation violation. This is because you have developed an internal musical framework to process musical sounds. Part of that framework is pure biology and part of it is cultural.\n\nIf you want to get deeper into the science I highly recommend a book called [This Is Your Brain on Music](_URL_0_) by Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist who was also a musician and record producer before moving in to studying music and neurology as an academic. It is a great book and you do not need to understand musical theory to read it, it starts from the basics using tunes and songs you will know (or could easily look up on YouTube) and builds from there.",
"There's definitely the cultural or adaptation in addition to the math. In my younger days, I thought 7th and 9th chords sounded 'wrong'. Many times they do when played alone, but when played in a progression that resolves to a root, they can sound perfect.",
"There are a of good responses here, I'll add another thing to consider.\n\nTension and release is the driving force behind Western music. The reason certain melodies and chord professions sound good or satisfying is because they have a good flow of tension and release.\n\nBad sounding notes or notes that are out of tune are causing more tension than your brain was prepared for and therefore sound wrong.\n\nThings that sound bad to us western people are commonplace in other areas of the world and are considered normal.",
"You can learn to stretch your ear and to like dissonance. For example, some 20th c. classical, free jazz, industrial. Try them out!"
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music)",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony"
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1x9ez7 | why are the world's deserts where they are/not at the equator? | I've always assumed it's hottest at the equator, and therefore the world's large deserts would be there. But when I was indulging in exploration via Google Maps, I saw that jungles seem to make up the equatorial area.
I feel like I should know this from some middle school science class explanation, but I can't remember or find it through a quick google search. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x9ez7/eli5_why_are_the_worlds_deserts_where_they_arenot/ | {
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"Deserts are less about sheer temperature as they are about aridity. Rainfall patterns are influenced mostly by air currents. The way air circulates around the planet causes particularly dry air in bands 30 degree off the equator, which is where you'll find most deserts.",
"Hadley cells man. All of the air at the equator rises and travels approx. 30 degrees north or south and start to sink again. Here we have hot, moist air- and the rest between the equator and the 30 degree meridian is cooler, dryer air causing deserts to form.\n\nA similar but reverse process happens at the beginning of the Antarctic continent (:"
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9xpeop | tasks dentists do that we never do at home | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xpeop/eli5_tasks_dentists_do_that_we_never_do_at_home/ | {
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"Not much of anything. Dental health is one part genetics one part diet one part hygiene. If a dentist is trying really hard to take care of their teeth, they'd likely avoid acidic drinks (especially soda) and when possible use a straw, avoid excess sugar, use proper brushing and flossing techniques, and get regular cleanings."
]
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||
d371z8 | how does sound's volume or intensity (not pitch) behaves physically? like frequency is the length between waves? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d371z8/eli5_how_does_sounds_volume_or_intensity_not/ | {
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"It's the height of the wave, i.e. its amplitude.\n\nThe pitch/frequency is how often the air molecules vibrate back and forth in a second, the intensity is how **far** they vibrate back and forth with each swing."
]
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||
6ld7ny | could a human genetic mutation produce a superhero power? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ld7ny/eli5_could_a_human_genetic_mutation_produce_a/ | {
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"It depends on what kind of superhero powers you mean. Most of them - super speed, healing factor, near-invulnerability and others - violate the laws of physics and are simply impossible. Others, like echolocation or night vision, are a reality in animals and could possibly also show up in humans to a degree.",
"Usually, when we have a genetic mutation, it is a very small change.\n\nBig changes tend to either result in disabilities (e.g. Downs Syndrome), or death either before or shortly after birth. If there was a big change that was beneficial, it's highly likely that it would have already happened at some point in human history and we'd all have that mutation already. So - big changes, not totally impossible, but very, very unlikely.\n\nSmaller changes, though, are possible. Another poster talked about things that already happen in nature, things like echo-location. In fact, some blind people have already developed a form of echo-location.\n\nBut a genetic change wouldn't suddenly make you amazing at echo-location. What it might do is make you a tiny bit better than most people at echo-location. If that resulted in you being more likely to live long enough to have children, and then your children inherited it, then over many, many generations it's possible that it could evolve into something that we might consider a super-power, although to the people who have it, it would simply be \"normal\". But in modern society we are extremely good at ensuring that everyone lives long enough to have children, so I can't think of a genetic change that would make it any more likely for you to have children than the population as a whole.",
"For all intents and purposes no.\n\nFlying like superman: This almost certainly violates the laws of physics and is impossible\n\nFlying with angel wings: This will not work due to significant weight and balance issues and biomechanical arrangement. This is the same reason why there are not mechanical flying suits truly worthy of the name. There is a reason there are not birds the size of people or dragons. There is simply a practical upper limit on how big/heavy something can be to let you slap wings on it and make it fly.\n\nLasers from your eyes: This one runs into issues to do with energy consumption. To power lasers like this you would need to consume just an insane amount of energy, probably more than your digestive system could handle. And you would need it available in bursts which again is something your body isn't evolved to provide.\n\nMutant healing: There is a condition currently in humans where cells grow very rapidly - cancer. Our current healing/regenerative abilities are balanced against the risk of cancer and if you turned them up you would likely be dead inside of days from multiple cancers. On top of that there is an energy problem similar to that of lasers from your eyes where growing cells takes a huge amount of energy from the body and it would be extremely draining to instantly heal even a minor injury.\n\nSuper speed/strength: Evolution didn't fall asleep on the question of how strong humans are. It is possible to imagine us being stronger but to be able to punch a hole in a concrete wall requires not just muscle strenght, but also your skeleton not to shatter like glass at the force of the impact. There are hundreds of bits and pieces in your body (including your heart), that are simply not prepared for you to actually be strong enough to lift a car over your head. If you look at strongmen and bodybuilders they suffer horrible injuries because of the physical stresses they put on their bodies. N.B. even if you were super strong/fast the kinds of things that come with that in the comic books (running into something at super fast speeds, getting into a fight with someone else where you are swinging lamp posts at each other like clubs), violate other physical laws (there is no amount of strenght on the planet that would allow you to lift and swing a lamppost because of the weight distribution, it would just keep making you topple over), and the injuries you would take in turn would be catastrophic and unsurvivable.\n\nTelekinesis: Violates laws of physics. Impossible.\n\nMagneto: The energy requirements for magneto to actually do any of the stuff he does are beyond what your body holds in reserves. To crush a car, or tear down a bridge, or even fling manhole covers like poker chips requires massive, massive, massive, amounts of energy and most of the scenes involving magneto involve him using more energy than a person has if their entire body mass were consumed in the process (assuming he also doesn't have some kind of fat burning nuclear reactor inside him).\n\nInvisibility: ehhh... This one is not impossible but is also one of the lamer super powers.\n\nLast but not least... ECHOLOCATION: This is a personal annoyance of mine. Lets say you could hear like a sonar system. It would be terrible! Right now you can see at the SPEED OF LIGHT. With echolocation you would be getting information much slower than with your regular eyes. Daredevil for example would never see a rifle bullet coming - it travels faster than the speed of sound. This kind of ability would be significantly worse than what you currently have and the only reason bats have it is because there isn't any light in caves.\n\nEdit:\n\nElectricity bolts: Electricity bolts (how could I have forgotten this one), are actually rather interesting because how we imagine them and how they would actually operate are open to some debate. Electricity is a lot more like water than it is a stick. A stick you can point and throw, electricity (like water) just flows \"down hill\". The electrical current is going to look for a path to take based on electrical properties not which way you \"point\" it. So in terms of selecting a specific target and zapping away... good luck. There was a tv show \"White Rabbit\"? where they tried this out and under extremely controlled conditions did get the electricity to do what they wanted. However you walk into a train station with power generators, electrical wiring, lighting, etc. etc. etc. and try to zap a guy twenty meters away with a thunderbolt? For that you are going to need to violate a few laws of physics and control some things that are uncontrollable by our biology (or turn yourself into some kind of giant electro-magnet tunneling guy). I read an interesting paper a few years ago where the idea was to use a short laser pulse to ionize a path of air and then send a lightning bolt down the path of air. That is the kind of stuff you need to do if you want proper electirical lightning powers. And, again, big energy drain issues, and your underlying biology would fail in a hundred different places due to the current you are running through your body (absent a special suit).",
"Yes. Someone could mutate immortal cells. They'd still die if they jumped off a cliff or overdosed on drugs or got shot but, a mutation conceivably could cause cells to not lose information as they divide, they'd be biologically immortal. There's a lot of research being done on this. \nAnother mutation could cause an abnormally high number of connections between areas of the brain, resulting in \"super\" intelligence or creativity. \nMichael Phelps, the Olympic swimmer has a mutation that causes his arms to be longer than than is normal for his height and also produces less lactic acid when he uses his muscles.. not really a \"super power\" but, the only powers likely to be possible are biologically based. "
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67leto | what makes a cancerous cell a good candidate for an immortal cell line? | Given the number of cancer patients we have had in the past, we should have thousands of immortal cell lines if not more. Is there anything special about the commercialized cell lines or would any patient qualify for "donating" (I don't really know how this works, please bear with me), as long as the mutation is novel? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67leto/eli5_what_makes_a_cancerous_cell_a_good_candidate/ | {
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"The NCI 60-panel cell line (which is what you're talking about with chosen immortal cell lines) is composed of various agreed upon immortal cell lines that are chosen to predict (or chosen because they predict) the behavior of distinct phenotypes representative of the known types of cancer. The program was designed to test single compounds that are synthesized or isolated from natural products against this panel. If the compound works by a broad non-discriminate mechanism it will show cytotoxicity in many or all cell-lines and be considered generally toxic and not of interest. If the mechanism is more specific and unique it can display strong cytotoxicity in a few or maybe even one cell type and be very much of interest for developing chemotherapy agents used to treat the type of cancer that provided that cell type because it kills that cell type without doing as much damage to other cells. So new cell types, new biopsies that is, added to the panel would have to enhance the program strategy I described by providing increased predictability in identifying chemotherapeutic agents that have good therapeutic indexes for specific types of cancer."
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1qwjbd | when i transfer money from paypal, where does it go for 3-7 business day until it appears in my bank account? | I use Paypal to process credit cards and for Paypal transactions. I refunded a customer on Friday, and they called this morning - angry - that they haven't received their money. I called Paypal to complain, but they said that the money is gone from their accounts, and could take 3-7 business days before the customer received the money back. I asked, "So you're telling me that their bank is holding onto their money for 3-7 business day until they decided to give it back? Why?" Of course, they claimed not to know.
To me, this doesn't make any sense. Why is it that if I send money to Paypal, it's instantaneous. But trying to get money out of Paypal, takes days? (as Paypal account holders know, this is true for transferring money from the Paypal account to a bank account as well) Is it just me, or is paypal doing something underhanded (like pooling money for interest) under the guise of, 'This is normal processing time.'? Please someone, explain this to me.
Edit: This isn't the first time this has happened: more than once, I've received angry phone calls from customers complaining that paypal hasn't given back their money - even though the refund was 'processed'. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qwjbd/eli5_when_i_transfer_money_from_paypal_where_does/ | {
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"There are various clearing houses ([FedWire](_URL_2_), [CHIPS](_URL_0_), [ACH](_URL_3_)) where the money sits for a bit as it makes its way to the other bank. This is something I'm not too knowledgeable about so I can't go any further without risking being incorrect :P\n\nIt's not just PayPal by the way, if you try and transfer money between two bank accounts it will always take 3 business days.\n\nEDIT: I just found a PayPal employee [who says that they use ACH to do transfers](_URL_1_). This is the same system that generally handles direct deposits, automatic bill pay, etc. It isn't PayPals fault :)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/clearing-house-interbank-payments-system-chips.asp",
"https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Account-balance-Archive/Why-does-it-take-3-4-business-days-to-withdraw-funds-from-paypal/td-p/363796",
"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fedwire.asp",
"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/ach.asp"
]
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37g3a7 | how do insurance companies afford to pay out such large sums of money when individuals buyers of plans do not pay as much as they receive? where does this money all come from? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37g3a7/eli5_how_do_insurance_companies_afford_to_pay_out/ | {
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"Because there will be people who never have a pay out. So in a sense, those people who do not get a pay out, pay for someone elses pay out.",
"Let's say for example you give your insurance company $100, and this insurance company has 10000 customers, the insurance company then invests their $1 000 000, and makes a return on that. Some insurance companies invest in the markets, others in commodities, and even some in real estate. They also make money by their scrupulous terms and conditions and contracts and declining payment to some claims. Also things like car insurance also generally have an excess you have to pay before you can even make the claim.",
"Lets say you like Kool-aid and you want to be able to have Kool-aid when you need it but you don't need it now. So you buy Kool-aid insurance so that when you need Kool-aid you can get some. Now because you're not sure exactly when in the future you want Kool-aid you keep paying a monthly premium.\n\nSome of your buddies go their entire lives without ever needing Kool-aid, some need it almost every month it seems. But you don't want to be the lone kid on the block without Kool-aid, especially once the need hits. \n\n\nNow lets say you need Kool-aid so you call and get it. Well the people who you buy your Kool-aid insurance from knows you've used it once so they might charge you a little more in case you want Kool-aid again. The more you need Kool-aid, the more they charge you. \n\nYour Kool-aid insurer gets lots of money from kids that never need Kool-aid. They are required to keep a certain amount of money on hand as cash or \"liquid assets\" in case a large percentage of thier customer base needs Kool-aid. But they actually don't spent a ton of money on Kool-aid. So they consider that profit after operating costs of getting the packets of Kool-aid and sugar and water and cups. ",
"(Fictional numbers are used in the following explanation, read responsibly)\n\nThe company has 100 customers that pay $1 per month. They also know that on average there will only be 1 accident per year and that accident will on average cost $100. Well 1 year of earnings is 100\\*$1\\*12 = $1200. It would take a single customer 100 months, or 8 years, to save up $100, but with everyone pooling their money the insurance company has $1100 left over after the one accident that happens that year, and they can use that money to improve the company.",
"insurance functions in two ways.\n\nfirst they collect insurance policy payments from all their clients, this amount is based on the type of insurance cover, the risk factor, and the potential cost of an accident. The more risk prone you are, the more expensive you pay, for example a sick/old person will pay a more expensive health insurance than a middle aged healthy person, because the older person will cost more to the insurance.\n\nanyhow, all the money from the insurance policies goes into the insurance company's account, they invest, in financial or non financial products to make money with money.\n\nmeanwhile, let's say the company has 5 million customers paying 500 dollars a year on average, that's 2.5 billion in income, the total claims value will be less than that no matter what.\n\nPlan B, insurance companies have insurance companies, commonly called as re-insurance companies. their business is to insure insurance companies against potential bankruptcy from colossal claims and to pay them back should something go wrong.\n\nin countries where car /health insurance has just become mandatory, you would see a great increase in the cost of getting insured between year 1 and year 2. Year 1 would be sort of a guinea pig year where the companies will all rate the risk at the same level, after one year and seeing the statistics of the claims, it is very likely that the average insurance cost will go up. same goes for household insurance, if you are in a high crime area, it is possible that your household insurance might be sky-high because the probability of getting robbed is high. etc etc\n\n\nTL;DR : it's all about statistics and calculated risk.\n",
"I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but when an insurer takes a premium from you, they only have to keep a certain amount in reserve to pay out claims. The rest they can invest, this leads to a larger pool to pay out to shareholders etc. \n\nIn lloyds of london, before solvency laws were tightened up, some underwriters ran at a 120% loss ratio but they managed this by investing premiums.\n\nIn the old days a broker may collect the premium from the client on day 1 and have 30 days to pay the underwriter, this means they could invest the cash they have collected for 30 days before paying the underwriter."
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34tqs4 | what are the little nubs that are under the "f" and "j" keys on a keyboard supposed to do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34tqs4/eli5_what_are_the_little_nubs_that_are_under_the/ | {
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"When you type without looking at the keyboard those two nubs let you know where to place your fingers: They represent the start of \"home row.\"\n\n_URL_0_",
"Center your hands for proper typing form. If you're taught typing you learn where key placement is from this.",
"they are reference points for your fingers. your index fingers should rest on these keys when you are typing. \"ASDF JKL;\" is what is known as the \"home row\""
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bw624c | why do sharks have to continuously move to breathe but fish can breathe just fine while sitting still? | What else separates sharks from the normal fish? I know they aren’t in the same genus(?) / phylogeny (?) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bw624c/eli5_why_do_sharks_have_to_continuously_move_to/ | {
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"It depends on the fish.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSome fish(and sharks by proxy) have to keep moving to keep water over their gills.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSome have the ability to use their mouths to push water over their gills to be able to breathe, and thus can be immobile.",
"Actually, only a small number of sharks (a couple dozen out of about 400 known species, though those dozens include some of the most famous ones, like the Great White, so popular knowledge projects this on to sharks in general) need to keep moving. These are called \"obligate ram ventilators\".\n\nThe reason is basically that they lack cheek muscles (known as the \"buccal muscles\", they lost them at some point in their evolution, as ram ventilation worked fine for them, as they were already in constant motion for other reasons), which prevents them from sucking in water, so they have to keep moving to push water into their mouths and through their gills to get enough oxygen.\n\nMost sharks (and all fish) don't need to keep moving, as they still have those muscles, so they can suck in water like you sucking up soda through a straw.\n\n[This article](_URL_0_) has some more information.",
"Fish isn't really a term that makes much sense cladistically.\n\nIf it lives in the water and has an internal skull made of bone or cartilage and isn't descended from anything that at any point walked on land it is a fish.\n\nSharks are fish.\n\nAll land vertebra are descended from fish, but don't count as fish even if like turtles or dolphin they live in the water. Some fish are closer related to us or dolphins than they are to other fish.\n\nTo make matters worse all sorts of animals have \"fish\" in their name without actually being fish. Cuttlefish, starfish, blackfish etc.\n\n\"Fish\" is a terrible way to group animal species together and have that make in sort of sense and it contains all sorts of groups.\n\nAll of them have skulls, some have jaws, some have spines, some have a skeleton made out of bone.\n\nSharks belong into the group who have jaws, but have their skeleton be out of cartilage rather than bone. Rays fall into the same group and are related to shark."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://animals.howstuffworks.com/fish/sharks/shark-drown1.htm"
],
[]
] |
|
e32tuv | why are saxophones so much louder than guitars? | More generally: Why are instruments you blow into so much louder than guitars, violins, pianos... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e32tuv/eli5_why_are_saxophones_so_much_louder_than/ | {
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"Brass instruments are designed to make the air you blow vibrate stronger throughout the pathway of the instrument which makes it stronger; the keys change this pathway to produce different sounds. String instruments are designed to make the air that the string moves vibrate stronger. In the case of a guitar it is in the body where this strengthening occurs, and the sound is changed by the length of the string that is allowed to move. \n\nThe biggest difference is that brass instruments have more time to strengthen the sound because of the longer path way, and their shape and material do a better job at this. String instruments have a smaller area to strengthen the sound and wood is not as good as brass at strengthening sound. That's why cymbals are made of brass instead of wood!",
"Larger brass and woodwind instruments resonate much more loudly than guitars simply because of how they're constructed (i.e. from metals).\n\nSaxophones are also louder typically because saxophonists are obnoxious.\n\nSource: played saxophone for 10 years, was obnoxious."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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|
88w7qp | what is the relationship between laissez-faire and trickle down economics? | I understand the individual terms. But many articles i read use the term slightly interchangeably. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/88w7qp/eli5_what_is_the_relationship_between/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Let's say I have a billion dollars, I can do three things: I can spend some of it, I can save some of it and I can invest some of it.\n\nIf I buy something, I increase demand for that thing. If demand increases, producers will try to increase production and hire more people. This creates jobs. People benefit.\n\nIf I save it in a bank, I make credit available to people. People can take loans and start new businesses or they can buy stuff which boosts industry. People benefit.\n\nIf I invest it, I am hiring people or supporting a new business and helping the economy directly. People benefit.\n\nSo, ultimately, if I am left to do what I want with my money, I benefit humanity as a whole. So my billion dollars end up helping not just me but other people poorer than me as well. So in a metaphorical sense, the money \"trickles down\".\n\n(This is the theory. Whether it works in practice needs to be demonstrated by empirical studies.)",
"Laissez-faire is about deregulation. The idea is that companies and individuals will tend to do what's best for them, and they'll end up making something that works well for everyone. No government rules; people will just magically know about every company's misdeeds and take them into account when doing business with them. Companies won't become too powerful to run roughshod over individuals because the Great Pumpkin will intervene or something. It can work with a society up to maybe a couple hundred people.\n\nTrickle-down economics is an idea that, to make poor people's lives better, we should give money to rich people. You see, if we give money to rich people, they'll eventually get around to spending it, which will create jobs, and some of those jobs will go to unemployed people. So for every extra dollar that goes to rich people, you get maybe ten cents in the hands of poor people. Which is better than giving money to poor people because...work ethic? Wealth is a sign of virtue and poverty a sign that you lack virtue? Something like that."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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|
5mqeqt | how did banks keep track of legitimate withdrawals before the electronic age? | It seems that the old paper savings booklet banks used in the past would have made bank withdrawal fraud extremely easy.
How did banks protect themselves against exploits back in the era before electronic banking? And how did your savings information get propagated between various branches of the same bank or even worse different banks?
Could you only ever draw money from your home branch? What would you do in case of an emergency while on holiday for example?
EDIT: added some more info to substantiate the question. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mqeqt/eli5_how_did_banks_keep_track_of_legitimate/ | {
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"The savings booklet was just your personal record. The bank's record was the final say in the matter.\n\nKeeping track of deposits and withdrawals before electronics was easier because there was a paper trail and things happened more slowly.\n\nElectronic banking enabled a host of new scams and problems because transactions can happen very quickly and a person exploiting a weakness in the system can do so from a hidden location.\n\nThe *only* problem with the old way was the mountains of paper that had to be maintained and gone-through if there was an audit.",
"Occasionally banks would and probably still do get taken in by confidence scams...anyone who's been a cashier long enough has encountered someone asking for change for a 20, but phrases it as \"can I get 2 fives and 2 tens for a $20?\"\n\nAnyway, there was a reliance on Photo ID's, deposit slips, accounting ledgers, and the skill to use them, along with massive physical record stores, requiring two forms of ID for common banking tasks as recently as the late 90s, and knowing customers personally... There were a lot more local banks in the 1980s, when the national outfits started buying the smaller guys like crazy. \n\nLike typesetting, and page layout, and drafting, and a half a hundred other professions at least, before computers moved in and abstracted away the physical parts of lots of industries, humans were basically the computers, and pulled off remarkable feats of precision and physical accomplishment on a daily basis. \n\nIn 20 years when robots start framing buildings and hanging drywall the same questions will be asked about the construction industry. ",
"All that same data was kept on paper documents.\n\nWhen you traveled you either got traveler's checks or you withdrew cash from your home branch. You could theoretically use other branches of your bank if you did not plan your trip properly but you would have to wait for your information to be verified which would take hours or even days. ",
"To get an understanding and some fun you can read (incudes a few more scams and prison time in Sweden than the movie) or watch: Catch me if you can \n\nIt is the story about [Frank Abagnale](_URL_0_) who during 6 years ran several impressive confidence scams where he ran bank scams, pretended to be a pilot, a doctor, a lawyer and a Teaching assistant. He made millions of dollars before he got caught. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale"
]
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|
r1r26 | what is the difference between eating 2000 calories per day versus eating 2300 but burning 300 of them by running per day? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r1r26/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_eating_2000/ | {
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"Here you go, buddy, plugged from /r/fitness:\n_URL_0_",
"If you eat more you have lots of energy to run about. If you run about, you get to eat more or yummier foods (yay!) and be more fit and healthy (yay!).",
"In terms of simple weight not much.\n\nHowever, I'm surprised no one (even on /r/fitness) mentioned that exercising is good for you. Very, very good for you. \nBurning extra calories with an exercise like running stimulates the creation and upkeep of muscle and bone cells, decreases blood pressure, lowers cholesterol, leads to lower cortisol release (and thus a less active stress response), and leads to increased neurogenesis which can alleviate depression/low self esteem. It can even help control chronic/recurrent pain (endorphins, baby!). Plus you're X kg of more compact muscle instead of X kg of untoned fat.\n\ntl;dr: numerous cardiovascular and neural benefits. You look sexier too."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/hfeuy/what_is_the_difference_between_eating_1000/"
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[],
[]
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||
67bbx0 | what is the dangly thing in the back of the throat/what does it do/ what is it called? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67bbx0/eli5_what_is_the_dangly_thing_in_the_back_of_the/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It is called your uvula. It helps guide food down your throat by covering the opening to your nose when you swallow. It also secretes saliva to lubricate your throat so the food that you swallow can slide down easily."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3mil38 | why does the power company want me to use less electricity? | I got my bill with the little bar graph shaming me for my (large) household using more electricity than my neighbors. They also send me emails suggesting energy-saving strategies etc.
Isn't electricity how they make their money? In fact, the more I use the more the price goes up. I understand that we should all be trying to use less but why is the power company involved in this? In most other realms the businesses and the government want us to consume more of everything even when it's bad for us and the environment.
EDIT: I guess this is answered. I think I'm satisfied with the answers, but not necessarily happy with the truth in them | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mil38/eli5_why_does_the_power_company_want_me_to_use/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Two reasons:\n\n1) The cost of building new electricity generation capacity is expensive. In particular, the cost of installing and operating peak power plants (plants that are usually idle, but ramp up production when peak consumption requires additional power) is very high. It is cheaper to promote energy efficiency versus build and operate these expensive plants.\n\n2) The industry is still subject to a lot of regulation. In many places, the government necessitates an energy efficiency program. This can include rebates for efficient light bulbs, advertisements (on bills, TV, radio, etc), etc.",
"There's a reason some professions work best when controlled by the government. You want to have fire fighters, but in an ideal world they'd never need to put out fires. You want to have police but in an ideal world there would be no crime. You want to have doctors but in an ideal world no one would get sick.\n\nPower is sort of the same thing, sometimes it's complex regulations on a small set of big companies that incentivizes things rather than the government directly, but what the government wants is for you to use as much power is beneficial, and no more. \n\n > Isn't electricity how they make their money?\n\nSo.. yes it is. But the police don't want you to shoot people, and doctors don't want you to get cancer either. Either by charter or regulation the goal of the power company isn't to make money as such, it's to find the cheapest cleanest way to supply you with the power you want. That means minimizing waste, but if you need power for something... go ahead and use it. That's what it's there for. "
]
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[],
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|
6cxvpu | why isn't there an industrial process for manufacturing petrol/gasoline? | We know the exact structure of the relevant chemicals, we know the exact composition of the petrol our cars require, and we know how to vary composition for performance and climate. Why can't we just make it instead of having to drill for and refine it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cxvpu/eli5_why_isnt_there_an_industrial_process_for/ | {
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" > Why can't we just make it instead of having to drill for and refine it?\n\nWe can, it's just that making it requires more energy than burning it releases so you end up with a net loss of energy. Drilling doesn't suffer from that.",
"I mean, CO2, Nitrogen, and water have everything you need to make iso-octane and the other components of gasoline, right?\n\nWell, it takes energy to do so. A *lot* as it turns out. Creating an energy source (gasoline) doesn't serve much of a purpose if you spend more energy creating it than burning it actually yields. That's exactly the problem.\n\nConverting the slurry of chemicals in raw petroleum into the components of gasoline and filtering out excess stuff takes *way* less energy.",
"One can do it that way.\n\nThere are plants in existence that convert natural gas to petrol / gasoline. It's commonly called gas-to-liquids or GTL.\n\nThe process is actually that one first breaks down the natural gas into its components - carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. So one could generate gasoline / petrol with only these products as the starting point.\n\nThe challenge is to make it cost effective. "
]
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[],
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|
8eiyws | how is dna affected (if at all) by transplants? the first penis and scrotum transplant seems successful- will his ejaculate be his dna, the donors, or a mixture of both? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8eiyws/eli5_how_is_dna_affected_if_at_all_by_transplants/ | {
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"Sperm are made in the testes. I don't know a lot about this case though. If by 'scrotum transplant' they mean the scrotum (skin) only, DNA would be the patients original. If they mean scrotum+contents (including testes) then they would be donors. ",
"The patient in question lost his genitals and part of his lower abdomen by stepping on a hidden explosive. The transplant replaced the muscle, skin, the scrotum and the penis. The testes were not transplanted as that would be unethical. Therefore the patient will be able to get erections and to ejaculated but will not have any sperm."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
7rtsdc | what happens to our muscles when we 'pull' our neck? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rtsdc/eli5_what_happens_to_our_muscles_when_we_pull_our/ | {
"a_id": [
"dszo4oo"
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"score": [
6
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"text": [
"What do you mean by \"pulling\" your neck? are you talking about a neck strain or neck cracking?"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
edum69 | why do some small electronics such as a router have a bulky adapter plug, but a large appliance such as a vacuum cleaner have a regular plug? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/edum69/eli5why_do_some_small_electronics_such_as_a/ | {
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"Because small appliances run on low voltage DC power which requires a converter that's normally integrated into the plug. The makers of these appliances only want to make one model that they can sell all over the world that has different power standards and plugs. They just package a different wall wart in the box for different markets.",
"Because the router runs on low-voltage DC current and needs an adapter to convert the 120 volt AC current coming out of the wall.\n\nThe vacuum cleaner is a large appliance and all its components just run on the standard 120 volt AC current.",
"The block is a converter. It converts AC and DC power as well as controlling the amount of energy flowing into the device. Some devices cant handle the amount of energy that comes from the wall socket and some larger devices simply have it built into the product.",
"Your small electronic devices all need low voltage DC power, they generally run off 24V or less so they need a power supply that can take the 120V or 230V AC power from the wall and convert it into the 5/12/24V DC that the device needs. This can be done with a wall wart(big plug on the wall), a power brick in the middle of the power cord, or inside the device.\n\nIf you want to make a small device then you want to move the bulky power supply to a power brick or a wall wart so it doesn't bulk up your primary device.\n\nYour vacuum just runs straight off the AC. AC runs into the motor, AC runs to the secondary motors, everything runs directly off of power provided from the wall. Even for bigger things like a stove which may have a display, they're large enough that fitting a small power supply inside the device isn't going to require a larger device.",
"Some things run on AC power which is what the power outlet in the wall provides. It’s alternating voltage like a sine wave. The wall provides 110-120v AC which is a lot. Waay to much voltage for small electronics. \n\nThe bulky adapter takes the 120VAC and will step it down and “rectify” it into a DC source (constant voltage like a battery, not a sine wave like AC). The circuit required to do this is a step down transformer which is ratio of a lot of coiled wires around a magnet, followed by other component to make up the rectifier circuit. \n\nYou vacuum cleaner motor runs off the large 110-120VAC because it needs the power and has built in conditioning circuitry",
"Thanks for your replies. So it sounds like they need the block to step down the amount of electricity coming in. But what about other small gadgets that have a regular plug such as a night light? Aren't they also low voltage?",
"Some good answers here already. Another big factor is cost. It costs extra money to house that brick inside the device, whereas there is already an entire industry around manufacturing \"wall warts\" to fit various applications...and those can be purchased in bulk.",
"There are a few reasons:\n\nI'll use a router for the example:\n\n1. Small items, such as an internet router, typically run on direct voltage (DC), while your common plug is AC. The bulky \"wall wart\" that you plug into the wall will convert AC to DC. \n2. The wall wart can take up a lot of room. If a goal is to reduce the router's footprint, you can save precious space by removing some of the components (ie power supply) to the plug.\n3. It's less expensive for manufacturers of the routers to outsource the power supplies (wall warts), as the manufacturer of a wall wart can make them for several companies and therefore sell the wall warts to the router company for less cost compared to the router company making it in house.\n4. Some of the smaller items (again routers) need to reduce the amount of heat generated by the device. By moving the power supply conversion to the plug, a source of heat is removed from inside the router's case.\n5. Power supplies break easily. By using the wall wart (a very common point of failure) you can \"repair\" a router by replacing the wall wart in many cases.\n6. There is a safety standard in which some electronic appliances have to disconnect if dangled (i.e. if they fall off your desk.) The way wall warts usually work, they will disconnect if you trip on the cord, or drop it off of a desk."
]
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5ci2uc | why do we sometimes notice certain words in a large amount of text when only quickly glancing at it? | I've noticed that whenever I'm quickly looking through text (not even looking really, just turning pages/scrolling) I somehow manage to notice/read specific words from within the text that usually relate to something I recently thought about/am thinking about.
How does this happen? If I'm not reading text, but just look at it for a really short amount of time, how does the brain manage see/to pick out a certain word that may relate to my thoughts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ci2uc/eli5_why_do_we_sometimes_notice_certain_words_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"d9wxv1c"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"This doesn't exactly answer your question, but this study may help: _URL_0_\n\nIt's about how people only read the first and last letters of words, and can still understand it, so while people skim text, they are actually understanding a lot more than one would thing. \n\nSpeculation here, but I believe this is how services like Spritz work, which show you words one at a time up to 1000 words per minute. When you eliminate the subvocalization (the voice that reads inside your head), you can still comprehend words, which might be why you can quickly pick out the meaningful ones. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/"
]
] |
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