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83z49n | why do older generations seemingly look older than newer generations during the same age range? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/83z49n/eli5_why_do_older_generations_seemingly_look/ | {
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"Seems to me better health practices less labor intensive jobs. Machines let us work smarter. Also I don't know anyone that actively pick axes a coal mine. Im sure people still mine with machines and unions for better working conditions. Less black lung I suppose. (Minecraft jokes aside)",
"1. Nutrition was worse.\n2. They had been through a lot of stress, like the Depression and wars.\n3. More people had been through serious diseases.\n",
"Are you controlling for all variables, including camera quality? Just different lighting can drastically impact the apparent age of a person in a photo, especially when you add in stuff like b & w photos vs color. Older houses had lights in different color balance, and cameras picked up different color balances too.\n\nFor younger people, more baby fat in the face makes them look younger. A soldier, especially in wartime, won't have that baby fat. Even comparing modern soldiers to their peers in college you'll see a difference. \n\nNext is poses. A smiling face looks younger, and granddad taking a picture in a bombed out french town 1944 is probably not going to be smiling as much as your brother sitting in the frat house patio.\n\nLast is clothing. You associate certain styles of clothes with old people, so a picture of Grandma at 25 will be in old lady clothes. Sister at 25 will be in younger lady clothes, often with a more flattering cut too. To really compare, put sister in grandma's old clothes. Or compare nudes. :(\n\n",
"Culturally, we've become less and less formal. There used to be adult modes of dressing, which are employed by fewer and fewer people as time goes by. ",
"It wasn't until relatively late that we have learned the health issues associated with too much exposure to the sun. One of the many detriments is premature aging of your skin.",
"Because by the age of twenty we were already putting up with your crap. And now days, most of you haven't picked up any thing heavier than a soda. Why in my day we played football without helmets or pads. And our cars didn't have power steering and brakes, or those sissy automatic transmissions. All the girls were corn fed and fat. To pick up one at a bar, we would tie a cob of corn to a winch cable on a wrecker. Throw it in and when it pulled tight, winch one out. All our books were printed on stone, try carrying them to school 5 miles each way, both of them up hill.The only thing we had going for us, there was not as much history to remember, and numbers only went to 99. You don't know how easy you have it. /S",
"It's mostly fashion. You associate older fashions with older people, and so even when they're young they look older to you.",
"Their clothes.\n\nWe associate sportcoats with old men. In reality those old men were wearing sport coats in their 20s.",
"Combat fucks you up. There are a couple of photo projects you should see on modern service members, before, during and after combat. It’s interesting to see the transition. ",
"Living through the dust bowl and great depression probably was not good for the complexion. ",
"People had kids to work the farm back then. The labor intensity and we are only using sunscreen the last 20 years?..",
"I think it just depends on the person. I am 29 and people think I'm 21 because I have a baby face. I have friends that are balding, and smoke and stuff and look like a bad 40.",
"Because people assumed adult responsibilities much earlier. The high school dropout rate in 1950, IIRC, was around 50%. These dropouts weren't living in Mom's basement playing the equivalent of video games - they were working, full time, to help support their family.",
"I don’t have an answer but I’ve also always noticed this! I remember in my high school they had all the pictures of all the graduating classes and going back 10 or 15 or 20 years everyone looked so much older. So I see some people saying here more stress I mean we were all teenagers. But yes I noticed that as well. Classes from 15 years before looked a bunch of 24 year olds! ",
"When we associate appearance with old age, we use things like type of face, fashion, wrinkles, hair styles etc when in reality the only thing that actually is a marker for age is wrinkles and muscle structure. There are people in their 40s with baby faces and people in their 20s with lean, stern faces in every generation. I’m 33 and have a baby face. I’ve only recently started to not be id’d. The reason older generations look older to us is just things like clothes and grooming that we associate with our parents or grandparents. When I was a kid Jenco jeans and Exco hoodies were in style. I now associate that with middle aged people more than anything. It’s really just based on perception and prejudice. ",
"Aside from all that's been pointed out in this thread so far is the fact that most younger people I know seem to be able to take information about health and take it seriously and then use it to their advantage. I know so many people from my parents and grandparents generations that were told over and over throughout life that they needed to lose weight, they needed to quit drinking, they needed to quit smoking and blah blah blah.... The doctors might as well have been taking to the wall because most were just incredibly set in their ways and would take their horrible habits to the grave. People around 40 right now and younger just seem to be much more capable of getting their act together health-wise. I've always wondered why. What is it about baby boomers and people older than them just seem so immune to advice regarding their health? They all just seem to get to a certain age where they say screw it, I'm riding this shitty habit train into the ground.\n",
"Because they worked out doors and their skin has seen a lot more sun. The older looking generation did live longer. ",
"I brought this up to a friend the other day. Everyone in the 80's just looked old and bald. In my opinion.",
"Yeah I remember in high school. Every year the freshman looked younger and younger. We always talked amongst each other like, \"did *we* look that young when we were freshman too?\"",
"I was watching “All I The Family” the other day and Archie Bunker said something about him being laid off from work and he’s 45 years old and too old to find another job or something like that. My jaw dropped. I’m 47! I could have sworn they played characters that were in their 60’s at least! 45? Wth?",
"Another factor beside societal change would have to be out advances in medical technology keeping us looking younger for a longer period. Think about it, people in the 1910s didn’t have our health care or cosmetic products. ",
"Testosterone has declined in men dramatically in the past 50 years as well. This goes along with skin aging, earlier onset of gray hair in times past, face and other body fat accumulation changes happening later in modern times, hair growth patterns, and secondary sex characteristics like reduced penis and testicular size. Early Tanner stages commenced later in years past, but progressed faster and puberty ended sooner overall. Medical studies of these items in teenage boys note obvious reductions. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n",
"Sunlight, if you spend more time out in the open, in the sun, you will visibly age faster. \n\nThis is a [picture of a truck driver](_URL_0_) who has had one side of his face out towards the sun for decades while the other side of his face was in the shade.\n\nOne side of the face got all the sun damage, other side remained much younger. ",
"Smoking. Before the 1990's people smoked all the time, everywhere; restaurants, buses, taxis, airplanes, hospitals, offices... Even if you didn't smoke yourself, you probably got a pretty good daily dose of tar and nicotine just being in public. On the plus side, it probably helped keep obesity rates lower. ",
"I'm surprised no one has really talked about MAKEUP. For women particularly, they looked older because they weren't wearing makeup. We are also culturally obsessed with looking young. Just look at all of the \"age defying\" cremes on the market. ",
"Diet and exercise makes a difference. We're not smoking and drinking nearly as much as older generations.",
"I have wondered the same exact thing. Look up Angela Lansbury, she looked like an 80 year old woman when she was like 50. \n\nEven when I looked at my older brother's yearbook pictures (he is 8 years older than me, graduated high school 99) I remember thinking wow, everyone in his class looked so old! ",
"They are wearing clothes that you normally think of as old people clothes. So you think of them As older people."
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efcjgf | statistics you see on tv like "every 15 seconds a accident happens." for claims that large how do they get that data? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/efcjgf/eli5_statistics_you_see_on_tv_like_every_15/ | {
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"They know the statistics for the total number of accidents over a certain time period. Then they use that to determine the average for a different time period.\n\nFor example, if they know there are 2.5 million accidents in a year, they would divide that by 365 days per year, then divide by 24 hours per day, then divide by 60 minutes per hour, then divide by 4 (because 60 secs/15=4)... which would be 1.18 accidents every 15 seconds.",
"Police reports, insurance companies, hospitals, and likely other places collect that kind of data. They would generally look at the information over a year and then take an average. \n\nEvery 15 seconds would be 4 * 60 * 24 * 365 = 2,102,400 accidents per year.",
"The simply say that something happened a total of Y occurrences during X time and do some long division. If there 40,000 accidents last week, that works out to around one every 15 seconds.\n\nAlso, it is a stupid and useless way to present a statistic, and is more about invoking an emotional response. We have no context to determine whether this is a problem. If last year, there was an accident every 5 seconds, this respresents a remarkable improvement."
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2nhbf3 | why haven't we domesticated racoons | Racoons are able to climb, they have the ability to grab certain objects, and I feel if they were trained right, they could be a service animal that wouldn't exactly replace the need for a service dog, but accompanied with to do more things such as grabbing something out of the shelf, grabbing something far away, etc.
So, with all this talk of attempts to domesticate foxes, why not racoons? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nhbf3/eli5_why_havent_we_domesticated_racoons/ | {
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"Raccoons seem to be relatively intelligent. Some people do keep raccoons as pets.\n\nBut they're problematic as pets. First of all, they're solitary animals. Social animals like dogs tend to be easier to domesticate because they're already used to living communally with members of their own species.\n\nSecondly, they tend to be aggressive and unpredictable. They don't follow commands very well, and are difficult to train. So a raccoon is unlikely to be grabbing things off the shelf for you. \n\nAnother problem is they have human-like hands and fingers and are fairly intelligent. This allows them to get into things that most domestic animals couldn't. If you had a raccoon in your house it could probably figure out how to unscrew jars and open doors and closets. It could cause a lot of problems.",
"Aside from what everyone else has said, Most raccoon also have this: Baylisascaris procyonis. Its a parasite that's in their intestinal track. I'm not biology guy, so I have no idea if you can cure up a raccoon of this parasite. It also sounds like something they probably get from birth. Its pretty much in their urine and droppings. So all that's kind of a big deal because this parasite can be deadly in humans and dogs. I really wanted a pet raccoon but they are illegal to keep as pets in this state and the parasite deal turned me off. ",
"The only reason dogs and cats are so popular as pets is because they don't have thumbs and are basically helpless to escape. \n\nIf a raccoon wants to leave, he be gone. ",
"Basically raccoons haven't interacted with man in a way that benefits man. Cats keep the rodents down and dogs alert us to intruders and can sometime protect (of course later they learned all sorts of things). When have you ever thanked a raccoon for anything? \n\nCats have been domesticated more recently than dogs and are thus a little more wild than dogs. This may be because cats became more useful later when man settled down in one place and began to farm. At that point they were beneficial for keeping our homes and grain stores free of rats."
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3p81x5 | what's the physics behind moving the arms in a looping motion when we're out of balance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p81x5/eli5_whats_the_physics_behind_moving_the_arms_in/ | {
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"Conservation of angular momentum. If you're standing on the edge of a platform, your angular momentum is zero. If you start wheeling your arms in a clockwise fashion, your trunk will have to start turning in a counterclockwise fashion so that the total angular momentum of your body is still zero. This is what you want, to get your body to rotate AWAY from the edge. So you rotate your arms in the opposite direction.\n\n"
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8kvv61 | the difference between urban, agglomeration, and metropolitan populations | What is the difference between these three terms and where does each section start and end? I find the land area/proximity for what these populations change with each city. What are the guidelines to distinguish them from one another? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kvv61/eli5_the_difference_between_urban_agglomeration/ | {
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"Metropolitan Area I think determines all villages and areas where at least 50% of the working population drive to the same city to work\n\nWhilst agglomeration only includes villages and towns directly connected to the city, like suburbs and satellites for example \n\nI could be wrong though so feel free to correct me. This is what I recall from school."
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2yp5ip | the current israeli election process, what the parties stand for and why nobody likes netanyahu. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yp5ip/eli5_the_current_israeli_election_process_what/ | {
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"In the upcoming election, Israeli citizens will vote for the parties which will become the Knesset, Israel's legislative branch. The Knesset has 120 seats. Each citizen casts a vote for one party, and then the parties get seats in the Knesset proportional to the percentage of votes they received - for example if a party gets 30% of the votes, they get 36 seats. \n\nAfter the results are announced, the president chooses one party to form a coalition of parties consisting of more than 60 members of the Knesset. The president needs to choose the party which is most likely to form a coalition - this is usually the biggest party, but not always. \n\nThe head of the party who formed the coalition becomes the prime minister, and ministers are appointed from the various parties in the coalition. \n\nAs to what each party stands for, maybe /r/Israel is a better place to ask that. \n\n\"Nobody likes Netanyahu\" the same way \"Nobody likes Obama\" - there are many who support them, and they also have a very vocal opposition. The main point\n against Netanyahu is that he focuses too much on security and Iran, and not enough about the economy and the rising costs of living. "
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a1vr4z | why can you find almost all music on the large streaming services (spotify, apple music, etc) and almost all books on similar online stores - but when it comes to movies and tv series streaming most series are exclusive to each individual streaming service? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1vr4z/eli5_why_can_you_find_almost_all_music_on_the/ | {
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"Because unlike book and music producers, the studios are all planning and/or rolling out their own streaming platforms in the next 2-3 years. They want their platform to be the only one to get their content from. Books have been sold by a reseller forever, the publishers don't have their own stores. Music has been distributed by radio ever since it was recorded (the labels didn't have their own stations). But TV networks have always had their own channels, and the movie studios have owned the TV networks for ages. "
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80ebdh | if it's possible to survive with only one half of the brain, why damaging it in other ways usually means instant death? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/80ebdh/eli5_if_its_possible_to_survive_with_only_one/ | {
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"Think you may need to rephrase the question. There are specific areas of the brain responsible for specific functions. Also if you destroy half the brain at once there is no time to adapt. With slow or progressive damage, the brain has a limited ability to adapt by forging new pathways.\n\nThere would be a difference in answering your question based on whether you are referring to the left half vs right half, or the top half vs bottom half.\n\nYou would likely have catastrophic impairment either way.\n\nIf the brain stem remains intact (bottom half), theoretically you'd still be able to breath w/o use of a ventilator. If half the brain stem is removed I'd imagine you wouldn't continue breathing on your own.\n\n",
"So this is called an anatomic hemispherectomy, and it's generally only done in children, since children have a much higher level of neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to adapt). It's also only done nowadays in cases of *severe* epilepsy or serious brain malformations. In these cases, the hemisphere that's being removed is functioning terribly to begin with--I found one article that surveyed about 50 children who'd had this surgery, and the highest IQ of any of them pre-operation was 86, with the average quite a bit lower (in the mental retardation/intellectual disability range). After surgery, most of these kids stayed about the same, with a few decreasing and one increasing. They developed some minor additional movement problems, but most of them had issues beforehand as well. It's almost like the hemisphere they removed was \"dead weight\" and, in some cases, actively hindering the rest of the brain from functioning properly. There's also, of course, major complications that can happen from this surgery--infection, something called hydrocephalus where the fluid around the brain starts to build up and swell the whole skull--you can imagine, and you can imagine why having this happen outside of a controlled surgical setting would be very likely to lead to bad outcomes!\n\nBut--brain damage that happens from not-surgery isn't always fatal! There's a very famous case in psychology of a guy named [Phineas Gage](_URL_0_) who had a giant metal rod shot through his face and brain in a construction accident, and not only survived but was relatively normal afterwards, albeit with some personality changes. Less dramatically, people get brain damage all the time, especially to their frontal lobe (area behind the forehead) in things like car accidents and fare quite well. Also, plenty of people who have small strokes get damage to specific areas of their brain and develop issues relating to the damaged area (inability to speak, inability to move parts of their body, etc.) but don't die.\n\nIf you get damage to the areas of the brainstem that directly regulate heartbeat, breathing, etc, you're going to die *very* quickly. If you have massive damage to the brain through huge strokes or big trauma, you're going to have widely distributed damage across large areas, loss of oxygen through blood loss, etc...and there may not be enough of what's left to keep you alive. But small, localized brain damage is often survivable. "
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4ja4n0 | is a lot of what they say about area 51 true? what actually happens there? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ja4n0/eli5_is_a_lot_of_what_they_say_about_area_51_true/ | {
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"There isn't a lot of publicly available information about it. Mainly just an acknowledgement of its existence, and location. What they do there is highly classified. Of course, there is a ton of discussion and speculation about it, and many reports of people coming forward with information, but it isn't always credible, and is largely unverified.\n\nThe public doesn't really *know* much about it for certain.",
"It's a big airbase in the middle of a gigantic testing range. It is massively large, incredibly flat, in the middle of nowhere, and basically doesn't have weather. All those things make it the perfect place to test out new aircraft. No storms to get caught in, nothing to hit, nobody to spy on you, and when they crash it's just another crater in a million square miles of craters.",
"It's a military base, in the middle of nowhere and they have no reason to disclose what goes on there. Is it full of alien life and massive secrets? Probably not. Is it the perfect place to test things from bombs to aircrafts without harming anyone? Yes. It's a massive flat base in the middle of the desert with no human civilization for miles. The only reason it's \"top secret\" is because it can be. They don't want people people near it and don't have to let people near it because it's in the middle of nowhere on private land. ",
"I am from new Zealand. We have an army base near waiouru in the middle of a vast unused piece of nowhere, cos its good for all the dangerous stuff to be done out there away from where people are. People arent allowed into the space except for on a public road going straight through. Nobody makes crazy theories cos its just regular old army stuff. Just cos they decide to put it in the secret category doesnt mean its full of extraterrestrials. There are plenty of more realistic explanations."
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1wt2pg | why do we have hd channels and non-hd channels? | Couldn't the broadcaster simply just broadcast HD instead and then non-HD televisions downscale? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wt2pg/eli5_why_do_we_have_hd_channels_and_nonhd_channels/ | {
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j33f1 | could someone explain basic things about reddit to a relative newbie? (things like how karma works, upvoting/downvoting, how to post links etc?) also could someone please explain what the point of karma is? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j33f1/could_someone_explain_basic_things_about_reddit/ | {
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"Many of your questions are addressed at great length in the various Help and [FAQ](_URL_0_) links at the bottom of the page. \n\n"
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au6pbi | why do we sometimes hear our own voice during a call? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/au6pbi/eli5_why_do_we_sometimes_hear_our_own_voice/ | {
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"From my experience - The speaker on the other point is that loud its audio goes back to the microphone, so you hear your own voice with a delay. "
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3wqi7g | how is it legal for companies to keep all of their money over seas to avoid paying taxes while their company is based in the united states? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wqi7g/eli5_how_is_it_legal_for_companies_to_keep_all_of/ | {
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"Because that's literally what US law says. \n\nIf a foreign subsidiary has earnings, taxes are due if the company doesn't reinvest the earnings overseas. Reinvestment literally means keeping money overseas and there are a number of investment categories (notably bonds) that allow companies to park foreign earnings. ",
"Credit to /u/Bedurndurn for this good explanation:\n\n > Because they cheat like mad to make profits gained from their holdings in the US into profits made overseas.\n\n > Here's the basic scam:\n\n > 1. Locate the country with the most favorable tax laws you can and incorporate there. In this case, we're going to go with Ireland. Sure it's a tiny country of no great economic importance, but whatever, none of that will matter.\n\n > 2. Establish some sort of intangible property in Ireland, like copyrights, patents, a logo design, whatever. It really doesn't matter.\n\n > 3. Now run your actual business wherever the fuck you want to in the world. Run a whole bunch of stores in the US that do business with US customers. Run your factories in China. The world is your oyster.\n\n > Now when tax time comes around, we've got a whole bunch of American profits. And basically 0 Irish profits, because nobody fucking lives in Ireland (The whole country has about the population of Los Angeles). If you did nothing, you'd actually have to pay US taxes and that's terrible!\n\n > Now here's where the bullshit comes in:\n\n > 1. Your US division of your company earned $X billion dollars in profit.\n\n > 2. So now your US division pays the Irish division of your company $X billion dollars to for the right to use the Irish division's intellectual property. The $X billion dollars of profit earned in the US has now vanished, so no taxes for you, Uncle Sam!\n\n > 3. Irish division, despite not actually needing to do a fucking thing, now has a giant $X billion dollar profit and it gets taxed at Ireland's generous and fairly-bribed tax rate. \n\n > The TL/DR is that if you're a multinational, you can basically allocate whatever actual profits you earn around the world to whatever tax haven countries you like.\"\n\n",
"The way the US determines taxes for big companies is based off of profits. If you declare your profits overseas instead of in the US, then you pay less in taxes. \n\nWhatever your personal feelings are about whether this is ethical, morally neutral, whatever, it is definitionally not a scam. It's entirely legal and the US could close this method of avoiding taxes if it wanted to--but it's a more complex problem than some people make it out to be.\n\nOne concern is that if you close tax avoidance plans in the US, companies will move more business to tax havens in other parts of the world. This is a trend that has already been growing to a certain extent. ",
"Because the companies that are doing this have foreign companies with the same name, and that money is generated overseas.\n\nFor example, someone born in the United Kingdom and is not a US citizen, does not pay US federal income taxes on their income, they pay UK taxes.\n\nThe corporations incorporate under the same name usually, but legally, it's not a US company. It'll be a UK company, that UK company is essentially only liable for UK taxes. They sell the product in the UK, they make profits in the UK, they keep profits in UK or transport the profits to another non-US entity. The US is never part of the picture.\n\nThere is no fix for this, trying to fix this will just result in them using different names and claiming they are different, and policing it would be pretty futile.\n\nThe United States is one of the only countries in the world, that taxes a citizens worldwide income, that is, if you move out of the US, and start a life somewhere else, if you have US citizenship, you have to pay both the foreign taxes and US taxes.",
"International tax CPA here. The very short and (over)simplified answer is that a US taxpayer with a foreign subsidiary (i.e., a foreign corporation owned in whole or part by the US taxpayer) is only taxed on the foreign corporation's active business profits when those profits are brought back to the US. That's just how the rules are written by Congress (the Internal Revenue Code) and the IRS/Treasury (the Regulations and certain other authoritative guidance). Of course, there are exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions, but that's the general answer.",
"The problem is if you talk about eliminating this law and remove the penalty for bringing the money home people will scream that you are subsidizing corporations are giving out corporate welfare",
"Because when a company builds a factory in Tawain, then they sell something from that factory in Tawain to someone in Japan. Japan taxes them, Tawain taxes them...\n\nWhy then would the US also be allowed to tax them if they never bring any of that money to the USA?\n\nSee if they leave that money in Tawain or Japan (where it was already taxed) then they don't have to pay MORE taxes on it.\n\nIf they bring that money home, then they have to pay ANOTHER 33% of it to yet another government.\n\n\nWhy should the USA be allowed to tax money that has nothing to do with the USA?\n\n",
"Because it is both a very big and very small world now days.\n\nCompanies are no longer dependent on a country to make money.\n\nIf the taxes are high in one country the company can go to another country and keep selling its product with lower taxes\n\nThe US allows companies to keep their overseas profits without taxing them as long as they stay over seas.\n\nThis allows a company to grow without just flat out leaving the USA all together",
"The real question is why should a US company pay taxes on money earned overseas when that country's tax has already been paid?",
"Because those companies have a fiduciary duty to do with the most favorable tax laws you can and incorporate there.",
"The irony is that there are lots of companies that are not trying to dodge taxes altogether, but just don't want to be taxed twice on the same income. They earn the money in France and pay ridiculous taxes there, and don't want to be taxed again bringing the money back to the U.S.\n\nSo, they are stuck investing that money in France instead of back home.",
"We have the same problem here on the UK too.\n\nIn fact I think Vodafone alone save more in tax avoidance every year then our entire welfare bill.\n\nSo with Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft etc etc also avoiding. And a failing NHS and public sector problems maybe it's time to change such a ridiculous law and stop giving privileges to the wealthy.",
"It's paid to holding companies in the United Kingdom and is not profitable but bringing it home for an ad in Germany.",
"May I ask why are you asking this type of question, it seems the social narrative regarding this issue has had a lot of confusion in the past. Mainly by the left propaganda machine making it into \"Rich Evil CEO not paying taxes and keeping the poor down\"\n\nIt is not legal for companies to keep their money over seas to avoid paying taxes . it is legal for companies to earn money over seas and pay taxes on them in that country, but since the money never leaves that country its not considered over seas.\n\nA lot of people are asking, \"Can I send my money over seas to avoid paying taxes\"\n\nThis shows a lack of understanding, unfortunately its this misunderstanding which is going to get companies double taxed \n",
"There is so much misinformation here. Apple US isn't sending any money to Apple Ireland. All money that apple makes in the US is taxed in the US. Indeed, Apple paid more taxes last year than any other company except Chevron and Exxon.\n\nThe sole purpose of apple Ireland is to aggregate profits from sales in foreign countries. When apple sells iphones in france, they pay taxes in France, then that profit is sent to Ireland. Unlike the US, most countries in the world don't tax foreign earnings that have already been taxed in the originating country, Ireland is just one of those countries. If those profits were instead sent to the US, they would be taxed twice, once in the original foreign country and again in the US.\n\nAll the current US laws do is prevent Americans from benefiting from sales in foreign countries and ensures all money made overseas stays overseas and is reinvested overseas instead of the US.",
"The better question to ask yourself is, why do you imagine the USA should get this tax money?\n\nSeems obvious to me that, say, all the sales Valve and Amazon make in Europe from European people buying their products should be taxed in Europe and go to those European countries where they are doing business.\n\nOf course, at the moment, many of these companies are playing a game to avoid tax at home and abroad, but this isn't cheating the USA out of anything.",
"How are tax laws ratified is the essense of the question. Its politics and lobbys. Money has the power to make rules for those with the money to keep the money.",
"Because in the U.S., and most other countries, a company is a separate legal entity and therefore its own taxpayer. Unlike most other countries, the U.S. taxes its residents on their world wide income. In the corporate world companies often own other companies. This happens through mergers and natural growth and is not always done for tax purposes. When expanding internationally a U.S. company (Parent) will likely set up a company in the foreign jurisdiction (Sub). The Parent funds the Sub and the Sub goes out and hires its own employees and builds its own products. When the Sub earns money from selling things, it pays tax to the foreign jurisdiction. The U.S. would like to tax that money too, and sometimes it does, but generally the U.S. will wait until the Sub issues a dividend to its parent. This is the same for individuals, we don't pay tax on the stock we own until the company issues a dividend or we sell the stock. When the Parent receives this dividend the U.S. considers the taxes paid as part of the dividend amount. So, if Sub earned $100 and paid $25 in foreign tax it could issue a $75 dividend to Parent. If Sub issues the full $75 dividend the U.S. considers Parent as having received a $100 dividend. But, Parent is allowed a $25 foreign tax credit. Parent would have a $40 U.S. tax liability, reduced by the $25 foreign tax credit, therefore paying $15 to the U.S. Remember, Parent, through Sub, already paid $25 to foreign country. \n\n\nIf you were to consider buying a share of Parent then, from a common sense perspective, you would probably include the value of Sub. Thus, under U.S. accounting principals the income and assets of Sub are included in Parent's accounting and reporting. This is why it looks like Parent is \"hiding\" money overseas. But, if the U.S. were to tax all of Subs income when it earned it then Sub would have a hard time competing against foreign owned companies in the foreign country. The U.S. realizes that there is some potential for abuse here which is why there are many rules to prevent basic abuses. These laws are generally known as \"Subpart F.\"\n\n\nSubpart F is where the U.S. says that Parent really could have done that and therefore Parent will be taxable on Sub's activities currently through a deemed dividend. Subpart F covers Sub's passive income like interest, rent, royalties, dividends, etc. Subpart F also includes certain \"active\" activities of Sub. Parent pays tax on Subpart F income in the year Sub earns it, whether or not Sub pays a dividend. Because Subpart F operates as a \"deemed dividend\" Parent generally gets to use any foreign taxes paid to offset its tax liability. \n\n\nGoing much further takes you down a deep rabbit hole but I'd be happy to provide answers to any specific questions.\n\n\nSource: I'm an international tax attorney with an LLM from Georgetown.",
"Okay, a *really* simple example of *one* way this can be done. A shoe company starts out in the states. It grows and does a great job. Lets say they open a factory in China to meet demand. Bringing the shoes into the states they sell them for a large profit. Fair enough right? \n\nNow, for legal reasons in China they set up the factory as a separate company, that they buy the shoes from. Lets pretend that these shoes go for 60 bucks in America. What if they buy the shoes for 50 dollars instead of the cost $1.25? Suddenly their profits in the states are razor thin but in the lower tax country the profits are much much higher. \n\nNow there are special tax laws, import duties, trade agreements and banking acts that try to stop this, and many more creative plans. But people will find a way. \n\ntl;dr - they can do it because they are very motivated to find loopholes in the tax code."
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5cx5v7 | why people with attractive/nice sounding speaking voices don't always have good singing voices | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cx5v7/eli5_why_people_with_attractivenice_sounding/ | {
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"Singer here. I can't come up with a short, pithy answer to the question so I'll supply what little I know from vocal pedagogy. It's worth noting that the reverse can also be true (horrendous speaking voice, gorgeous vocals...Kristen Chenoweth comes to mind).\n\nSpeaking voice is to singing voice what driving a car is to riding a bicycle...similar principles are involved, but the applications are rather different.\n\nSpeaking and singing both involve using breath and the vocal chords to generate sound with variations in duration (length), pitch (frequency), intensity (volume) and timbre (tone quality, more music-related, but still applicable in speaking). When someone is speaking, the duration, pitch and timbre aspects of this recipe happen over a highly compressed time frame, fractions of a second. What is known as inflection in speech is really just a person sliding from one band of frequencies to another.\n\nWhen a person is singing (at least in the classical sense of the term), the frequency changes are typically steps rather than slides, meaning that the singer's control of their breath and vocal chords has to be such that they can reproduce a given pitch on demand with little to no margin for error. It is entirely possible to have a pleasant speaking voice but not have the fine motor control in the diaphragm and larynx to pull off the singing part of the equation.\n\nThis little explanation ignores a host of other factors, such as potential tone-deafness, proper vowel shapes (try singing classical Latin with a Boston or Brooklyn accent), vibrato and other acoustical jiggery-pokery. It's also worth noting that, as in all kinds of art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are such vast differences, even among trained vocalists, in timbre that what sounds good to you might sound like nails on a chalkboard to everyone else.",
"Thats basically like asking why cant a guy with the best tools build a house. Voice is something you are born with, the ability to sing is something you learn and train."
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9y92b0 | why is the fascist dictator franco still so loved in spain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9y92b0/eli5_why_is_the_fascist_dictator_franco_still_so/ | {
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"Fascism is the Authoritarian Right and is built primarily upon nationalism and populism. This means that when they are established (at least at first) there is a lot of national pride, and a lot of public support for what they do. \n\nFranco in particular also did not keep his regime fully fascist. As his reign went on he slowly gave up power, first by allowing pluralism in the parties, then delegating power to different elected officials, before eventually reinstalling the Monarchy before his death. He basically adapted over times to the needs of the country giving up control as it was needed and beneficial. Because of this many admire his time as leader despite the totalitarian practices of his early reign. ",
"Under Franco, Spain experienced an economic boom that made them into a true, first-world, industrialized country.\n\nHe gave the Catholic Church a prominent place in Spanish society, which many devout Catholics approved of\n\nHe promoted a strong Spanish identity, brutally suppressing the languages and customs of Spain’s minority groups.\n\nHe was a devoted anti-Communist\n\nAlso, during the last 20 or so years of his rule, he wasn’t a totalitarian dictator anymore, more of a strongman like Vladimir Putin in Russia or Ergdoan in Turkey",
"A Spaniard who was a devoted admirer of Franco once told me that the main reason so many other Spaniards admired him was because he kept them out of WW2."
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81shhu | who decided how much money each country is worth? like, how come a country couldn't have just decided themselves that they have trillions of pounds and be really rich? how is it controlled? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81shhu/eli5_who_decided_how_much_money_each_country_is/ | {
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"Countries are only worth as much as their GDP, or gross domestic product. This means if 100 businesses sold an item each that was worth $1, that means the GDP is $100. This has to be tracked though and so underground business do not count",
"Before paper money was a thing, countries used gold (gold standard) as terms of wealth. Then the US stopped to use paper money for economical growth.",
"Countries aren't \"worth money\". \n\nWhen you loan money to a govenrment it's not their real estate that's collateral. It's their tax revenue. If a country prints more money, it makes their money worth less, like a company issuing more shres of stock.",
"They do this exact thing sometimes, and it leads to hyper-inflation. In July 2008 it took 758,530,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars to equal ONE US Dollar.\n\nThat's like me saying \"I'm the King of France!\". It's all well and good while I'm walking around the house in my royal underwear, but the minute I walk outside and interact with the real world, everyone ignores me or laughs at me.\n\nAt some point you have to do business with the rest of the world, and to do that you have to agree what your currency is worth relative to the other parties. Nobody \"controls\" it, it's just the nature of commerce.",
"GDP measures wealth, not how much money you have. Printing more money is like cutting a pizza into smaller pieces. You might have more slices, but you don't have more pizza.\n\nGDP is typically normalized into a stable, standard currency like the dollar or the euro."
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35hczm | does the colour of your skin affect your chances of getting skin cancer? | Genuine question, not trying to be racist | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35hczm/eli5_does_the_colour_of_your_skin_affect_your/ | {
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"Yes, in a big way. Dark skin contains melanin, a dark pigment that absorbs the damaging Ultra-Violet light harmlessly before it can strike delicate DNA molecules."
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17nzlx | how to read and write binary code. | I want to know how to read and write in Binary Code, but i have little understanding of what to do. I once heard that you were supposed to separate it into chunks of 8 numbers (ex. "11010010 01001001" *note i used random '0' s and '1' s) but i have no idea if this is truly how to break it up or where to go from there. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17nzlx/eli5_how_to_read_and_write_binary_code/ | {
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"There isn't *a* \"binary code.\" There are *many* ways of representing useful information as numbers and storing those numbers as sequences of binary digits.\n\nIf you wanted, you could go look up one of those ways and do the arithmetic yourself, but there'd be absolutely no reason to do so. There is nothing in the world that's written in \"binary code\" for you to read, and if you wrote something in \"binary code\" there'd be nobody who's interested in reading it.",
"To read binary, at least the basics, all you need to do is take the binary code, for example 0010 and multiply the numbers separately but by a factor of 2. That means the very first number, which is \"0\" is to be multiplied by 1. The next number, \"1\", is to be multiplied by 2. The 3rd number, \"0\", multiplied by 4 and the 4th number, \"0\" multiplied by 8.\nYour results should be as followed:\n1. 0\n2. 2\n3. 0\n4. 0\n\nadd all of them together (0+2+0+0) and you should get \"2\" in 'readable' value. \nI'll check my old programming books for how to convert regular characters or numbers into binary. But this website helped me out a bit when I was still learning this: _URL_0_",
"Instead of a number system with 0-9, let's use a number system with just 0-1. Now let's count.\n\n(0-9) , (0-1)\n\n0 , 0\n\n1 , 1\n\n2 , 10\n\n3 , 11\n\n4 , 100\n\n5 , 101\n\n6 , 110\n\n7 , 111\n\n8 , 1000\n\n9 , 1001\n\n10 , 1010\n\n11 , 1011\n\n12 , 1100\n\n13 , 1101\n\n14 , 1110\n\n15 , 1111\n\n\nSee, all I'm doing is incrementing just like when you go from 9 to 10 you increment by flipping the 9 to a 0 and putting a 1 at the front. We just increment faster with a binary number system instead of a decimal system.\n\nWhat is so special about binary? Well, simply because there are only 2 states instead of 10 states in our normal decimal number system. Something can either be \"on\" or \"off\", that is the 2 states of binary. So it's just convenient to use.\n\nIf you had 4 light switches next to one another, you could create the above numbers 0-15 by flipping each of the 4 light switches to match the pattern above (you would put leading 0's in front of the numbers, so 0 - > 0000, 1 - > 0001, 2 - > 0010 , etc).\n\nThat basically then tells you.. hmm, I need 4 items (light switches) to represent 16 numbers (0-15). And you just go from there. What if you want to represent 65536 numbers? That requires 16 light switches. Ever heard of 16-bit? That means you are using 16 light switches to represent every number. Thus you can represent numbers from 0 - 65535. Want to store numbers that are higher? Let's add more light switches. 32 light switches (or 32-bit) will give you 2,147,483,648 values to represent.\n\nWant to represent a letter in binary? Easy. You just need to be able to create 26 different states. You need 5 light switches for that. 00000 = A, 00001 = B, 00010 = C, 00011 = D, 00100 = E, etc.\n\nAll of our underlying electronics are just sitting there constantly looking at groups of light switches to represent things we want to see.\n"
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3imdwn | why some foods like chilli con carne taste better reheated the next day | As per the title
Also, I'm cooking chilli con carne right now, hence the question. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3imdwn/eli5_why_some_foods_like_chilli_con_carne_taste/ | {
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"Some foods get better as the ingredients have more time for the flavors to meld... the meat absorbs more of the spices and other flavors instead of just being coated in them and same for other ingredients.",
"Mostly has to do with flavors melding, which is why things like stew, which has a lot of ingredients, taste better after a sitting period. The vegetables and meat meld together to make a mixture of complimentary flavors, rather than many separate flavors."
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4afk8f | when you spray compressed/canned air, what is the liquid that comes out when excessively sprayed? | I was cleaning the inside of my computer, and a drop of liquid from the can dropped on my motherboard and dried unreasonably fast for water. Would it be harmful? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4afk8f/eli5_when_you_spray_compressedcanned_air_what_is/ | {
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"No, not harmful. the gas in the can is compressed to the point that it has turned into a liquid. If you spray it to fast, or spray with the can upside down, some of it comes out as liquid. Definitely will not hurt your motherboard. ",
"When you compress any gas, it turns into a liquid. Liquids are basically incompressible, so liquid state is the best storage you can get for that chemical. \n \nWhen you release the pressure, the liquid quickly evaporates back into a gas, but evaporation uses energy, and that energy usage cools the gas very quickly. That's why gas cans get cold when you use them a lot very quickly. Eventually you can release so much gas so quickly, that the temperature drops low enough to stop some of the liquid evaporating as quickly. This is the liquid you see, the same compressed gas that is now so cold, it can't evaporate as quickly as normal.",
"So-called \"canned air\" is really some kind of freon or freon-like substance.\n\nIf you spray it a lot, the stuff that comes out will be liquid freon or freon-like substance.\n\nIf you want to know what the exact freon-like substance is, you should read the label."
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7ln8vo | what is the purpose of getting a credit card if you already have the money to spend? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ln8vo/eli5what_is_the_purpose_of_getting_a_credit_card/ | {
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"Lots of credit card companies offer rewards for using their card. If you're making your payments and not paying interest on your card, you have the potential to come out ahead. ",
"Credit cards are a good way to build credit as long as you have the will power to not spend more than you can afford. Also, emergencies occur. And 3rd, it's easier/safer to carry a credit card than cash in a lot of instances.",
"It builds credit, which will help you in the long run. If you ever want to finance anything or mortgage, a car, personal loans, etc., you will get much better interest rates.",
"If you can buy stuff on credit, and then pay your bill off every month without collections agencies - that builds your credit score, and makes you eligible for less shitty deals in mortgages and other ventures in the future.",
"Establish and build credit...as long as you make your monthly payments on time. CC also give you a measure of protection with your purchases that does not come with cash or does not comes as easily with cash, there is a sort of built-in insurance. CC allows me to drive up to the pump and purchase gas without having to go into the store. I use zero cash...ever. I only use CC. Never debit, only credit. I live in a small rural town but I have never had to forego purchasing anything because I had no cash. Everyone takes CC these days. You are not held responsible should anyone steal your CC info and use it to purchase items either at a store or online. I use one CC for online purchases and a totally different one for all other purchases, from groceries to gas. I make sure to pay off the balance each month on both. ",
"I think there are three statistics that really answer your question. \n\n1. average credit card debt (per card) is $4800\n2. average age that a credit card holder opens their account is 20\n3. average number of credit cards per person is 4\n\nfrom 1. $4800 on its own isn't a huge loan. People will use their credit cards on less serious purchases e.g. food, drinks, experiences etc. as opposed to more bank-breaking items like new technology, cars etc. and as such the average person can push reality to the side and feel less guilty by making these relatively smaller purchases with interest rates of 20+%.\n\nfrom 2. the most obvious factor is that the average credit card holder is naive. They again feel less guilty and are more likely to not think about the consequences of opening an expensive account. \n\nfrom 3. average number of credit cards per person is 4. There are over one billion credit cards in the USA... This figure really exemplifies the limited and basic means testing for obtaining a credit card.\n\nI think it is unfair to assume that people already do have the money to spend, however for those that do (people that aren't already caught in the systemic and nearly inescapable cycle of poverty) it makes sense given the dangerously easy access to credit cards, and the small and relatively inexpensive items that are purchased using cards. ",
"because it's easier to put $1000 purchase or 100 random $5.27 purchases on a card than it is to carry the cash and change. It also lets you keep track of what you spent it on. ",
"My credit card (Canadian, VISA) has lots of benefits to using it over a conventional card, or cash. \n\n1. The limit is 1000, which I don't get close to and pay onto bi-weekly. So essentially, I never have to worry about money on the card/declines (I have money in different places, like two different savings accounts) \n\n2. I get cash rewards for using the card. 29 dollars or so I've earned just for buying something I would have regardless. \n\n3. Paying it off is easy, it takes 30 seconds of my life to transfer funds onto the account "
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3be0j1 | tension headaches | Just had one today when fapping. What are they and what causes them? Will I be able to fap again today? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3be0j1/eli5_tension_headaches/ | {
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"The muscles in the back of your neck/upper back are too tense, which feels like a headache. You can prevent this by doing daily neck stretching or moving around more (get off your computer). If they stay (I've had them for over a year, daily) see a doctor or fysiotherapist. "
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2wpmew | 1099 taxes how do they work? | Hi guys I am just out of Highschool and started working for an independent Contractor who isn't an LLC so he is not required to use W2 and instead is using a 1099 form. This is my first time using a 1099 form for taxes and was wondering if his explaination was fairly correct.
His Explanation: Say you make 7000 dollars this year there is a Gov't write-off/deductible of around 5000 dollars, so there is only 2000 dollars being taxed at the tax rate of 20-30% so you will only owe a few hundred dollars at most.
Could you guys explain to me if that is correct? Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wpmew/eli51099_taxes_how_do_they_work/ | {
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"1099's generally require you to pay 15.3% of your income. Presuming your single and your parents aren't claiming you on their taxes you will owe approximately $1050.00.\n\nThe self employment tax is separate from typical deductions. You are able to deduct any expenses you incurred while preforming the work as an independent contractor (mileage, supplies, sometimes your cellphone or home office if you use it exclusively for work, etc...).",
"It's a game of hot potato. 1099 is an income statement. It works by reporting to the IRS that party A, the guy you work for As a contractor, paid party B, that's you, money. Party B also gets a copy. The 1099 works by reducing party A tax liability by the amount indicated. While putting tax liability on Party B.\n\nEmployers pay employees wages; Businesses pay contractors for services. Employers are required to withhold payroll taxes; your fed, you state, your local, and other \"your\" liabilities, including SS/Medic, AND they match your SS/Medic. Businesses pay contractors and avoid all that withholding rigamarole. \n\nIt's efficient and it's questionable. It's efficient, because the business avoids all the payroll clerk duties. And they should, it's non productive activity. Competitive businesses should not be engaged in non-productive activities. It's questionable, because it puts youngsters like you in jeopardy of not being able to pay your taxes when they come due. \n\nThink getting paid 1000 per month while accruing about 200/tax liability. You spend the grand 100% each month. At the end of the year, you will be owing the IRS $2400, but you have $0. \n\nHow it works #1: YOU NEED TO SAVE ABOUT 20% OF EACH CHECK AS TAXES.\n\nIF I pay you $10/hr as an employee, you cost me about $14/hr. $10 plus $0.77 for my half SS/Medic plus $0.6 for workers comp plus $0.7 for unemployment insurance and another $2 in other stuff. If I pay you $10/hr as contractor, you cost me $10/hr. You cost me less plus you are on the hook for $0.77 in SS/Medic. So you are really only getting $9.23/hr\n\nHow it works #2: IF PAID AS A CONTRACTOR, YOU MUST NEGOTIATE FOR A HIGHER RATE OF PAY TO OFFSET EMPLOYER'S SS/MEDIC LIABILITY.\n\nOther than that. Enjoy your job and earning money. Pay your taxes. Cheers. \n"
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2rynhb | if people need to exercise to be healthy and live long, how do people like stephen hawkings live for so long? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rynhb/eli5_if_people_need_to_exercise_to_be_healthy_and/ | {
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"That is oversimplifying it. Having a healthy lifestyle won't directly make you live longer. It will simply reduce your chances of getting diseases that shorten your life e.g diabetes, heart disease. Hawking has been quite lucky to live this long with ALS."
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||
1phl7q | why does congress keep passing new legislation, even if its purpose is to negate parts or whole pieces of old legislation? | Why not just keep things simple and repeal the old? Doesn't that just make our laws ridiculously complicated? Apologies if this has been asked, I am new to Reddit and my search skills might suck a little. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1phl7q/eli5_why_does_congress_keep_passing_new/ | {
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"Legislation that just removes previous legislation IS a repeal, but rarely does congress later decide that every part of a previous law is bad. Normally they passed it for some reason, and later they just want to tweak it to better fit current situations/policies"
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21lvme | how much of a risk are birds to airplanes, and why haven't we solved that problem?! | With the news of the jetBlue plane having to make an emergency landing because it hit one bird, how is that even that big of a deal? It seems to me that it would just bang, hit the bird, obliterate it, and keep on flying. Is this still a risk for transatlantic/pacific flights? I hate the thought of my plane going down in the atlantic, just because of a little bird... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21lvme/eli5_how_much_of_a_risk_are_birds_to_airplanes/ | {
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"I believe Mythbusters did an episode on what a bird could do to a mere car's windshield. Now, compare that to forcing a bird through a turbine (which is only meant to handle air). So yes, it's a risk for any aircraft, but most pilots know to avoid flocks, most planes generally fly far above where birds fly (except takeoff and landing), and many planes have multiple engines so they can keep going even if one gets seagulled.",
"For most of the flight you are way above where birds are, it's really only a danger at the start and end of the flight. \n\nPlanes have multiple engines.\n\nThere isn't much you can do to block the bird. The plane is going several hundred MPH, and the turbines need free airflow. There is nothing you can put in front of them that will block a bird while not impeding the airflow.",
"airports that regularly have bird problems will use air cannons or other means to scare birds away.",
"Striking anything at several hundred miles per hour is going to be a problem - there's not really any way around that. Aircraft are designed to be as light as possible - which means their external skin is made of very thin aluminum. We can't use anything heavier that might better resist bird strikes without hugely affecting the aircraft's performance and efficiency.\n \nIt's also a problem for the engines because they're sucking in a truly massive quantity of air - which means that anything that gets close enough to the engine inlet is getting sucked in with it. As /u/Silent_Talker says, it's not as simple as putting some type of screen in front of the engine to keep objects out, as this would destroy the performance of the engine. \n\nReally the only way to avoid bird strikes is to avoid flying into birds.",
"Bird strikes are a huge problem during take-off and landing and frankly we can solve it but people get all excited when you say you're going to \"kill all the birds.\" Airports use pyrotechnics and landscape control to keep birds away from the airfield. I think I heard that the Port Authority in New York actually uses a hawk.\n\nHowever, even these methods can have problems. I worked at an airport and went out with the wildlife control guys one day. We had to call the local cops to tell them we were setting off pyrotechnics because neighbors had been known to report them as gun shots (which they are). Also the neighbors didn't take to kindly to the noise especially if we had to set some off at 8am on a Sunday morning.\n\nAnother problem is that birds can become desensitized to the things we do to scare them away. Recently they tried installing bird radar so that ATC can work around them if they are around the airfield."
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6hzaej | why videos don't load continuously, smooth way and load in small 'jumps' | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hzaej/eli5_why_videos_dont_load_continuously_smooth_way/ | {
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"Imagine a day at the office. You're juggling twenty things; scheduling meetings, talking on the phone, filling out tickets, talking with coworkers, etc. your computer (and the computer you are streaming the video from) are a lot like you (and a coworker) at the office. You talk when you can for as long as you can, but when it comes to it you need to go do your work and you can come back to that conversation when you are both free again.\n\nNow for your computer this conversation doesn't happen over the entire day (hopefully) or weeks it happens over seconds or minutes but it's still the same concept. You're computer is juggling a bunch of tasks and the server you're streaming from is simultaneously holdings (potentially) millions of conversations.\n\nThen there is how the conversation actually takes place...the conversation intentionally takes place is small parts (called file chunking) for a lot of reasons. ",
"Assuming you mean streaming videos from the internet: They seem to download in chunks because each packet of data can take a totally separate pathway through the internet from the server to you. The internet is a complicated and busy place and the traffic patterns constantly shift. When the video seems to take an extra moment to load a section, this is because your computer is waiting for enough packets to arrive to assemble them back into the frames that make up the video. Because they arrive out of order, it takes a certain amount of time before the computer knows it has enough packets in the right order to make up enough frames to playback with the minimal number of pauses. ",
"Imagine you're at a buffet selling only m & ms (in this case, bandwidth) with only one guy handing the candy out to people.\n\nsome people will go up to the man with an empty bucket and ask for m & ms, instead of filling everyone's bucket to the top he will put in only a big handful, topping them up as they need. this is useful in many ways.\n\n\nSome people wont eat all the m & ms and what you've given them would go in the bin and be a waste of resources. \n\nSometimes there will be many people at once asking for m & ms and it will be faster to partially fill everyone's bucket up rather than totally fill everyone one at a time. this way everyone can start eating and continue getting topped up when they're running low.\n\nThis also frees up some of your own bandwidth and computer resources to use on other stuff while watching the video. i guess the analogy here would be carrying around a lighter bucket",
"They used to. You used to be able to buffer an entire YouTube video by just leaving it paused for a while. Most video sites have switched to [DASH](_URL_0_) videos, which load in chunks as you see now. There are a couple of reasons for this. When you click on a video, there is a good chance you're not going to watch the entire video. When YouTube lets the full video keep loading, they are wasting bandwidth sending you data you will never use. So, loading in chunks can save them, and possibly you, money. The other benefit is that they can monitor your download rate and switch to a chunk from a lower quality (and thus smaller) copy when you hit the end of your current chunk. Similarly, they can switch to a higher quality copy if you have enough bandwidth. This allows you to keep watching the video without it pausing to buffer if your internet connection gets slow. The trade off is that you can't just select the highest quality and let it buffer the whole video. So, if you have a slow connection, it is harder to watch a video in higher quality. "
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2eqabm | how mobile phones or other devices can lose gprs/3g/4g signal without being moved | You know the drill. Your iPhone has been on your desk with 2 bars of signal and connection to 3G for quite a while. But suddenly, poof! The signal disappears, and you're stuck with slowass GPRS. What causes this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eqabm/eli5_how_mobile_phones_or_other_devices_can_lose/ | {
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"The cellphone towers can only handle a given number of devices at a single time. A saturated cellphone tower may give priority to a different device, and stop broadcasting to yours."
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7odvy5 | why do flags flap in the wind instead of lining up with the wind like a weather vane? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7odvy5/eli5_why_do_flags_flap_in_the_wind_instead_of/ | {
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"Turbulence. The movement of the wind sucks the tip or middle of the flag a little to one side, then it overreacts and goes the other way.\n\n",
"A weather vane is made of a material where everything must stay aligned with everything else and then it rotates around an anchor point. \n\nIn a flag, any particular piece of the flag (take a 1cm section) can \"rotate around\" the piece of the flag it is next to - it's not rigid, and is only contained by the fact it must stay attached to the rest of the flag. As a result, the flag \"flaps\" because wind hits different parts of the flag differently, many times because part of the flag blocks the wind hitting another part AND because gravity can pull the flag down.\n\nIf you shape a flag like a \"sock\" (aka a wind sock) then it is more likely to have a uniform direction of flow because you've more tightly restricted how one piece of the flag can move relative to the rest of the flag.\n\nedit: spelling",
"Air motion causes a \"snowball effect\", a positive feedback that makes any slight bend in the flag bigger.\n\nAs a general rule, if air goes around a curve, there will be a pressure force that pushes the air toward the inside of the curve. If the flag has a slight bulge outward to, say, the right, that means that the left side of the flag will have high pressure in contact with the flag, the right side will have low pressure. That pressure force will push the flag to the right, making the bulge more extreme, and so on."
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dmt9wt | how does rockstar (and other video games) make cities that are only a few blocks/streets wide look like sprawling metropolises? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dmt9wt/eli5_how_does_rockstar_and_other_video_games_make/ | {
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"In two words: camera trickery.\n\nHave you ever seen the YouTube series Boundary Break from Shesez? He takes video game cameras to places they were never meant to be. When you watch it, you will understand how a game that contains very few 3D assets, looping animations, some far-away-looking 2D sprites and a skybox, can, with the right camera angles, look like a massive populated metropolis.\n\nFrom the perspective of the player's camera, if you can't see that the city actually ends 3 blocks away and extends out to nothingness, it's going to feel like a sprawling city. Fly over that same city in a plane, and you'll traverse it in mere seconds, doesn't feel so big anymore (though that can also be mitigated somewhat by having unrealistically slow vehicles and aircraft). View the city from above and you'll see the reality.\n\nAs for the biomes, that's not so much camera trickery as it is balancing realism with fun. They're not natural distances you're covering. They're long enough to feel like you're travelling a significant distance from eg. city to country areas, but short enough that you're not bored from travelling a real-world hour to get there. They also design the roads, landscape, NPC spawn rate etc to prevent any jarring biome transitions. It's basically good map/world design that does this.",
"Using in their favor our preconceptions from the real world. \n\nWe are used to real cities changing structure, types of buildings, heights, building materials, etc. to change slowly and only after many blocks have passed. \n\nTo go from skyscrapers to suburb shaped houses in a real city you have to drive a few kms and cross many types of architecture. \n\nGames compress those changes in architecture, having just a few blocks of each type instead of dozens, and also using lots of types, so when you move just a few blocks you have crossed several neighborhoods and your real world preconceptions tell you \"I must have walked/driven for miles\".",
"One technique is to use bending streets. This gives the \"as far as the eye can see\" illusion. This technique is interesting because it makes it look like things go on and on while you are moving, but makes it seem like you are in a small secluded neighbourhood when you are standing still. Consequently this technique is also used in real life in modern residential neighbourhood planning. It makes neighbourhoods seem less sprawling to the individual residents. Also with bending streets you can change up the architecture with the bends, so you can cram 3 different neighbourhoods into a single street. It also makes the streets physically longer than they could be in a straight line. This also makes navigation more difficult which adds to the illusion of size.\n\nAdditionally the buildings are smaller than they would be in reality but large enough to be believable. If you go into any general store in rdr2 it looks big enough and accommodates a variety of products, but it is invariably not enough to actually support the population of the town. You probably go into some of the houses and think, well this is quaint, but sufficient. In real life the majority of houses on the game are about the size of you bedroom. \n\nFinally, there is a concept of \"a lot\". This is the point at which you brain stops actually counting things and just decides there are a lot of things. In organized systems of clusters or symmetric groups your brain can count large numbers of things quickly, sometimes up to 20 or 30. In chaotic/randomized groups the \"a lot\" threshold drops down in the range of 7 to 10. So if you have 7 to 10 non symmetric buildings of different shapes and sizes, your brain thinks, this is a lot of buildings. Do that 10 times and your brain starts thinking this is massive and complex.\n\nTo be fair, saint denis is massive and complex, and is an impressive feat of design and optimization,but it is helped by some clever illusions. \nSo small buildings, bent streets"
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6kxm2v | what's actually happening after lifting weights that makes the muscles feel like they're trying to push their way out of the skin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kxm2v/eli5_whats_actually_happening_after_lifting/ | {
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"When you work out a muscle, fibres that make up that muscle tear, that's what causes muscles to hurt later. Immediately after the workout blood rushes to the area to try and fix the damaged caused, this temporarily makes the muscles feel bigger because they're expanded with blood.",
"You achieved the pump!\nThey're swollen with so much blood that they are stretching the skin that's covering them taught. So it feels like exactly what it is.",
"The greatest feeling you can get in a gym, or the most satisfying feeling you can get in the gym is... The Pump. Let's say you train your biceps. Blood is rushing into your muscles and that's what we call The Pump. You muscles get a really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute, and it's really tight - it's like somebody blowing air into it, into your muscle. It just blows up, and it feels really different. It feels fantastic. \n\nIt's as satisfying to me as, uh, coming is, you know? As, ah, having sex with a woman and coming. And so can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am like, uh, getting the feeling of coming in a gym, I'm getting the feeling of coming at home, I'm getting the feeling of coming backstage when I pump up, when I pose in front of 5,000 people, I get the same feeling, so I am coming day and night. I mean, it's terrific. Right? So you know, I am in heaven"
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3nalxb | why (for the most part) things that seemed cool as a child don't seem cool as an adult? why don't we just keep accumulating interests as we age? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nalxb/eli5_why_for_the_most_part_things_that_seemed/ | {
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"Part of it will be this:\nGenerally things that are interesting to us are non-trivial. Once you know enough about something it can become trivial to you and thus invoke no interest in you. For example as a kid playing tic-tac-toe might seem interesting to you but once you understand that if both people are good enough you'll always end in a tie the game becomes trivial and uninteresting.",
"What do people lose interest in?\n\nChances are the kid that liked collecting bugs as a kid is still going to like entomology. Kids that like cars are going to like working on cars. Kids who like dinosaurs are still going to like dinosaurs.\n\nThey might not always get a job in that field, but that doesn't mean that they lose interest. It just means that they prioritize making money so that they can pursue those interests in other ways.",
"Maybe because the longer we live, the more we can accurately and with a great amount of detail, predict new things without having to pursue them. We also know the reality and that takes out most of what makes curiosity. \n\nNot to mention, as we age the less variable there is to our lives. "
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5jcelr | how does light travel both in waves and in particles simultaneously, from every point in the universe in every possible direction? | How does travelling light, in all different colours, not "overlap" and distort? I know that light is somehow both waves and photons. Are photons perceived by human eyes, or just by photosynthesising plants? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jcelr/eli5_how_does_light_travel_both_in_waves_and_in/ | {
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"Light waves \"overlap\" with each other all the time. We call this interference. When two or more waves converge on the same location, the waves add together. Sometimes this causes the waves to 'cancel out' at that location, causing dark spots, and sometimes this causes an apparent wave that's as bright as the two waves combined.\n\nIn our day to day life, however, this interference isn't easily seen because of the sheer amount of light bouncing off of everything. If you want to see light interference, you'd need to do something like the [double-slit experiment](_URL_0_), where you carefully isolate a light source.\n\nOr, you might be thinking of different colors of light distorting each other, which is a thing which also happens. White light is a combination of many other colors of light (the classic rainbow). When you see \"white\" light, you're actually seeing many different colors of light traveling together. You can take a glass prism and split the white light into a rainbow to prove this. You can also take that rainbow and use another prism to recombine it back into white light. Or apply color filters over a few flashlights, and combine their beams to form new colors.\n\nIt's not accurate to say that light is both a wave and photons. Rather, light (and *all* particles actually, including electrons and even entire atoms) has properties of both waves and particles. You can think of a photon as a discrete \"packet\" of light if that helps, but you can make that photon behave like a wave instead.\n\nHumans can't perceive individual photons. They're too small, too fast, and too numerous. Plants probably couldn't, either."
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3hoyua | why a random people allowed to make and sell products on websites such as etsy, ebay that are already real brands, e.g. minecraft, starwars? | Example: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hoyua/eli5_why_a_random_people_allowed_to_make_and_sell/ | {
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"They aren't. The issue isn't with them being \"allowed\" to infringe on trademarks and IP, but rather in companies asserting their rights and policing their IP. Think of etsy/ebay like youtube. I can upload Rihanna's next hit and reap the rewards and it will go unnoticed by youtube until people representing Rihanna submit a claim for my video to be removed. You could go right now and file a complaint to etsy about the user you linked and etsy will probably remove the items for the time being. The items you linked were made in the image of minecraft, but as I am unfamiliar with the brand I do not know to what extent they infringe upon minecrafts IP.",
"It's a concept called *Fair Use*. In US copyright law, you are allowed to make limited use of copyrighted material without permission from the rightsholder. There aren't hard and fast rules for what constitutes fair use - ultimately, if challenged, it would have to be decided by the courts.\n\nHere are the considerations for fair use from 17 U.S.C. § 107\n\n* the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;\n* the nature of the copyrighted work;\n* the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and\n* the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.\n\nConsidering the stuff available on that Etsy search:\n\n* The purpose and character of the use is commercial\n* The nature of the work is published and fictional - unpublished work and factual information has special rules associated with it.\n* The amount of the work is miniscule - mostly what I see is lookalike fonts, creeper faces which are not even the original graphic (a flat green face instead of mottled), and sword/pickaxe graphics which are also not the original items. The amount is miniscule, so this is the strongest defense in these cases.\n* The effect on the potential value of the copyrighted work is nonexistent. While these do compete with Minecraft merchandise, they don't compete with Minecraft, which is the actual copyrighted work.\n\nYou only need one defense for Fair Use, so these items are covered under the third category.\n\n\nThe word \"Minecraft\" and the creeper face are, however, trademarks and also covered by a different body of law. I suspect that the creeper face is so prominent because a) many people don't actually know it's a trademark, and b) both trademarks are owned by Notch, not Mojang, and he doesn't seem particularly litigious. If he doesn't have a team of lawyers scouring the internet for unauthorized use of his trademarks, and nobody else tells Etsy, the sales will probably stay up."
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274it9 | how do radio station hosts always know the exact moment the words of the song that is playing will start so they can stop talking? | Radio station hosts often talk at the beginning of songs advertising their station, talking, etc.. But they always seem to know when to stop talking just as the song starts. Do they just know the music very well? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/274it9/eli5_how_do_radio_station_hosts_always_know_the/ | {
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"They've already listened to the first few seconds of the song to get their timing. Then they rewind to the beginning of the song, and the timer starts counting down and they time their words to stop before it hits zero. \nI think it's called \"zeroing up the next song\". "
]
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2mlefb | if it's so hard to find bone marrow for a transplant, why do most people signed up as donors never get called to donate? | I signed up to be a bone marrow donor recently and was told that probably 99% of people who sign up never get called to donate.
And then I read the news and see that it's apparently very very hard to acquire bone marrow for a transplant.
If there are so many people willing to donate, why is it so hard to get? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mlefb/eli5_if_its_so_hard_to_find_bone_marrow_for_a/ | {
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"You have to be a near perfect DNA match, so the chances are slim. A friend of mine had a transplant 20 years ago from his twin brother, his older brothers marrow wasn't a match.",
"While a blood donor just needs to have the same or compatible blood type, marrow donations are a lot trickier because the marrow types need to have an identical [human leukocyte antigen](_URL_0_) composition. The variation in the population is very wide and it's quite difficult to find a match. Most donors will come from a patient's immediate family, not a random person in the general population.\n\nI am on the list for marrow donation and I have been for almost 15 years now. I was called once for the HLA tests because I was a potential match, but after testing I was not. This is the closest I've gotten."
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5stets | what's the difference between an electric guitar and the ordinary kind? | I know ~nothing about guitars. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5stets/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_an_electric/ | {
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"A normal guitar has strings that vibrate at a rate determined by their length and tension. This vibrates air directly but more importantly transfers vibration to the body of the guitar, causing the hollow interior to resonate and vibrate air. Vibrating air is sound.\n\nAn electric guitar has \"pickups\" which are electromagnetic sensors that detect the movement of the guitar strings. The signal from those sensors is translated into movement of a speaker that produces sound. In an electric guitar the body of the instrument is not relevant to producing sound so it could basically be anything, as long as the length and tension of the strings is maintained.",
"Other than size and shape the only difference between an electric guitar and a acoustic guitar is that an electric has a set of magnets that \"pickup\" the vibrations in the strings and converts it into an electrical signal. That signal is then sent to an amplifier and converted back into sound at a desired volume. An acoustic guitar is bigger but has a hollow body and the sound from the strings is made louder by the body itself."
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23c6ub | if the moon were to disappear would the earths gravity become stronger? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23c6ub/eli5if_the_moon_were_to_disappear_would_the/ | {
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"No. An object's gravity is a function of its mass, not of the mass of object's around it.\n\nNet gravitational force between two objects is a function of those two objects' mass, but the objects' individual gravity does not change."
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3wlk18 | we construct our thoughts using language. for someone who doesn't understand any language, what is going through this person's mind when he perceives or thinks about something? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wlk18/eli5_we_construct_our_thoughts_using_language_for/ | {
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"You don't construct thoughts using language. You use language to express thoughts. It's the exact opposite of the way you're describing it. ",
"I don't recall her name, but in the 90s there was a huge case about s young girl who had been found locked in a closet for years by her parents. She was.. I think 8 when they found her, and couldn't talk at all. She had never been taught language - speaking or reading or writing. I remember reading that years later, she was still unable to speak because the part of her brain responsible for speech and language simply hadn't developed and never would.\n\nThis isn't entirely related to what you're talking about but perhaps it will help you in your question.",
"As a father of a mostly nonverbal child, I wondered this too. After doing a ton of reading on the subject, here's the simplest way I understand it:\n\nHumans are conceptual thinkers. Those concepts need to be expressed somehow, whether externally (language) or internally (thoughts). To express those concepts, we use symbols. For most of my thoughts, I use words for those symbols. Words are easy because I'm using a known simple system to archive complex thoughts. When words aren't sufficient, I may use pictures or feelings. People without language use a higher percentage of pictures, feelings, etc. \n\nWhen I see a dog, I think of the word dog, but my son may picture other dogs he's seen, whether in real life or books. \n\nI'm not an expert, I'm just passing along how I understand it. ",
"The premise is already flawed, unless perhaps if you expand the definition of language to something I would unreasonable (for example, are arbitrary visual elements a language? really stretching there..).\n\nYou can \"talk to yourself\" silently. This is the most noticeable form of \"having thoughts\", you can hear the words. But how did you even decide to say the words? So clearly you already had the thought, and then internally verbalized it - but you don't have to. This technique helps to keep the thought buzzing around in your head instead of evaporating, but it is by far the slowest way of conscious thinking. You can notice this easily when you have An Idea - it will hit you in the mental face, and only after that do you have to time to internally verbalize it, or perhaps you find that you can't accurately tell your own idea back to you.\n\nAn other slow way of consciously thinking, though usually faster than internal verbalization, is projecting images in your minds eye. Often it would be accompanied by some simple internal verbalization, often inane little helper thoughts like \"do this, then this, this goes there, move this\" while you manipulate the image. But the helper thoughts are not necessary, we think them out of habit, it's hard to shut yourself up internally. Some people report that they don't ever think with images, perhaps it could be learned by drawing your thoughts while you have them.\n\nSo there are at least two ways someone could think without language, purely abstractly (but you don't really \"notice\" this type of thought as much) and with images."
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2nf800 | why can does bark what seems like forever but people can only scream for a hour or two? | I mean some dogs won't shut up and constantly yap. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nf800/eli5why_can_does_bark_what_seems_like_forever_but/ | {
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"Something to do with their genetically stronger vocal chords (or whatever the dogs is called) maybe?\n",
"Dogs have superior vocal cords, so much so that it is impossible for a dog to get tired of barking or be soar later from it. ",
"Probably the dog has time to breathe in between barks. Screaming without stopping doesn't allow you to catch your breath. Also, I would like to see somebody who can scream for two hours :)",
"Because don'ts cant bark like never, so people seems like screaming less for some time."
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14zzif | logarithm. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14zzif/eli5_logarithm/ | {
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"If you can graph an equation and move a vertical line across the entire distance without it ever touching more than one point at a time, it is called a function - this means that each input (x) returns one and only one output (y). If you can graph an function and move a horizontal line across the entire distance without it ever touching more than one point at a time, it is called a one-to-one function - this means that each output (y) can be the result of one and only one input (x).\n\nWhen a function is one-to-one, we know that it must have an inverse. An inverse is essentially a function that reverses another function.\n\nThe equation y=b^x (where b is any number) is the exponential function, and it is a one-to-one function. Therefore we know that it must have an inverse.\n\nWe define the logarithm as the inverse of the exponential function. Essentially, the logarithm is the power to which a number must be raised to return a given result. We call that number the base.\n\nIf y=b^x then log[base b](y)=x\n\nUsing some actual numbers:\n\nSince 2^3 = 8, the log[base 2] of 8 = 3\n\nThe two most common bases for logarithms are 10 and e. A logarithm with base 10 is called a common logarithm. If you ever see the notation \"log(x)\" with no base indicated, you can assume it is a common logarithm with base 10.\n\ne is an irrational number that shows up all throughout mathematics. Since it is irrational, it cannot be represented as a fraction or a repeating decimal. It is approximately equal to 2.718, but if you wanted to you could calculate it to an infinite number of decimal places without repeating. It is very closely related to patterns of constant growth. A logarithm with base e is called a natural logarithm, and its notation is \"ln(x)\". If you ever see \"ln(x)\" you can think of it as \"log[base e](x)\" or \"what power do I need to raise e to to get the result x?\"",
"Not like you're 5, but like you're in 5th grade. Also this isn't a 100% accurate information, it's to give you an idea. If you want more explicit details, just ask :)\n\nA logarithm is kind of like how \"big\" a number is. \n\n10 has 1 '0'\n\n100 has 2 '0's\n\n1000 has 3, etc..\n\nso Log(1000) would be 3, Log(100) would be 2, Log(10) would be 1\n\nWant to take a guess at what Log(1) would be? It's 0 \n\nSo that's a pretty simple picture of it and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. \n\nFor example: \n\nif log(10) is 1, and log(100) is 2.. then what's log(20)?\n\n\nWe know 20 is bigger than 10 and smaller than 100, so log(20) should be between 1 and 2. It's actually 1.3ish.\n\n\n---\n\nNow there are different \"bases\" to think about. But first lets figure out what a \"base\" means. \n\nabove we were counting how many '0's there were. Well that's a nice trick for base 10, because each 0 means we've multiplied by 10 once. \n\n10 is 1 10\n\n100 is 2 10s\n\n1000 is 3 10s all multiplied together.\n\nfor these we call 10 the \"base\".\n\nWe could totally do that with a different number. \n\nFor example 8 is 2\\*2\\*2, so 8 is 3 2's all multiplied together.\n\nso log(8) using base 2, would be 3\n\nlog(4) using base 2 would be 2\n\nSo a logarithm is how many times a number (the base) has to be multiplied together to get the number you're taking the log of. \n\n---\n\nWe have a notation for this \n\nlog_10(100) = 2\n\nlog_2(16)= 4\n\nthe \"_\" means subscript, which i don't know how to do in reddits markup. But it means you write the number small and a little bit lower. \n[Here](_URL_0_)'s a picture of it from wiki (don't worry about trying to figure out what that means, just see how the 'b' is smaller and down a little.)",
"You know in algebra how it seems things have their opposites? \n\n* You can add and subtract both sides of an equation. x + 5 = 3, subtract both sides by 5. \n* You can multiply or divide both sides of an equation. x*5 = 3, divide both sides by 5. \n* You can square or square root both sides of an equation. x^2 = 3 square root both sides. \n\nBut what happens if you have 10^x = 300? What now? You can't subtract off 10, or divide off 10, or square root off 10. What do you do to get x by itself? You do a logarithm. \n\nlog(10^x ) = log(300)\n\nx = log(300)\n\nIt just seems funny because it has a weird way of writing the operator. It's not clean and simple like +, -, *, /, a^x, that square root symbol, etc. No, you have to write out the word \"log\". But really, logs are related to a^x, logs are the opposite trick to get x by itself in that situation. \n",
"Lets take the number 5, we'll give that a name \"X\".\n\nIf we have a bunch of X, and want to know how many it adds up to, we use multiplication. If we have 2 of X, it's written as X*2, which is the same as (X+X). \n\nX*3 is the same as (X+X+X).\n\nThe opposite process is when you want to know how many X's can fit into another number, you use division. Let's call a bigger number \"Y\" which will be 16. We know that you only have 3 of \"X\" to fit into \"Y\", because 4 would be too many. X*4 = 20.\n\nThen comes the hard stuff.\n\nSometimes you have to know what X * X looks like, for example, to find out how many squares you would have on a grid that's X wide and X tall. Sometimes it goes further when you need X * X * X * X. Just like how we call X+X the same as X*2, we use something called an exponent to write X * X the same as X^2. The caret means \"raised to the power\". \n\nX^3 is the same as (X * X * X)\nX^10 is the same as (X * X * X * X * X * X * X * X * X * X)\n\nJust like division helps out after multiplication, a logarithm will help out after exponentiation. The logarithm will answer the question: \"What power we need to raise a number X to to get to Z?\". The \"X\" part is called the base.\n\nLet's have another bigger number \"Z\" which is 25. \"X\" is still 5.\n\nIt's written out Log_X(Y) which is said \"Log base 5 of 25.\"\n\nThe answer is 2, because X^2 = 25.\n\nA cool way to count how many decimal places a number will need is to take the Log base 10 of it. On a calculator, take the Log_10 of a really long number, and count how many keys you pressed. The answer will be really close to you how many keys you pressed! This means how many times you would have to raise 10 \"to the power of\" to get to the number you typed."
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458p56 | am i wasting energy if the phone charger is connected to the socket but the phone is not connected? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/458p56/eli5_am_i_wasting_energy_if_the_phone_charger_is/ | {
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"Yes, a lot of people like to say you should unplug it because it's wasting power, but on a side note, my dad and I were skeptical of how much power it was using, so we set up a meter to it and let it just sit there for like a week, we calculated it would be like 1-2 cents for the month",
"Yes. Touch the charger and you'll notice that it's warm. That heat is the result of wasted energy. It's not much, but it will count up over time.",
"Maybe. Feel the charger. If it's warm you are wasting enough power to worry about. Otherwise don't worry about it",
"Yes. This is because all chargers that plug into a wall outlet have a transformer in them to step down the voltage. The transformer has two windings. The first winding connects to the wall outlet side of the charger. This is a completed circuit where there is always current flowing around this winding. This winding is where all of the wasted energy is coming from. \n\nThe second winding is the one connected to the phone side of your charger. If there is no load (your phone) then no current will flow in this winding. However, you will always have current flowing in the first winding if you leave you charger plugged in.",
"It is wasting $1 of electric power per year. See the full explanation [here](_URL_0_)",
"Let's assume for the sake of explanation that the answer is yes. In general, you can't destroy energy, so the charger has to be doing something with it. The charger isn't storing that energy, because it doesn't have a battery to store it in. So the energy has to go be going somewhere. It can't go up the cable, because your phone isn't connected. The only other way for it to be released is through the sides of the case as heat. And if it doesn't feel warm to the touch, then it's not using more than a couple cents a month. Edit: as /u/IAmA_Catgirl_AMA pointed out below, the energy could also be dissipated as sound. If you can't hear it, it's probably not enough energy to worry about. \n\nTL,DR: If it doesn't feel warm and it doesn't make sound, then it's not using more than a tiny amount of power. ",
"Here's a question to think about- if the charger is \"wasting\" energy, where is that energy going? It has to go somewhere. In this case, the only place it can go is to heat, since it isn't connected to an energy storage device (battery), it isn't giving off light or making any noise. If you feel your charger, is it hot? If not, then it can't be wasting very much energy, or at least enough to care about. And I suppose if it is hot, and its winter, well, then I guess your heating system doesn't have to expend as much energy to keep that little bit of your home warm. ",
"[According to Apple](_URL_1_), the iPhone 6s charger uses 0.011W with no load.\n\n\n 0.000011 kW x 672 hours in a month = 0.007392 kWh per month\n\n\n[The average price per kWh in the US is $0.13](_URL_0_), so every month an iPhone charger will cost around $0.00096096 to run with no load.\n\nIn a year, an unplugged charger would use 0.088704 kW of energy, which is the same a turning on a clothes dryer for about 2 minutes.",
"My parents have been telling me to unplug because of the chances of the cable catching a spark and setting the carpet on fire. Is this possible people? ",
"Look at the text on your charger, where all the technical information is. Most likely there's a marking like a Roman numeral inside a circle. That's the [International Efficiency Marking](_URL_0_).\n\nAll my phone chargers are marked with V and are rated for < 50 W. That means it consumes less than 0.3 W when plugged into the wall but nothing is plugged into it. At $0.12/kWh, that's *at most* **$0.32 per year** per charger. There's also a VI category that uses 1/3 that much, which your charger might satisfy.\n\nQuick rule of thumb, BTW: 1 W left on 24/7 is about $1 per year of electricity.\n\n(Edit: added link, clarified some math.)",
"Phone chargers are peanuts typical idle consumption is about 0.5W.\n\nHowever it pays off to check all your devices which have a standby mode with power consumption meter.\n\nFor example early PS3 consumes almost 200W on standby.",
"Practically? No. \nTechnically? Yes."
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711dbj | why are stones, that are grey when dry, become so colorful when they are wet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/711dbj/eli5_why_are_stones_that_are_grey_when_dry_become/ | {
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l1x6h | the double switch in baseball | I tried explaining it to my 10 year old brother. Help me explain it like he's 5. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l1x6h/eli5_the_double_switch_in_baseball/ | {
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"I going to assume you know the basic rules of baseball for this, if not let me know and I can elaborate further. \n\nThe double switch only comes into play during NL games, as it almost always involves the pitcher. A double switch comes into play when the starting pitcher is ready to come out of the game and a relief pitcher is going to come in. \n\nLet's suppose that Team A is playing Team B in the bottom of the 7th inning with 2 outs, with Team A in the field and Team B batting. Let's also assume that Team A's batting order for the game looks like this (the order doesn't specifically matter, just the placement of the pitcher in the order), and that the SS made the final out of the last inning:\n\n1-CF < ---\n\n2-2B < ---\n\n3-1B\n\n4-RF\n\n5-3B\n\n6-LF\n\n7-C\n\n8- SS\n\n9- Starting Pitcher < ---\n\nThe player's with the arrows next to their positions are the batters that are expected up when Team A next bats. Now Team A decides to bring in a relief pitcher for the starting pitcher in the middle of the inning. That would mean that their batting order would look like this:\n\n1-CF < ---\n\n2-2B < ---\n\n3-1B\n\n4-RF\n\n5-3B\n\n6-LF\n\n7-C\n\n8- SS\n\n9- Relief Pitcher < ---\n\nThe problem with this is that most pitchers are very poor hitters to begin with, and relief pitchers tend to be even worse. So when the manager decides to make a pitching change, he decides to make a double switch. Instead of the relief pitcher coming in for the starting pitcher, the relief pitcher comes in for a position player (let's say the SS in this case). *Simultaneously*, a position player on the bench comes in for the starting pitcher. The two players who just came into the game then switch positions. The advantage of this is that no longer the relief pitcher has to hit, as the lineup looks like this:\n\n1-CF < ---\n\n2-2B < ---\n\n3-1B\n\n4-RF\n\n5-3B\n\n6-LF\n\n7-C\n\n8- Relief Pitcher\n\n9- Back-up SS < ---\n\nNow, instead of a terrible-hitting relief pitcher leading off next inning, a position player is leading off. Further, relief pitcher is now last in the batting order, meaning there is the longest possible time until the relief pitcher has to bat (generally considered a good thing)",
"I going to assume you know the basic rules of baseball for this, if not let me know and I can elaborate further. \n\nThe double switch only comes into play during NL games, as it almost always involves the pitcher. A double switch comes into play when the starting pitcher is ready to come out of the game and a relief pitcher is going to come in. \n\nLet's suppose that Team A is playing Team B in the bottom of the 7th inning with 2 outs, with Team A in the field and Team B batting. Let's also assume that Team A's batting order for the game looks like this (the order doesn't specifically matter, just the placement of the pitcher in the order), and that the SS made the final out of the last inning:\n\n1-CF < ---\n\n2-2B < ---\n\n3-1B\n\n4-RF\n\n5-3B\n\n6-LF\n\n7-C\n\n8- SS\n\n9- Starting Pitcher < ---\n\nThe player's with the arrows next to their positions are the batters that are expected up when Team A next bats. Now Team A decides to bring in a relief pitcher for the starting pitcher in the middle of the inning. That would mean that their batting order would look like this:\n\n1-CF < ---\n\n2-2B < ---\n\n3-1B\n\n4-RF\n\n5-3B\n\n6-LF\n\n7-C\n\n8- SS\n\n9- Relief Pitcher < ---\n\nThe problem with this is that most pitchers are very poor hitters to begin with, and relief pitchers tend to be even worse. So when the manager decides to make a pitching change, he decides to make a double switch. Instead of the relief pitcher coming in for the starting pitcher, the relief pitcher comes in for a position player (let's say the SS in this case). *Simultaneously*, a position player on the bench comes in for the starting pitcher. The two players who just came into the game then switch positions. The advantage of this is that no longer the relief pitcher has to hit, as the lineup looks like this:\n\n1-CF < ---\n\n2-2B < ---\n\n3-1B\n\n4-RF\n\n5-3B\n\n6-LF\n\n7-C\n\n8- Relief Pitcher\n\n9- Back-up SS < ---\n\nNow, instead of a terrible-hitting relief pitcher leading off next inning, a position player is leading off. Further, relief pitcher is now last in the batting order, meaning there is the longest possible time until the relief pitcher has to bat (generally considered a good thing)"
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2qxv38 | how will we tell time in space when we eventually leave earth? | Let's say space travel is much easier in the future and you need to meet up at a set destination at a set time. Would you use earth time so the 24 hour clock or would we come up with some new way of determining what time it is in space? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qxv38/eli5how_will_we_tell_time_in_space_when_we/ | {
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"We can certainly keep Earth time; there are many ways to count seconds accurately enough to lose one only every few centuries.",
"A number of science fiction books have explored this.\n\nFor now, we sync our clocks with whatever our \"home base\" is on Earth. For example, Apollo would be on Houston time and follow the same clock.\n\nBut what if we were to settle on a distant world, in which communication with Earth was limited? The most likely solution would be to come up with a new clock. We might still use hours and minutes, but then we would probably have days that are 28 hours and 32 minutes long (to say nothing of seconds). That's not very practical - you would need to constantly readjust. So maybe redefine the hour to be a different number of minutes. 28 hours and 32 minutes is 1712 minutes, which could be evenly split into 16 hours of 107 minutes each. That's not a bad solution.\n\nBut for planets with really odd day/night cycles, we might need to redefine minutes in the same way as a different number of seconds. We probably wouldn't need to redefine seconds, as that's our \"base\" unit of time and for practical purposes, is small enough to be accurate. Even on Earth, we have to adjust by a second every now and then.\n\nBut some worlds, stations or other settlements might have no easily adaptable day/night period of their own. Maybe they're tidally locked, or have a day that lasts two Earth weeks. In those cases, we might just stay on Earth time - we already have atomic clocks so accurate that they won't deviate by a microsecond until long after the Earth is dust and the sun is long forgotten.",
"Atomic clocks. But I'm not sure how they'd work in space actually. "
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1tqwch | why are the bottoms of movie posters always the same font/format? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tqwch/eli5_why_are_the_bottoms_of_movie_posters_always/ | {
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"You'd'd be surprised at how much research there is in determining how to catch the eye of the consumer & grab their attention. They know exactly what fonts & what format will get you to stop and look at it.",
" > The \"billing block\" is the \"list of names that adorn the bottom portion of the official poster (or 'one sheet', as it is called in the movie industry) of the movie\".[12] A billing block can be seen at the bottom of Reynold Brown's poster from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), which is reproduced below. In the layout of film posters and other film advertising copy, the billing block is usually set in a highly condensed typeface (one in which the height of characters is several times the width).[13] By convention, the point size of the billing block is 25 or 35 percent of the average height of each letter in the title logo.[14] Inclusion in the credits and the billing block is generally a matter of detailed contracts between the artists and the producer. Using a condensed typeface allows the heights of the characters to meet contractual constraints while still allowing enough horizontal space to include all the required text.\n\n_URL_0_"
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2sloyz | what is the "liberal media" | I have heard the term thrown around by my grandmother and bumper stickers on pickup trucks, but what exactly does "liberal media" refer to? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sloyz/eli5_what_is_the_liberal_media/ | {
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"In the conservative camp There is this idea that most mainstream news sources tend to side with liberal ideologies. It basically refers to the big news companies that are A. based in America and B. Not fox news. I suppose the term could be considered derogatory. In some contexts it is used synonymously with \"major news corporation\" as many conservatives feel they are underrepresented in the media. ",
"\"Reality has a well-known Liberal bias\" - Stephen Colbert. That about explains it. ",
"Some of these answers refer to news stations that conservatives feel have a liberal bias. However, conservatives also feel that the liberal media includes the film and entertainment industry. It's basically gotten to the point where some republicans killed the film incentives in North Carolina thus destroying thousands of jobs partly because they were waging a culture war against this imagined \"liberal media\" ",
"Journalists, actors, directors, and other media contributors tend to skew liberal (just as bankers skew conservative), giving most media sources have a slight, organic liberal bias. \n\nConservatives pundits treat this as a full blown conspiracy against them, and repeat \"liberal media\" like a mantra to discredit news reports and media portrayals that don't support their viewpoints."
]
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[],
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1ijcp4 | add, adhd and aspergers | I've been told by doctors and stuff that I minor cases of ADD and aspergers. What does it mean? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ijcp4/eli5_add_adhd_and_aspergers/ | {
"a_id": [
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"ADD/ADHD usually gets diagnosed when you have difficulty concentrating, paying attention, impulsive and too energetic.\n\nAsperger's is a form of autism. Autism can be on a spectrum, Asperger's being a type of mild autism. Usually narrow interests, knowing a lot about those interests, and relating to others most easily when discussing those interests. Social impairment and lack of empathy can happen. Sometimes unusual and peculiar intolerance to certain sensations.\n\nHaving a normal life with both is possible, of course, it just helps doctors help you once they give your symptoms a name."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
ccnfjn | how does body clock work? | Why is it I still feel tired having enough sleep at daytime but staying late during nights? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ccnfjn/eli5_how_does_body_clock_work/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Our bodies have a natural internal clock (known as the circadian rhythym) that roughly corresponds to the length of a day. Per this clock, a certain amount of time is for being awake, and a certain amount of time is for being asleep. In other words, the circadian clock does NOT simply measure 8 hours from the time you go to sleep; instead, it, say, has the hours of 1am to 11am marked off as 'sleep time'. Therefore, whether you sleep at midnight or 4am, 11am is when your body wants to naturally wake up.\n\nThe circadian rhythm can be changed (jetlag is a common example), although obviously this takes some time. In general, it adjusts by only an hour a day. There's other factors too, such as light and dark - naturally, since our days/nights are marked by light/darkness, our bodies respond to light and darkness; if you keep your bedroom dark, you'll tend to wake up later because your body still thinks it's nighttime, and vice versa if you leave your blinds open at night so the sun shines in first thing in the morning.",
"Our body releases a hormone called Melatonin which controls our body clock. In the night time(the normal sleep period) its production increases which initiate all the sleep-related functions in the body. In the day time, its production decreases. So even if you sleep in the day you won't notice much difference as you get from sleeping at night."
]
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[],
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|
cs2vzl | what is the difference in antidepressants of the same type? | For example, why are there multiple SSRI’s?
They all do the same thing (inhibit the reuptake of serotonin), but how are they different enough to make a difference on the person taking them? Do they also have an effect on other neurotransmitters, like dopamine, but in varying amounts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cs2vzl/eli5_what_is_the_difference_in_antidepressants_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"exc5mvc",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The short definition is their chemical make up is different and they affect different parts of the synapse to result serotonin reuptake (in the case of SSRIs). Everyone reacts differently so that’s why it might take a minute to figure out which works best for each individual person. It can also take a bit until you get to a steady state and “normalize” for that drug, sometimes up to 6 months.",
"The various formulas certainly *work --* we're just not certain why or how.\n\nOne reason that there are so many different SSRIs are available is that we don't really know what depression 'is', biochemically. We know that it involves serotonin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters, but we don't know specifically how they affect the brain to bring on depression in the first place (other than 'there's not enough of them'; it's unclear why a lack of those specific neurotransmitters causes depression).\n\nSome patients respond to SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), some to NDRIs (norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitors), and some respond to MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors), but the precise amounts of active ingredient that will help a given patient (and just why a particular dosage or formulation works in one case and not in another) are a bit of a mystery."
]
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[],
[]
] |
|
5qj3zt | how could nafta be terminated by a single country? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qj3zt/eli5_how_could_nafta_be_terminated_by_a_single/ | {
"a_id": [
"dczmztw",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Because that's what the treaty says:\n\n > Article 2205: Withdrawal\n\n > A Party may withdraw from this Agreement six months after it provides written notice of withdrawal to the other Parties. If a Party withdraws, the Agreement shall remain in force for the remaining Parties. \n\nThat's what seemed like a good idea at the time.",
"Either the US, Canada or Mexico could pull out of NAFTA by giving 6 months notice. By nature of scale of economies, if the US pulls out, NAFTA is basically dead. \n\nWhat happens after that would be anyones guess as prior to NAFTA, there were tariffs in place between the three countries. In all likelihood, NAFTA would be renegotiated vs. scrapped."
]
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[],
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||
3wblkx | vegetables don't have a lot of fat content, where does vegetable oil come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wblkx/eli5_vegetables_dont_have_a_lot_of_fat_content/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxuxxwo"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Primarily from **seeds** which contain much more fat than say, a carrot.\n\nSoybean oil, corn oil, cotton seed oil, peanut oil, canola oil, olive oil, etc.\n\nIf you crush peanuts you will eventually get peanut butter, which will eventually separate and make a layer of peanut oil. Do it to 100 tons of peanuts and you get a lot of peanut oil."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3ne4yx | when can i refuse to comply with an officer, and what can an officer do about peaceful noncompliance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ne4yx/eli5when_can_i_refuse_to_comply_with_an_officer/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Technically, you are required to obey all lawful commands from a law enforcement officer. The officer is empowered to arrest you, using physical contact if necessary to do so, if you refuse.\n\nall the idiot cop who tasted that guy had to do was call for backup, and with some help, sack the dude and cuff him. He got impatient and tazed the shit out of that poor guy instead. And now he's rightfully unemployed. ",
"Keep in mind, homes in the USA are protected spaces and are different from your car. \n[Here's an article that discusses it well](_URL_0_) "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/homeiscastle.htm"
]
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||
7x6vze | why doesn’t coke stain? | I have never had Coca-Cola stain. As a matter of fact, I used to actually pour a 20oz bottle into my work coveralls when I was in the Army to help remove grease stains. It was a tip I learned from someone else. So why did I never get Coke stains? And more importantly, why did Coke plus name brand detergent get all the grease out of my uniforms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7x6vze/eli5_why_doesnt_coke_stain/ | {
"a_id": [
"du63t5b"
],
"score": [
19
],
"text": [
"I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can tell you for a fact that coke stains. There are still stains on the carpet in my parents house that can prove that."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1m61mj | what force stops things going faster than light? | When a car drives, i know the speed is linited by friction, air resistance, etc. but even in a total vacume light speed can never be broken (theoretically).
So what forces out there limit the speed of the universe? And is there any way to get past them? (like cars with less air resistance) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m61mj/eli5_what_force_stops_things_going_faster_than/ | {
"a_id": [
"cc63lm2"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Nothing. Calling this speed 'the speed of light' is not helpful. It is the maximum speed, the speed that defines 'time', the maximum speed of the universe. It so happens that one of the things that travels at that speed is light.\n\nAs an object nears the speed of light, its mass will increase. (This happens at all speeds, but is not relevant until you get really fast.) The energy you put in trying to accelerate it provides that mass, E=mc² style. The closer you get to the speed of light, the more the mass grows. If you could get to the speed of light, the mass of the particle would be infinite."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2f0sr7 | since we have satellites, why is it debated whether russia has entered ukraine illegally? | Been hearing on the news recently that Russian tanks have entered cities in Ukraine, but it is always prefaced by "Ukraine claims:" or "Ukraine says:" and never just straight-forward "this happened". Since the U.S. and many other countries can monitor parts of the world through satellites why can they not definitively say the truth?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f0sr7/eli5_since_we_have_satellites_why_is_it_debated/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck4to5q"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Because Russia simply denies it. US already published a lot of pictures of Russian convoys that entered Ukraine, Russian artillery firing into Ukraine, etc. \n\n\"X claims\" is just a polite and neutral way to say things in media.\n\nFor most of the world Russian army invaded Ukraine and they accept it as fact. Russia still pretends that it's troops are on vacation with their tanks and they accidentally lost in combat area."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3p07nw | why there are no sky-colored birds? | Why they don't mimetize with the sky? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p07nw/eli5_why_there_are_no_skycolored_birds/ | {
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"text": [
"For the most part, birds are safe in the air (the exception being from some birds of prey which usually strike from above, not below). Birds are vulnerable when on the ground, so it makes more sense to blend in with their usually terrestrial habitat than the sky. Or they are brightly colored to attract a mate, simply building spending most of their time in remote, hard-to-reach areas where few predators can reach them.",
"Lol\nRavens, crows, and bluebirds are all the color of the sky at different points in the day",
"In clear skies, it is nearly impossible for a moving creature to blend in to the sky. Besides, there aren't really any animals that will fly up and attack birds from below (birds of prey prefer to dive onto birds from above since they can achieve extremely high speeds in a dive). \n\nEven so, some birds do have a degree of countershading where their undersides are lighter than their tops so that they blend into the ground when you look at them from above and sort of blend into the sky from below.",
"You've never seen the human-hunting giant pigeon, then, huh?\n\nExactly.",
"Many birds of prey have white underbellies which allow them to \"hide\" in the sky when looking up at them so that their prey cannot easily see them.",
"Some sort of do, but even so, it doesn't really work. Even if they try their best and become white, compared to the sky they will be very dark. You can see this effect easily when a very white bird (say, a seagull) crosses from \"in front of a cloud\" into \"in front of sky\". It will seem white compared to the cloud, but essentially black compared to the sky. Lack of blueness doesn't really matter, they already contrast like black and white on sky."
]
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1l4pbt | lucifer's fall from grace in christian mythology | What were the circumstances and the events that lead to Lucifer being cast out of heaven? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l4pbt/eli5_lucifers_fall_from_grace_in_christian/ | {
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"text": [
"Lucifer was the highest one of the angels, almost their leader (tho not quite obviously). But he was becoming too proud and selfish, and attempted to take seat in god's throne. god cast him down, and with him fell about a third of the armies of heavens. (Now demons). Actual biblical references are few and controverse though. Theres also the snake in eden, telling eve about the apple. God then curses the snake. Seems synonymous with lucifer being cast down. ",
"There is extremely little about the event in the Bible itself, and what is present isn't particularly precise. Most of the common pop culture understanding of the events stem from non canon sources like The Book of Enoch (which is not about Lucifer per se, but about fallen angels) and Milton's Paradise Lost (which details Lucifer's rebellion against god, and being banished from heaven)."
]
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[],
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] |
|
569pq1 | how come spacesuits don't inflate like balloons due to the unequal pressure? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/569pq1/eli5_how_come_spacesuits_dont_inflate_like/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8hi9bi"
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"text": [
"They actually do. They have rigid ribbing so they hold their shape, so you don't see it/notice it that much when you see them on TV. But they do inflate in as much as the flexible parts in between the rigid parts will allow. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
1agzzo | why did we invade iraq for possibly having wmds but have ignored north korea, who actually has wmds and is willing to use them? | I understand that China backing them before was a big deal, but hasn't China given up on backing NK at this point? I guess I don't understand how we went from "Maybe we should go to Iraq" to "Let's definitely invade Iraq" because of the possibility of WMDs, when NK has continued to test WMDs without permission and is now threatening everybody they can. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1agzzo/eli5_why_did_we_invade_iraq_for_possibly_having/ | {
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"text": [
"Iraq was used as a staging point to take control over natural resources (Oil). NK doesn't have anything we need.",
"Take it with a grain of salt, but I always thought it was because Bush Jr. wanted to finish what daddy tried to accomplish.\n\n/s\n\nEdit: Internet is serious business, apparently.",
"Because North Korea's bigger brother China would be pissed.",
"It is a lot easier to bully countries trying to get WMDs, than countries that actually have WMDs.\n",
"Because we signed [an agreement](_URL_0_) to stop armed conflict until an actual peace agreement could be reached. As stated in the wiki page, no peace agreement has been reached yet.",
"Because China may be irritated with North Korea, but they'd be FAR less happy with a US led invasion. We already tried that approach in the 50's. ",
"NK is allied with China. China wouldn't tolerate an invasion, so the US going into NK might spark WWIII. Another issue is that NK doesn't really threaten \"US interests\". It is similar to the difference between a crazy violent guy living out in the mountains where nobody goes, and a crazy violent guy threatening people on the sidewalk heading to work every day. Many people confuse invading because Iraq threatened our oil supply with \"invading to steal their oil\"; we don't arrest the crazy guy on the street because we want his stuff, we do it because he is *on the street*.\n\nNK is trying their best to get enough range to be a threat. They view their best bet for remaining in power is to make it worse for their government to topple than to be supported. To that end they have turned their entire country into a fanatic death-cult. They worship their dead leader (who is still officially in charge) and his successors as reincarnations of that leader.\n\nIf NK actually becomes capable of being a significant threat to US interests, China will need to deal with NK and rein them in. China doesn't want WWIII either not the least because it would probably involve global thermonuclear war. Relations between NK and China have cooled quite a bit though, so it may be that NK is actually pushing for support *from China* by annoying the USA. It is one thing for the west to be economically prosperous and NK to be living in the dirt, but NK is seeing China starting a capitalist economic boom and probably wants in on the spoils.\n\nIt is sort of like your girlfriend threatening to throw her drink on the huge, ripped, popular guy who is a coworker, unless you buy her some jewelry. It is hardly a sustainable situation, but NK has China over a barrel and the US is like \"What is up with your crazy girl?\"",
"I think it has a lot to do with the ramifications that come from invading a country. First off, we'd have to declare war in some form with North Korea in order to invade and disarm them, which not only takes considerable pandering to politicians and the public, but is also viewed by much of the world (mainly NK) as a belligerent move. The consequences for that can be huge, if not handled correctly. In the case of Iraq, we were only so much concerned with the leaders of the country, but were more focused on the terrorist organizations we believed may or may not have been operating within Iraqi and Afghani borders. Our official reasons for invading were financial support and sanctuary for terrorist organizations (some of which were funded by the CIA during Operation Cyclone), possession of WMD's (which turned out to be completely false and our politicians apparently knew this before invading), and of course the old \"we're spreading democracy by overthrowing your government and putting our own in place.\" And let's not forget the human rights abuses that we overlook on a daily basis, yet for some reason caught our attention when we needed a reason to invade Iraq.\n\nThose are the \"official\" reasons for invasion, given by the state. However, the idea of petrodollar warfare makes a lot more sense, as it has very real effects on our economy. All oil in the world is traded in dollars, and we've fought to keep it that way. It's also traded in two places; the London Exchange and the New York Exchange. So a country like Japan that wants to buy Iraqi oil must first go to a foreign exchange market where they change their Yen into dollars (American) so they can purchase the oil. The Iraqi oil company will accept the dollars, and exchange them for the Iraqi dinar. When these transactions take place as frequently as they do with the large amounts of money they involve, it creates a false inflation in international exchange markets. Because countries have a constant need for US dollars (in order to buy large quantities of oil), the US dollar is strengthened... the first day of economics class will tell you that an abundance of something will drive the price down, while a shortage will drive the value up. Imagine if the leader of a oil-rich country such as Iraq, Libya or Iran wanted to trade oil in their own currency to stimulate their own economy, instead of selling a product made in the middle east to a country in the east and somehow stimulating the economy of an uninvolved country in the west (the US.) Since this change would cause many industrious nations to dump their stockpiles of US dollars that they keep on hand to purchase oil, the rules of supply and demand would cause a flooding of US dollars in the foreign exchange markets, quickly reducing the strength of our currency against other currencies. This causes a considerable depression, as everything that we import from other countries (most things) would suddenly be significantly more expensive, due to the relative weakness of our dollar.\n\nWell, Saddam Hussein had been actively trying to do this by trading oil in the Iraqi dinar. So we hunted him down and had him executed. Muammar Gaddafi tried to sell Libyan oil in the Libyan dinar. So he was hunted down and stabbed in the butthole with bayonets. In 2008, Iran announced the opening of their own oil bourse where they would sell oil in the Iranian rial... and suddenly, we're up in arms about a country who has no weapons, no military, but is somehow a huge threat that our media \"can't\" (i.e. won't) explain.\n\nThis is *my* understanding of it from the reading I've done, however I don't know if you could really explain all that to an actual 5 year old.",
"WMDs were never the reason Bush attacked Iraq - it was just an excuse. If there was undeniable proof there were no WMDs he'd claim it's about democracy, human rights, supporting terrorism, or something else. Any time a country wants to go to war, it comes up with a lot of excuses, some better, some worse. Nobody should ever take them at face value.\n\nIraq was a very easy target after a decade of forced disarmament, and it had nobody backing it.\n\nNorth Korea is a somewhat more difficult target - it would lose badly, but it could kill a lot of South Korean civilians first since Seoul is quite close to the border. Even worse - it's (sort of) backed by China. Nobody can be sure what China would do in case of war, but it's very risky. \n\nIf China officially told North Korea they are on their own, a war would instantly become far more likely - so China tries to stay ambiguous to hopefully prevent such war, even if it doesn't really care much for North Korea.",
"You see, Iraq was never about WMDs. It was about a little kid going back to finish something his daddy started.",
"China wouldn't stand for an invasion of North Korea, even if they are pretty tired of Kim's shit.",
"Because North Korea isn't a desolate country sitting on ton's of oil.",
"North Korea doesn't have enough oil, if they did we would have already been there.",
"Have you wikipedia'd the estimated standing army of N. Korea lately?",
"Because there's no oil in north Korea. Plus, north Korea's leader didn't do anything to piss off George W. Bush's daddy."
]
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4049gy | how can energizer claim to make some of their new batteries from recycled batteries, when consumers cannot (to my knowledge) recycle their aa batteries? | . | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4049gy/eli5_how_can_energizer_claim_to_make_some_of/ | {
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2
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"text": [
"They use the depleted chemicals in old batteries to create fresh chemicals for new batteries. Better than creating the chemicals from scratch every time ",
"Here in the UK a lot of supermarkets have battery recycling bins. Any business that sells over 32kg a year must have these bins. [link](_URL_0_).\n\nThen you just take them to the supermarket when you have dead batteries, and if your aren't just gonna throw them in the regular trash."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://www.gov.uk/battery-waste-supplier-reponsibilities"
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9xi194 | how do music services know what songs i will like and what songs fit together? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9xi194/eli5_how_do_music_services_know_what_songs_i_will/ | {
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"text": [
"Every company has a slightly different recipe, AKA algorithm, but in most cases, it comes down what other people like. Let's say you have one song that you listen to a lot. Well, the algorithm knows that thousands of people who like that song also like this song. Or, perhaps those two songs have appeared on hundreds of playlists together. Then, it takes into account genres you like/don't like to make sure that the song it wants to recommend is an actual fit. Once it's passed the checks, it says, \"Hey! We think you'll like this song.\" ",
"They find songs from the same/similar genres and artists.\n\nThey also try to find other songs that are popular among the listeners of your favorite songs, similar to amazon's \"Users who bought this item have also bought X\" feature."
]
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||
2eu8xw | why do youtube pranksters need consent from the prankees to have their face shown if they're in public when the filming occurred? | I thought you're allowed to record whoever or whatever as long as you're on public grounds | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eu8xw/eli5_why_do_youtube_pranksters_need_consent_from/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck2yvw7"
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"score": [
3
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"text": [
"It's not illegal to tape them in most places when there's no expectation of privacy. However, those individuals still have an implicit copyright claim on their image, and reproducing it could open them up to legal action."
]
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[]
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|
3tid0o | why do you feel drained of energy when you get a shot? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tid0o/eli5_why_do_you_feel_drained_of_energy_when_you/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"We get shots to help defend us against viruses and these shots tend to have that viruses weaker little clone in them. You body has to build up a familiarity with this and learn to defend against it, so your immune system goes to work. It's not like being sick, but it's close enough that your body diverts resources to try and defeat this \"intruder\", and some of what gets diverted is energy. You might also feel sort of achey, some people even develop a slight fever. \nIt's good to remember that in creating vaccinations, the side effects are generally weighed against the benefit. You may feel a little tired and sore after a flu shot, but the flu virus kills people every year, so we take the good with the not so good :D"
]
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[]
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||
8eggfz | if the universe is expanding, aren't new stars being born all the time? and i guess they would be even if it wasn't, so why is it said that the universe will be completely dead one day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8eggfz/eli5_if_the_universe_is_expanding_arent_new_stars/ | {
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"Aye, new stars are being born all the time, we even have photos. But not because of the universe expanding; that doesn't help at all. In fact it just increases the empty spaces between things.\n\nBut the rate of star birth will decrease over time — in many many billions of years they'll cease.",
"The idea is that, while the universe is expanding in size, the amount of matter and energy in it is finite. That whole, can't be created or destroyed thing. \n\nWhat happens when you have a set amount of something in a container that's getting bigger? \n\nEventually the universe will be so massive and stretched out that there'll be mere ones of atoms per cubic kilometer. \n\nNot much of a universe at that point, is it? Certainly not one full of stars and planets and junk. ",
"Laws of thermodynamics: \n\n > Zeroth law of thermodynamics: If two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law helps define the concept of temperature. \n\n > First law of thermodynamics: When energy passes, as work, as heat, or with matter, into or out from a system, the system's internal energy changes in accord with the law of conservation of energy. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the first kind (machines that produce work with no energy input) are impossible. \n\n > Second law of thermodynamics: In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the second kind (machines that spontaneously convert thermal energy into mechanical work) are impossible. \n\n > Third law of thermodynamics: The entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.[2] With the exception of non-crystalline solids (glasses) the entropy of a system at absolute zero is typically close to zero, and is equal to the natural logarithm of the product of the quantum ground states. \n\nThese add up to the fact that in an ever expanding universe or even a closed universe at some point all energy will reach a state of entropy at which point the universe as we know it will be dead. To produce new stars the energy has to change states multiple times which leads to further entropy occurring, so this process can only be repeated so much till all the usable energy is in a state of entropy and therefore no longer usable.\n",
"New stars arn’t like new babies, they’re more like new snow men. They get made out of the slow that’s already on the ground. New stars are made by gathering up space material that’s already there until it’s big enough to become a star. Most stars are made out of low number elements, like hydrogen (the sun), and slowly transform into higher number elements due to nuclear fusion. Eventually the fusion will reach Iron. Iron fusion takes more energy then it produces, and the star begins to die one way or another (either by exploding - super Nova or by fizzling out). Either way it’s using up a lot of energy in the form of light and leaving less material suitable for fusion. Someday most of the usable material will be used up and the stars will all go dark and Heat death of the Universe will occur. \n\nWhen they say the universe is expanding, it means that things in it are spreading out rather then new things filling the void. Like a break shot in pool if the table went outward forever. Same amount of pool balls just over a wider area, that never ends. \nAnd before you ask, the outer edge of the universe is a wall of light created by the Big Bang moving out into nothingness. It’s the edge of the universe much like the lead runner is the edge of a race. It’s the fastest thing and it’s been traveling since the beginning so it’s the outer edge, everything is just following behind but traveling slower. ",
"Unlike a balloon the universe doesn't need gas inside it to expand. Gravity does try to pull it all together, but it's not strong enough to compensate the velocity that things are already moving apart at.\n\nIt's expanding in the sense that the distance between two objects keep increasing, but there's just empty space in between them, there is no matter need to keep things expanding away from each other. It's just expanding due to the fact that the objects **already existing** are moving apart (ever since Big Bang).\n\nNew stars are also born all the time, but not out of nothing, new stars are born when enough gas of enormous gas clouds (nebulas) concentrate into a large enough ball to ignite.",
" > If the universe is expanding, aren't new stars being born all the time? \n\nNew stars are still being born, but this is independent of the expansion. The universe is (widely thought to be) infinite in all directions. There's not \"new universe\" appearing in which new stars and galaxies are appearing out of nothing. \n\nRather, any two very distant locations in the universe are growing more distant over time. \"The stuff that is there\" at either location *is there,* it's all just farther apart.\n\nThere's no distance at which there stops being stuff and you reach an edge. \n\n\n\n > And I guess they would be even if it wasn't, so why is it said that the universe will be completely dead one day?\n\nSo new stuff isn't popping out of the woodwork. This means that as the existing stuff is 'used up' it spreads out into the expanding space. Eventually it will reach equilibrium (but not for a very, very long time). The energy density will be the same in any one spot as in any other spot. Once this is true, \"work\" can't be done, and this is work in the sense of the reactions that allow life to exist, or crystals to form, or metal to be smithed, or stars to shine.",
"Because for all the atoms that make up the universe to interact they need to be close to each other. Eventually the universe will expand to a point that the space between atoms is so large nothing happens. Then what makes up those atoms will be so far apart there will be no atoms. Just loads of quarks so far apart that nothing happens ever.",
"great short story: the last question\n\nit deals with this specifically, can be read in an hour, and is absolutely amazing. theres even an \"audiobook\" of it on youtube.\n\ncannot recommend it enough.",
"the fuel will run out, or dark energy will rip the universe apart, and finally the universe will recollapse. Any way, the universe will end one day, in the very, very distant future of course (could be 10^100 years away)"
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64t95e | is it possible for our brains to get tired from thinking or studying too much like our muscles do when we exercise? if yes, how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64t95e/eli5_is_it_possible_for_our_brains_to_get_tired/ | {
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"Mental fatigue can be hard to quantify and exact physiology isn't fully understood. Most of the activity in your brain is the result of neurotransmitters being released and binding to receptors. Things like acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin, etc. Some of these neurotransmitters can become depleted and slow things down (like running out of glucose/glycogen when running a marathon). Or you can also build up byproducts that also cause problems and slow you down (like lactic acid making your muscles burn).",
"Mental fatigue/cognitive fatigue is recognized but hard to describe, as thetreece mentioned.\n\nPart of the problem is that it's hard to tease out things like boredom, attention/focus challenges, motivation, distractions, etc. from cognitive fatigue. For example, If you don't like what you're studying, chances are your threshold for fatigue will be a lot lower than if you're really interested and invested in the topic. Basically, you can't take the person out of their brain. \n\nMental fatigue also seems to be linked to muscle fatigue. In the studying example, keeping your eyes focused on text for long period of time is quite physically taxing even though it might seem like you're just sitting there doing nothing."
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95crje | why can you eat egg yolk raw and not get sick but not egg whites? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95crje/eli5_why_can_you_eat_egg_yolk_raw_and_not_get/ | {
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"You can't really. Both parts of the egg have about equal chance of making you ill if you consume them raw as the entirety of the egg has the potential to be contaminated with salmonella or other infectious agents. ",
"Bacteria can get into eggs via two methods: first, the chicken can have an infection inside their reproductive organs, and the bacteria get into the egg before the shell is formed.\n\nSecond, the chicken can get poop (and therefore bacteria) on the eggs by sitting on them or if the area where they lay them is contaminated. These bacteria then get inside when you open the egg.\n\nBecause of the way the egg is structured, bacteria have to get through the white in order to colonize the yolk. The white has quite a few antimicrobial enzymes/proteins in it, so that can help prevent the spread. Regardless, if you've got a contaminated egg, the yolk is not going to be safe. The bacteria have probably managed to get through the white.\n "
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2e68fg | why is it 'politically risky' for a us politician not to take a pro-israel stance? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e68fg/eli5_why_is_it_politically_risky_for_a_us/ | {
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"Because if you aren't Pro-Israel then you are interpreted as Pro-Arab/Anti-Israel. Which can be a risky situation since the public view of Arabs is less than ideal, and Israel is an ally, and to be Anti-Israel would be like being Anti-Canada, or Anti-England.",
"The US has a tremendously powerful and influential lobby of Jewish people and interests. \n\nAny politician that comes off as anti-Israel will have a lot of rabbis knocking on their door. Further, a lot of businesses that are owned or influenced by that lobby will think twice about funding their next election campaign.",
"Because, contrary to the reddit hive mind these days, the majority of the US population is pro-Israel.\n\nMost of the large urban areas of the US have significant Jewish populations with strong Israeli ties, and most rural areas of the US have significant evangelical Christian populations whom have some religious beliefs about Jewish possession of Jerusalem and a bit of fear of Muslim culture.\n\nThere's also the insinuation that reprimanding Israel for it's use of force responding to indiscriminate terror attacks against it makes the individual 'soft on terror' in general. No US politician can suggest that a sovereign nation simply tolerate terror attacks and respond with the olive branch the way Europe suggests.\n\nNot being pro-Israel is perceived as anti-Israel because of our terribly simplified and high volume 24 hour news."
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2mzs6f | the new definition of gender | I don't understand gender and it really frustrates me. The dictionary definition is sex, but people are saying that it represents something else. Some people say that it's about gender roles, but others say it has nothing to do with that. How can people identify with another gender if they don't have gender dysphoria? What does it mean to be non gendered or genderqueer??. I just don't understand what the difference between the genders are.
EDIT: I still don't understand for shit but I'm sure that these answers are good enough for some people, so I've marked it as explained. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mzs6f/eli5_the_new_definition_of_gender/ | {
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"Sex is your physical identification. Gender is your mental identification. For most people this is the same but some people feel they are one sex but their body is another. ",
"In most western culture, we have two genders (basically social roles) which we line up with the two sexes (biological bits). But there are some cultures with more than two* genders. The [Fa'afafine](_URL_0_) in Polynesia and [Hijras](_URL_1_ in India are well-known examples. \n\nThe issue for us is that gender and sex have always been this interchangeable term, but there are places that don't feature that.",
"For most people, their sex and gender are the same. Your sex is determined by your body (I have a penis, so my sex is male). Your gender is determined by your mind (I identify with masculine concepts and feel comfortable wearing men's clothes and calling myself a man, so my gender is male).\n\nThere are several types of people for which this definition is not good enough, including:\n\n* Transgender people, whose biological sex is one way but their mind identifies the opposite way.\n* Non-binary people, who mentally identify as neither a man or a woman, or as some combination of both.\n\n\"Gender dysphoria\" is basically a medical name for someone who is transgender, but a lot of people want to get rid of the term because they don't feel the condition should be classified as a \"disorder\".",
"Sex = Physical Identification. \n\n* If you have a penis, you are male\n* If you have a vagina, you are female\n* If you have both, you are hermaphroditic\n\nGender = Mental Identification\n\nThis is based around the Masculine-Feminine scale. You would identify as male if you did traditionally male things, and felt that you are in fact male as far as your mind goes. You would identify as feminine if you do traditionally female things, and felt that you are in fact female as far as your mind goes.\n\nDoing a few traditionally feminine things (such as cooking, childcare, etc), does not exclude you from being male, as those things are exclusive to females, but are in fact \"androgynous\".\n\nAndrogyny is that of being both masculine and feminine, and most day-to-day activities fall into this category. Someone who feels both masculine and feminine would be \"androgynous\".",
"As someone who's currently figuring out her/his/their shit, I'll just explain what I think. \n\nSex is what body you were born with. Genitalia generally determines this. If you are male, you have male genitalia. Females have female genitalia. Intersex...I wish I could explain it but I'm not very educated in this stuff. But hopefully I can offer some personal insight on the gender thing.\n\nGender is in the mind. It's how you feel. Whatever you identify as does not always match up with your body. And it's not always about typical gender roles in society.\n\nI currently identify as genderqueer. It's basically the umbrella term for anyone who isn't what their physical body says they are. I was born a girl, but I've since began having discontent with what gender I feel like. I feel masculine sometimes, feminine sometimes, and sometimes I feel like I am a mix of both. Sometimes I don't feel like I am either a mix of both...sometimes i just feel like I'm not anywhere on that binary at all. It's a confusing and stressful situation, for me at least. \n\nI remember the day I realized I wasn't a girl. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't true and that I was a girl. But somehow, I just knew I wasn't. I don't know why it happens, but some people just feel like their gender (which is in the mind) doesn't match their sex.\n\nI'm also genderfluid. That means that my gender isn't just one thing all the time. Currently, I'm feeling a bit masculine. I try to bind my breasts and wish I had a real penis. I don't identify as trans, though, I just feel closer to a guy than a girl now. I've been much more feminine before, and I'd wear dresses, girl clothing, etc. I own a lot of male clothing and gender neutral clothing as well. My appearance is important to me. The clothing I wear helps me feel more comfortable in what I am.\n\nI used to be happy with my body, and sometimes I still am, despite having a different gender than what I was born as. Recently the thought of wearing typical female clothing and leaving my body be as it is just doesn't feel right. \n\nIt's complicated, I know. I hope this helps clear up your questions. And other people may have different views on this, and I hope I haven't offended anybody. This is just my take on it. :)\n\n\n\n**EDIT**: I'd like it of people would stop downvoting OP. OP is confused on the topic and may ask some strange questions, but ultimately, they are just trying to learn about gender. \n\n"
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24usi3 | what exactly is going on with american isps at the moment? | Almost every day I see something or other about the FCC or Time Warner Cable or whatnot doing something else either wrong or badly. There are also constant jokes about Verizon and such that non-US redditors can find pretty confusing. As a UK citizen I don't have any problem with my ISP, it's fast and cheap. Why is is such a big deal in the USA?
Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24usi3/eli5_what_exactly_is_going_on_with_american_isps/ | {
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"I'm also from the UK so I'm not exactly an expert but from what I have picked up from other threads the main problem is a lack of competition. Within the UK most of the lines are owned by BT (some are Virgin) but these lines are all able to be rented (your line rental) by other providers to allow for more competition within the market. In the US, as I understand it, other companies do not share their lines so in your area you may only have the option of one or two providers so they can effectively do what they want. Another issue I believe is ISPs prioritising certain traffic so if you want to watch your Netflix without any troubles you have to choose provider A as they will limit provider B's Netflix traffic in your area.",
"American government lawyer here...studied Aviation and Outer Space law in Canada. My Outer Space law professor put it best (paraphrased) when discussing telecoms...for capitalism to work you need both corporations and government regulators. When only one is working well the people are getting screwed. Conservatives in Congress have defunded government to the point where regulators can't police corporations...hence they deliver shitty service at outrageous prices and there is no recourse for citizens to do much of anything about it. American ISPs are essentially monopolies and they continue to consolidate...giving themselves larger market share and higher profits to investors by screwing consumers. And the DOJ does little to enforce anti-trust laws which were enacted to ensure competition after the robber baron days of railroad, mining and oil monopolies.\n\nOur government is owned by corporations and the only way things are going to get better is if we have a revolution.",
"The US is a very large country and has [spotty population density](_URL_0_). It isn't economical to build infrastructure for rural areas which include about 20% of the population and connecting the spotty urban centers is also costly. The result is a 5th of the country has DSL as the fastest possible thing they can get and the majority of the rest have only 1 choice for high speed internet. A very, very few of us have a choice between two or more providers. Without competition, companies charge whatever they want for service that's only as good as it absolutely needs to be.\n\n\nIt's not that the ISPs don't have the money to fix everything. Weak, corporate controlled government has failed to protect consumers by not upholding antitrust laws (that break up monopolies) and not raising internet service to the status of an essential utility. This is simply a byproduct of the US no longer being a republic, it is instead an corporate funded oligarchy."
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43r1iv | besides wages and licensing fees, where does the money go to when developing a game and why has it become so much more expensive to do so? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43r1iv/eli5_besides_wages_and_licensing_fees_where_does/ | {
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"More man hours of wages than before - Games simply take more time and bigger teams than they did in the past. Way back when lots of games were either one man teams or a very small group. Watch the credits for any AAA title now and you'll see that's not the case.\n\nMarketing - Games are a bigger, more competitive business than they were before. When relatively few titles got released in a year, you didn't have to do *too* much advertising. Now you have to do a media blitz if you want your game to get any traction at all (assuming it's not just a really great game that can generate its own buzz...and most aren't).\n\n"
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7utjvj | how does electronic currency mining work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7utjvj/eli5_how_does_electronic_currency_mining_work/ | {
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"Simplified, with bitcoin, the \"coins\" are a long chain of solutions to a convoluted math problem. Each coin has to be discovered mathematically by computing out the problem, and it's designed so that each new coin's problem is harder than the one before, and that only a set number of coins will be discovered. After that, the coins are to be used as currency. Until then, as long as each coin is valuable enough, there's money to be made by devoting lots of computers to working through the problem to find the next coins. That's bitcoin mining."
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18acwe | what does fdic ensured checking or investment account mean? and what are some things it does not cover? | What are some issues/situations that people commonly mistake FDIC ensured covers? I'm very new to the world of finance and simple analogies help a lot.
Explain like I'm in high school? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18acwe/what_does_fdic_ensured_checking_or_investment/ | {
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"FDIC checking accounts came into being to give assurance to banking. In the great depression there was a lot of fear and people pulled their money out of banks en masse because they were afraid it wouldn't be there when they needed it, which actually caused it to be unavailable to everyone else. This is called a \"bank run\". The FDIC coverage (which is limited to accounts up to 250k) is in place so that people can have confidence that no matter what happens with the bank of the economy their money in their bank account is safe. This helps keep the economy more stable in the long term, it's easy to imagine that if that (and many other things) wasn't in place the recession that just occured could have been as bad as the great depression."
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1ir7an | why is horse manure considered a good natural fertiliser? why doesn't the horse make use of the nutrients in it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ir7an/why_is_horse_manure_considered_a_good_natural/ | {
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"The horse needs different things than a plant needs. Plants need nitrogen in a different form than horses do. Basically, these two considerations explain why our pee and poop might feed something else. I hope that resolves your question. ",
"Manure is rich is Nitrogen which plants require for creating amino acids which are in turn used for growth and repair. If the soil the plant was grown in had a lack of nitrogen then the plant would display deficiency symptoms of poor growth and yellow leaves.\n\nAs for why the horse doesn't make use of the nutrients in the first place, you might want to take a look at this Wikipedia article under the header \"Nitrogen Wastes\" which explains why animals have to excrete nitrogen compounds _URL_0_ (as I would struggle to put it into words)\n\ntldr ; nitrogen is toxic to animals so it's excreted, but plants can make use of the nitrogen for growth and repair ",
"A plant is basically a machine that uses the energy of sunlight to combine carbon dioxide, water, and nutrients in the soil to make complex organic molecules. Those molecules have a good deal of stored chemical energy.\n\nA horse is basically a machine that extracts energy from the organic molecules that plants make. When it is done, what's left is pretty much the same stuff the plant started it, all concentrated into one convenient locations. Just add some sunlight, and the plants are ready to start over.",
"Ever seen a photosynthesising horse? Neither."
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5ift8n | why is a court allowed to tell people they should attend a 12 step program if they are atheist? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ift8n/eli5_why_is_a_court_allowed_to_tell_people_they/ | {
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"A lot of people don't understand that the 12 step program is a faith- based thing. Others think that's ok. ",
" > Step 2, believe in a higher power. But I don't.\n\nIn AA, \"higher power\" is purposefully vague so that it doesn't have to mean \"God\". From Wikipedia:\n\n > In current twelve-step program usage a higher power can be anything at all that the member believes is adequate. Reported examples include their twelve-step group, Nature, consciousness, existential freedom, God, science, Buddha.\n\nGranted, most Americans are going to use \"God\" as their higher power, because they're religious. But it's not required.",
"Judges are pretty smart folks. They send people to 12-step programs because hey believe there is a good chance that going to the program will help the person deal with the problem that's getting them convicted of a crime. If it's not likely to work, the judge will pick a different sentence.\n\nThat said, the role of the higher power is steps 6 & 7, which deal with changing your character. Either you believe you will change or you don't. God's really not a factor unless that's what you believe, that's why so many interpretations of \"higher power\" are equivalent. In almost no other setting is the God in Abrahamic religions interchangeable with an Atheist's enlightened self interest in pursuit of justice. But in 12-step programs it is."
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y5veu | why is it impossible to find any video of most of the olympics? | I just spent 5 minutes chasing dead links in an effort to see Mo Farah's 5000m Gold Medal win. I got frustrated and stopped and it left me wondering. "I'm willing to watch any 30 second ad and put in some real leg work (in internet terms of course) to find this video.
It seems like eyeballs + ads = profit and I'm a happy participant in the equation, yet even I can't access the video with the ease we're accustomed to online.
Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/y5veu/eli5_why_is_it_impossible_to_find_any_video_of/ | {
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"NBC purchased exclusive rights to the Olympics, therefore any other company/site trying to broadcast/stream the events was legally infringing on NBC's rights. The only way to watch the events online in the US was login through NBC's site (having a username/password for an existing cable TV service was required - presumably to prove one could already watch NBC's coverage on TV, and was therefore technically a paying customer), or to install a VPN and illegally watch the BBC's live coverage online.",
"What i dont understand is how big companies fail to see that people want to enjoy the OLYMPICS. Ppl want to see their country go at it. Why are they tryng to corner the market on a national event or further more an experience that you cant even put a price on? Id hate to be the parent of an Olympian in one of the un-televised events. "
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9agdbw | for a disease that cause sores (chicken pox, hfm etc), what determines where the sores pop up? | My son has passed his hand, foot and mouth disease to me. He had sores up his leg, I have sores on my forehead and hands. Seems like its random, but maybe theres a reason for its madness! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9agdbw/eli5_for_a_disease_that_cause_sores_chicken_pox/ | {
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"For each type of skin disease there are different patterns and different reasons for the patterns. \n\nFor viruses that infect nerve cells (like shingles, which is the chicken pox virus) the pattern comes out in [dermatomes](_URL_0_) or the pathway of the nerves that they infect.\n\nFor some infections, it depends on the point of contact of the infection or where the infection takes hold or where the pathogen migrates to.",
"Just want to give my condolences, I had hand foot mouth just a couple months ago and it is THE WORST! The blisters on my feet hurt so bad I could barely walk and the ones in my throat were so bad I could barely eat. Lasted about a week. \nMy feet are STILL peeling from it to this day and my sons (whom I got it from) fingernails almost peeled off, they are also just getting back to normal. Hfm is a bitch.",
"Holy crap. My kid just got HFM last week, i seem to have avoided it so far. \nHe got a mild case, but he had it on his mouth and hands. \nLooked annoying as fuck. Seems to be outbreaks of it "
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33ewks | what would happen to firewalls if google were to make a vpn service? | Since Google uses the same range of IP addresses and assuming that the firewall doesn't block Google, would they be able to block this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33ewks/eli5what_would_happen_to_firewalls_if_google_were/ | {
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"If Google were to do this, the user would have a different IP address from the site itself."
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5nwc0a | is genetic engineering possible to an adult? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nwc0a/eli5is_genetic_engineering_possible_to_an_adult/ | {
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"Kinda, we can work with Recombinant DNA to insert certain genes on certain cells so they produce a protein that they are not producing, but should.\n\nOne example would be getting pancreatic cells to produce insunline on a diabetic patient.\n\n\n[I'll leave you this video](_URL_0_) \n"
]
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[
"https://youtu.be/N-48RVaqZck"
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||
50lpfg | while driving, how is the whistling sound created by the narrow window slit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50lpfg/eli5_while_driving_how_is_the_whistling_sound/ | {
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"text": [
"similar to you whistling. you pass air in very tiny space, increasing its speed, which produced noise, the faster it goes the higher the pitch. "
]
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||
16yygj | explain how percentiles work? | I'm no good at math. So for example, saying something is in the bottom 10th percentile means.....? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16yygj/eli5_explain_how_percentiles_work/ | {
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"\"Per cent\" means out of 100.\n\nSuppose you have 100 apples, and you rank them from most fresh to most rotten. The freshest apples would be the top 10 percent (the top 10 out of 100), and the most rotten would be the bottom 10 percent (the bottom 10 out of 100)."
]
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|
a3bjbk | why does light leave a trail in pictures with moving light sources? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a3bjbk/eli5_why_does_light_leave_a_trail_in_pictures/ | {
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"The light travels to the camera and it leaves an imprint, but it does not happen in an instant. There is this thing called shutter speed, which I think means how long the camera receives the picture.\n\nThis is a nice example (from Hungarian Wikipedia): [_URL_1_](_URL_0_)\n\nSo, I think it leaves a trail because picture taking is not instantaneous? Hopefully someone will come along and explain it a bit better.",
"A camera do not take the picture in a instant. There is some time where the sensor collect the light to create the image. It can be a 1/100 000 of a second in bright sunlight but is a lot longer in the dark. You have exposures that is multiple minutes to capture the dark sky but you have exposure closer to a second in dark condition.\n\nSo any light source that move fast enough to change position on the image when the sensor collect light will add light to different part of the sensor and be a trail. How fast it need to move and how bright is has to bee depend in the exposure on the image. So it is hard to get moving light a bright day but easy to get when it is dark."
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"https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9nyk%C3%A9pez%C3%A9s#/media/File:Shutter_speed_waterfall.gif",
"https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9nyk%C3%A9pez%C3%A9s#/media/File:Shutter\\_speed\\_waterfall.gif"
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3xif19 | why is it important to turn off your eletronical devices (especially computers) ? | I have a friend that keeps on saying that it's destroying his computer to turn it off often so he never does (litteraly never). I think it isn't really cool energy wise so I want to know what's the best use of a computer, how often you should turn it off, considering both the computer's state and the energy used | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xif19/eli5_why_is_it_important_to_turn_off_your/ | {
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"Electronics more frequently die during a power up or power down scenario, as power supplies often spike during these events. I turn my LCD displays off when not in use, since their vacuum fluorescent back-lights have a limited life (40,000 hours MTBF) but keep my computer powered on. I do clean out the dust twice per year, though as electronics tend to be dust-magnets. ",
"In brief, frequently power cycling a computer induces electrical overstress (EOS) which is the leading cause of failure for electronic components. \n\nEOS is when a device is operated at a voltage/current (overvoltage/overcurrent) outside its safe operating area. Sufficient overvoltage results in the attrition and breakdown of electrical components and overcurrent causes damage by overheating electrical components. According to an [Intel report](_URL_0_), \"EOS is the number one cause of damage to IC (integrated circuit) components.\" Whenever a device is powered on or off, there is a small surge of power causing transient current spikes and rapid changes in current leads to voltage transients. \n\nComputers also have moving parts like hard disks and fans and the spin up/down phase during a power on/off induces mechanical stress. \n\nLeaving a computer on at all times is less stressful (not stress-free) than power cycling it multiple times on a regular basis and hence can prolong the life of a computer. Putting a computer to sleep allows it to continue operating in a low power mode which is both friendlier on the environment and the hardware. Using a universal power supply conditions the power supply by suppressing transient voltage spikes. \n \n"
]
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[],
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"http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/packaging-databooks/packaging-chapter-06-databook.pdf"
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l7atp | alternative minimum tax | I don't get this at all | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l7atp/eli5_alternative_minimum_tax/ | {
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"The alternative minimum tax is a tax calculation that acts as a second tax floor when it comes to calculating the amount owed on federal income taxes. It is calculated differently than the typical \"standard deduction.\" Whichever is higher (standard income tax rate vs alternative minimum tax) in $$ is the one you have to pay.\n\nThe alternative minimum tax started out as a way to make sure that the incredibly wealthy didn't get away with not paying income taxes. With itemized deductions, there exists a lot of tax loopholes, and the government was concerned that some people would try to exploit those loopholes to pay less taxes. The AMT has blossomed into a complete shitstorm of if/thens, and like most tax code, can have varying effects on the amount of taxes you owe.\n\nThe easiest way to calculate whether or not you need to go by the AMT code is by using a standardized tax software like \"TurboTax\". The software can identify which setup you fall underneath, and will guide you along the process of filing. A standard tax software through Intuit (Turbotax) is free for your federal filing (1040ez). You can efile or manually mail in your 1040 after you calculate your return.",
"The alternative minimum tax is a tax calculation that acts as a second tax floor when it comes to calculating the amount owed on federal income taxes. It is calculated differently than the typical \"standard deduction.\" Whichever is higher (standard income tax rate vs alternative minimum tax) in $$ is the one you have to pay.\n\nThe alternative minimum tax started out as a way to make sure that the incredibly wealthy didn't get away with not paying income taxes. With itemized deductions, there exists a lot of tax loopholes, and the government was concerned that some people would try to exploit those loopholes to pay less taxes. The AMT has blossomed into a complete shitstorm of if/thens, and like most tax code, can have varying effects on the amount of taxes you owe.\n\nThe easiest way to calculate whether or not you need to go by the AMT code is by using a standardized tax software like \"TurboTax\". The software can identify which setup you fall underneath, and will guide you along the process of filing. A standard tax software through Intuit (Turbotax) is free for your federal filing (1040ez). You can efile or manually mail in your 1040 after you calculate your return."
]
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9oyw9l | why do arms crossed over chest considered to be a denial? i personally find just comfortable. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9oyw9l/eli5_why_do_arms_crossed_over_chest_considered_to/ | {
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"A closed posture like having crossed arms is a body language indication that the person is unavailable or unreceptive to what's being said. People also tend to cross their arms when they're upset or disagree with the other person so it gets read subconsciously as a negative",
"When you take less space with your body, it's seen as you not wanting to talk. People that take more space with their limbs look like people who seek attention from others.",
"It can signify that you're closing yourself off mentally. Open body language, having your arms back and shoulders wide, signifies that you're listening well and taking in all the information. I don't know why this body language works, but it does. However, crossing your arms is pretty comfortable sometimes, so don't worry about it unless you're in a job interview or something.",
"I think it is precisely that. You cross your arm because you are looking for comfort. Usually (not always), this is because people are not feeling comfortable, maybe due to disagreement or upset."
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6a7fj4 | why are movie drug manufacturers always in their underwear? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6a7fj4/eli5_why_are_movie_drug_manufacturers_always_in/ | {
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"Generally to keep them from stealing anything. If you don't have pockets or privacy, it is much more difficult to steal.",
"One part of it is that people who are improperly dressed are perceived as sleazy; it sets them up as a bad person to the audience.\n\nHowever, it has some basis in reality. Marijuana is grown under hot conditions, using heating lamps, and a methamphetamine lab in a small space will also get hot.",
"If you are operating a chemistry lab, you may get stuff on your clothes, staining/damaging them (and also creating evidence).",
"In the case of meth labs, everything they use is highly flammable and explodes. to minize chance of explosions due to static discharge, clothing is minimal. In the case of drug packaging, it's to curb theft. ",
"Two reasons I know of.\n\n1) Theft. If you cut cocaine for a living, (tables covered in white powder in the movies) then you could pocket hundreds of dollars worth of product in seconds. If you have no pockets, its harder to steal stuff.\n\n2) Evidence. A lot of drug manufacturing/cutting is pretty messy. If your crew leaves the hidden shop everyday covered in residue or powder, its only a matter of time until you're found out.",
"In the movie \"American Gangster\" one of the Lucas Brothers ask about this specifically. I don't recall if its Frank or one of his employers, but they essentially say that its to prevent theft. He doesn't object."
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272oj9 | in quantum mechanics, how is it possible for nothing to exist until it is observed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/272oj9/eli5_in_quantum_mechanics_how_is_it_possible_for/ | {
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"It's not that the object doesn't exist. It's that the state/property of the object is unknown until observed.\n\n",
"Sub-atomic particles have shown the strange ability to blink in and out of reality as we know it. This means, on a sub-atomic level, the chance that a particle exists and the chance that it doesn't exist are equal. Think of it like a coin flip. If someone flips a coin behind you, you can't see how it lands. In that moment when it lands and you're not looking, the odds that it's heads are the same as the odds that it's tails. The only way you know it's one or the other is if you observe it, either directly or indirectly. To put it more simply, if there's something behind you that you are not observing, it very well might be there, but you can't know for sure until you observe it. Even then, how do you know it was there when you weren't observing it? You can't."
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fabq3q | why is it so hard to think about a song while listening to a different one? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fabq3q/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_think_about_a_song/ | {
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"Selective attention. As much as we wish we could pay attention to more than one thing at once, or multi-task, we literally can't, our brains aren't built for it.",
"There is constant competition for resources between your internal environment (ie imagination, memory recall, etc) and the external environment or \"real\" world. The simplest way to explain it is that when you imagine something or in this case recall something, your brain simulates whatever it is using some of the same structures that it used to take it in from the environment back when you experienced it for the first time. As such, since the same areas are used to simulate memories and experience new things in the environment, only one can happen at a time as they begin to interfere with one another otherwise. \n\nClosing your eyes to picture something is the same concept. Remove the external stimuli that is real time sight so that it's easier to simulate what you're trying to picture in your internal environment."
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19398m | why websites can show an "i'm down!" message when they're down? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19398m/eli5_why_websites_can_show_an_im_down_message/ | {
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"\"I'm down\" is a static page that doesn't change - all the web server has to do is send the page to you.\n\nWhat is down is not the web server itself (which sends generated pages to you), but the bits that actually generate the pages with the information you want to see. This might be because they're too busy (sending a single static page takes much less processing power), because they're broken, or because they're being upgraded.",
"It's set up to always be there even if the rest of the site isn't, sort of like a recorded answering machine message.",
"It's not down, traffic is still being passed, the site is just being fixed.\n\nIf the website is actually completely down, no traffic is being sent, and you will get an error message from your browser, not from the site.",
"I understand this is already answered but I wanted to throw in a little more information anyway. In larger enterprise environments, a common option is to have a load balancer in front of multiple web servers distributing the traffic. That load balancer will \"poll\" the web servers regularly to make sure they are healthy. If one fails (it's dead for whatever reason) load is shifted to the others. But if all fail (for whatever reason) it's common to have the load balancer forward all traffic to some standby servers that have the \"I'm down\" page prepared. Once the original web cluster is returned to service the users will be returned to them and work as normal. This is all transparent to the end user. ",
"They can because they are not entirely down. It means that something broke in the website but not so much that it is still able to tell you they are not working properly.\n\nWhen a website is completely down you will not get even that message and all sort of different error messages can show up.",
"There's a guy at school who talks to a lot of people. Some people tell him interesting things, and he has a very good memory, so if you're ever bored, you can go talk to him and he'll tell you one of their stories.\n\nAs time progresses, this guy gets more and more popular, and starts to have trouble keeping up with demand for stories, so he goes and finds a bunch of people to help. His helpers' memory capabilities aren't as good as his, but they can talk more quickly. Now, instead of going to the guy for stories, people go find one of his helpers. The helpers eventually relay stories they're told to the guy who still makes a point of remembering everything they're told, and the helpers can remember a few really popular stories by themselves. If someone asks a helper for a story that they can't remember, they'll go off and ask the guy, who will tell the helper, and then the helper will tell the person who asked for it. (Additionally, the helper will remember that story for a little while in case anyone else asks for it.)\n\nExcept, sometimes someone will ask a helper for a story that the helper can't remember, and when the helper goes to look for the guy, he's too busy telling stories to other helpers to tell them the one they're looking for, so the helper will have to tell whoever's asking for the story that they just can't right now.\n\nThe guy is the reddit app servers, and his memory is the reddit database servers. You don't talk to him directly; his helpers – the reddit cache servers – do. If the app servers are too busy, the cache servers return a 503 error, indicating that the service isn't necessarily gone (that'd be a 400-series error or, in the reddit infrastructure, 502).\n\nIn the case of websites that don't have a caching layer, you wouldn't see an error generated by the webserver – the request would just time out, so you'd get an error message from your browser. (You could think of that as asking a friend to go ask the guy for a story, but the friend got tired of waiting for the guy so he came back and told you that he didn't get a story.)\n\n**Edit:** You can also expand this to explain why sometimes you'll click on a link to a comments thread and then... wait... forever. What's happening is that the helper who stepped forward to tell you a story (web server responsible for your request) is trying to help too many at once (is trying to serve too many requests at once) and is too distracted to serve you properly (is too distracted to serve you properly).",
"Think of a website as a factory and warehouse with a reception window. If you want a web page loaded, you approach the front counter and ask the person behind the desk to fetch you the page. That person punches in the request and the workers in the factory behind him starts prepping your order. If everything goes right, the factory finds the information you're looking for, organizes it, packages it, and bring it out front to the receptionist. The receptionist wraps up the order and hands you your package in the form of a presentable and nice webpage.\n\nWhen sites like Reddit goes down or is under maintenance, it usually means something has gone wrong at the factory. Too many order request and now things are really backed up. Maybe the shelves of raw material (data) have suddenly disappeared or the workers go on strike (when Amazon EC2 goes down). Or maybe the instructions for the assembly line machines are bad and parts are coming out all wrong (a bug in the programming code). \n\nWhen something goes wrong at the factory, the front desk window is still open. You can still go up to it and ask a webpage. The reception look behind him at the factory and just simply says 'sorry, something has gone wrong in the background. We're trying to sort it out but for now, no web pages.' This is normally what happens when you see an error message while loading a webpage. Other times, there's just a sign that's posted at the reception window says 'we're doing some maintenance, come back later.' That's what happens when sites like Reddit are doing some maintenance and everyone sees the same blue page.\n\nGenerally speaking, website are divided into 3 layers: presentation, application, and database. In my example, the receptionist is the presentation layer. Presentation is the only aspect of a website that you'll ever see. Its job is to 'present' and wrap up data coming from the application layer into a pretty package. It has a pretty simple but visually demanding job. Application layer does all of the grunt work for assembling the data and putting pieces together, it gets all of the raw information from the database (the warehouse). When websites fail, it generally either the application layer or the database that's having problems.",
"In addition to the other things folks have posted here, which (as of this writing) are all more or less true, there's also this: It encourages or discourages helpdesk tickets, whichever is appropriate at a given time.\n\nIt's like this: When a site is taken down for maintenance, the webserver is reconfigured to show that the owners know the site's down. Bright and highly-educated users will read the message, and refrain from generating unnecessary work for the helpdesk.\n\nIf a site falls on its face, the webserver that brokers its traffic gives the users an error page that includes the number for the helpdesk. The site owners probably know about the problem, but just in case they don't, diligent and helpful users will notify the folks who can fix the site. "
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9zbhsj | why is glass considered a super-cooled liquid but ice is considered a solid? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9zbhsj/eli5_why_is_glass_considered_a_supercooled_liquid/ | {
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"Glass has no structure to how the atoms are placed when it cools down. Glass is called an *amorphous solid*.\n\nWhen water cools down to ice, the atoms arrange in such a way that it has a set crystalline structure. ",
"\"Solids are highly organized structures. They include crystals, like sugar and salt, with their millions of atoms lined up in a row, explains Mark Ediger, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. \"Liquids and glasses don't have that order,\" he notes. Glasses, though more organized than liquids, do not attain the rigid order of crystals. \"Amorphous means it doesn't have that long-range order,\" Ediger says. With a \"solid—if you grab it, it holds its shape,\" he adds.\n\n\"When glass is made, the material (often containing silica) is quickly cooled from its liquid state but does not solidify when its temperature drops below its melting point. At this stage, the material is a supercooled liquid, an intermediate state between liquid and glass. To become an amorphous solid, the material is cooled further, below the glass-transition temperature. Past this point, the molecular movement of the material's atoms has slowed to nearly a stop and the material is now a glass. This new structure is not as organized as a crystal, because it did not freeze, but it is more organized than a liquid. For practical purposes, such as holding a drink, glass is like a solid, Ediger says, although a disorganized one.\"\n\nFrom Scientific American",
"Glass is actually considered to be an “amorphous solid,” somewhere in between liquid and solid. Glass is referred to as a supercooled liquid when it is below its melting point but still hot and malleable. \n\nAn example of its “amorphous” state can be found in old church windows, where the lanes of glass are thicker at the bottom. One theory was that they started out at a uniform thickness but that slowly, over decades or centuries, gravity had some effect and the glass “melted.” However there was confusion about this because it certainly doesn’t appear to happen to all old glass, even ancient windows. It was eventually determined that glass-makers made uneven panes and builders preferred to place them thick-side down.\n\nThe molecular structure of glass is less “organized” than a crystal but more organized than a liquid. But for all intents and purposes, it’s a solid. \n\nIce is a solid because it is made up of crystals, which are highly “organized.” You can apparently make amorphous ice using extremely pure water which needs to be supercooled very quickly to liquid nitrogen temperatures. However, any tiny disturbance however will create normal ice.\n\n"
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6rk97c | why is the sound bad if you call someone right next to you? | I mean a cellphone call. Calling someone in the same room always messes up the sound. I'm wondering why. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6rk97c/eli5_why_is_the_sound_bad_if_you_call_someone/ | {
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"Sound quality isn't a function of the distance a call needs to travel, and at any rate the cell call will be going to the tower and back to whoever you called anyway. Cell phones are not walkie-talkies.\n\nPhone calls are encoded in a way that compresses the amount of data being sent, throwing out much of the nuance of the sound while still leaving something which can be understood. This allows more calls to be carried in a given infrastructure and is backwards compatible with older, less capable technology.",
"You need to elaborate your question. What do you mean call? Call with your voice? Call on the phone? What sounds bad?",
"A few years ago, I used to work as a technician for a mobile operator. I would spend quite a bit of time testing handsets for call quality issues and suchlike, and so it was quite common for me to call colleagues who were sitting as close as the very next desk to try something out.\n\nFor the most part, there's nothing wrong with the call quality when you call someone in the same room - the call takes the same route as if you were calling them from the next street - up to the base station, into the network and back out through the base station to the other handset.\n\nI suspect that your question is based on one of two things.\n\nIt could be that you can hear the person talking next to you, at the same time as you're hearing them through the phone, which makes you aware of how relatively poor phone quality is compared to the real thing.\n\nAlternatively, I suspect that what's happening is that you're getting confused by hearing your own voice in the earpiece of the handset.\n\nNow, all phones feed a little bit of our voice back to the earpiece; it's called sidetone, and it's essential because if we don't have it, we tend to start yelling to be heard. Having sidetone helps us keep our voice at a reasonable level.\n\nHowever, if you've got another handset in the room, and your voice is actually being picked up by that handset and is being sent back to your own handset's earpiece, that means that as well as the sidetone (which happens in real time) you're also getting an ever-so-slightly delayed sound of your own voice too. Our brains don't like hearing our own voice in this manner - it makes us self-conscious and if it's bad enough it can pretty much stop someone from talking."
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6wyh4y | why does the pain from muscle-aches after gyming feel so good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wyh4y/eli5_why_does_the_pain_from_muscleaches_after/ | {
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"I think it's your brain releasing specific endorphins that feel good. I know that's what happens with a \"runner's high\", where your body floods with nice stuff to tell you that it's good that you are running and you should do it again.",
"Feels so good because it's a sign of your achievement, i.e. entirely psychological. Doesn't feel good to me, if I push myself hard enough for it to hurt then I can't go to the gym for the next two days."
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6263vf | the bodies strewn around mount everest | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6263vf/eli5_the_bodies_strewn_around_mount_everest/ | {
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" > Whatever financial cost is outweighed by returning the bodies home\n\n1. You're ignoring the potential cost of even *more* people dying on the mountain.\n\n2. Not everyone there would have *wanted* their body to be returned home, and would consider being remembered forever as a marker on the mountain they strove to conquer to be a great honor.\n\n3. Not everyone has anyone to be returned home to.\n\n4. You mentioned the financial cost. So, who is going to pay for it?",
"It's too risky, you'd be putting more lives in danger to retrieve the bodies.\n\nWhich you'd then have to bring those new bodies down as well... creating more risk.\n\nCarrying 200 pounds of frozen, dead weight down a mountain is NOT simple or easy to do.",
"From what I understand, there's a lot of factors but it often becomes that individuals wish or the wish of the family what is done with the body. \n\nThe danger is also quite real. It would take a sizable team to dig out just a single body. Those bodies are frozen solid and you'd have to fully dig out around it, adding weight to an already frozen solid body. Sometimes these bodies just aren't accessible. There are many of the 200+ bodies known to be on Everest that are buried several feet under avalanches. The resources it would take to dig under that amount of frozen snow under the conditions found on Everest would be nearly impossible. \n\nSadly, I don't think it's possible to bring home every body. Some of the families wishes are that their loved ones stay there. For those that are able to be salvaged and their family wants closure, sure I say we do everything to bring them home. \n\nAs for the trash, it saddens me that it's become such a tourist attraction over the years and that it came to actions such as that. True climbers, not ones paying the way to satisfy their ego, would never have left that trash like that. "
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ng32u | why our congress is trying so hard to pass sopa. | With Congressional approval at an all-time low, and the amount of backlash the bill is receiving, why is Congress still trying to get it to pass? Are there a silent majority (outside of Reddit, etc.) who are actually in support of the bill? Or, does Congress really not care? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ng32u/eli5_why_our_congress_is_trying_so_hard_to_pass/ | {
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"All of the industries that are hurt by piracy (movie, TV, recording) have lobbied congress to pass the legislation. They say that the Federal Government needs more control over the internet to prevent copyright laws from being ignored and broken.\n\nCongress heard the part about the Federal Government having more control over the internet and said \"YEP. count us in.\"\n\nCongress doesn't give a shit about piracy nor will the bill do much to stop it. Congress wants more federal control over the internet. ",
"1) To be honest, most people in most places don't care very much about SOPA. Despite it being constant frontpage news on Reddit, SOPA is pretty much a C-list news story for the majority of Americans. The \"backlash,\" the bill is receiving is, generally speaking, not particularly large. Which isn't to say it's small, but it's not a huge national controversy on the lips of every proletariat.\n\n2) Are there people in support of the bill? Yes, quite a few. Outside of the CEOs who run the big media outlets, there's a lot of middle class workers for those big media outlets who know better numbers for the business means they have better job security. Viacom alone cut more than 1000 jobs since September. Good profit margines makes it hard for the companies to justify cutting jobs, so plenty of set painters and lighting guys are hoping SOPA can stop people from pirating Two & a Half Men or whatever nonsense.\n\n3) Does Congress really care? Who knows? I don't think they're personally too invested either way. Many of them will want to pass it because they've got lobby interested passed on to them from big CEOs. But I don't think many are personally invested in the outcome of the bill. So many Congressmen are so rich that piracy doesn't explicitly appeal.",
"_URL_0_\n\nI watched hours and hours of the Congressional committees debates.\n\nThey mentioned the need to fight piracy approximately once per minute.\n\nThey mentioned tech jobs and startups perhaps once total.\n\nThey mentioned public opinion and the will of the people zero times.",
"Money son... Money.",
"Devil's advocate time, downvote away, but here we go...\n\nThere are these people called artists -- writers, composers, filmmakers, etc. They make stuff and hope to make a little bit of money off of it. It's kind of like people working hourly for employers, but with a difference. You work per hour in a day job, you get paid per hour, great. The artists work a shitload of hours making their stuff, say creating one song. They make money by selling rights to that song to a big company, which sells it to everyone else, then the artists get a little piece of change back for every copy that sells. Note the word \"copy\", because that's an important part of it. The artist owns the \"copyright,\" which is the right to copy the song, play, film, book, whatever, in whatever form -- vinyl, CD, DVD, book, PDF, MP3, etc. Federal law grants this right to the creator, and makes it illegal for someone who does not pay the creator to copy the work in any form whatsoever. Period. That's pretty black and white. You make the art, you own it, or whoever you sell the copyright to owns it on your behalf. Still -- somebody owns the rights to copy that work, period. Not \"everybody.\" Somebody. A single entity.\n\nUnfortunately, one little artist can't really sell their work to the world, or at least they couldn't before the internet, so all these big companies sprang up -- publishers, movie studios, and record labels mostly. And they made a deal with the artists. \"You sell us your copyright, and we will make sure that a shitload of people hear about you and want to buy your stuff, and we'll give you a little piece of the action after we pay for advertising your stuff.\"\n\nAnd all was well and good before the internet and digital technology, when the extent of piracy was, maybe, one dude Xeroxing a couple of copies of a book for his friends (making Xerox happy and artists pissed), or someone making a really shitty recording of an LP via microphone onto a cassette to give to his girlfriend, or... oh, right -- no way to pirate movies before video tape existed. And the publishers, movie studios and record labels made an assload of money, and the authors, directors, writers, and composers got a little piece of that change and all was good.\n\nAnd then... the internet. And then... everything that could be created could be digitized and uploaded and downloaded. And then... legions of dipshit kiddies had the biggest, cheapest Xerox machine in the world, and decided that they didn't have to pay for anything. Call it entitlement. Call it being pisspoor little snowflakes. Whatever. The end result is that the big corporations acting on behalf of the artists suddenly started seeing their income shrink because a bunch of dipshits online decided that they shouldn't have to pay for the artistic output of another person.\n\nLet's get back to those hourly wage earners for some perspective. Pirating shit from the artist's point of view is just like this... you've worked a forty hour week. You've turned in your time card. On pay day, your boss hands you a check for four cents, smiles, and says, \"Hey. Why the fuck should I have to pay you to work here? That's so unfair. Take it or leave it, and if you complain I'm going to piss and moan and call you an asshole.\"\n\nAt this point, keep in mind -- those studios, publishers, and record labels have made a metric buttload of cash because they have exploited the artists as well. \"We keep ninety cents, you keep ten, but you'd have one one hundredth the fans without us, sucker.\" Sad, but true. And what do those big companies do with the money they've skimmed off of the works of their artists? Why... bribe Congress to keep more of that money. And, since Congress is full of out of touch old fucks and those companies are owned by greedy bastards without hearts... voila, SOPA, which is like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly on your kitchen window. Sure, you kill the fly, but you destroy the window as well. \n\nSOPA absolutely sucks ass, but we're going to get stuck with it because this is another 1% vs. 99% situation -- the 1% raping both artists and consumers, and they buy and sell Congress, who does not understand modern tech, boom. Overkill. Shotgun brought in when a fly swatter was all that was needed. In an ideal world, artists would sell their stuff direct to fans, and the price would be reasonable. I mean, a buck a song, five bucks a book, all profit to the creators, none to the corporate leaches, everybody happy, copyright respected, piracy not necessary. And a shitload of no-talent assholes in suits suddenly broke. Boo fucking hoo.\n\nIf SOPA passes, there's a simple way to cut if off at the knees, and it's this. Consumers have to stop pirating shit. At the same time, they have to buy direct from the artists (empowering artists to sell directly), and actually pay for it, but the artists will charge a lot less. Why? Because corporations are greedy. Know how much it costs to manufacture a CD or DVD? With the fanciest of packaging, three bucks at the most, but more like about seventy cents -- closer to fifty cents for a really, really popular artist. To create a digital only version? Original production costs, maybe twenty grand, but those costs are covered by the first X many copies, 20K divided by price charged. Popular artist, buck a shot... production cost covered in a day or two. Every single copy sold after that is pure profit. \n\nSo, TL;DR-ish -- SOPA is also an OWS issue. Why? Because the 1% -- the movie studios, record labels, and publishers -- are using the legitimate copyright claims of the artists to drive a wedge between one bunch of 99%ers -- the consumers -- and another bunch of 99%-ers -- the creators. Both groups need to tell the 1% to go fuck themselves, stop exploiting the creators and the consumers, and go pound sand in a bread line somewhere. The real future paradigm is artists to consumer direct. The middlemen can eat shit. ",
"Congress is not controlled by the majority. It's controlled by money and corporations.",
"All of the industries that are hurt by piracy (movie, TV, recording) have lobbied congress to pass the legislation. They say that the Federal Government needs more control over the internet to prevent copyright laws from being ignored and broken.\n\nCongress heard the part about the Federal Government having more control over the internet and said \"YEP. count us in.\"\n\nCongress doesn't give a shit about piracy nor will the bill do much to stop it. Congress wants more federal control over the internet. ",
"1) To be honest, most people in most places don't care very much about SOPA. Despite it being constant frontpage news on Reddit, SOPA is pretty much a C-list news story for the majority of Americans. The \"backlash,\" the bill is receiving is, generally speaking, not particularly large. Which isn't to say it's small, but it's not a huge national controversy on the lips of every proletariat.\n\n2) Are there people in support of the bill? Yes, quite a few. Outside of the CEOs who run the big media outlets, there's a lot of middle class workers for those big media outlets who know better numbers for the business means they have better job security. Viacom alone cut more than 1000 jobs since September. Good profit margines makes it hard for the companies to justify cutting jobs, so plenty of set painters and lighting guys are hoping SOPA can stop people from pirating Two & a Half Men or whatever nonsense.\n\n3) Does Congress really care? Who knows? I don't think they're personally too invested either way. Many of them will want to pass it because they've got lobby interested passed on to them from big CEOs. But I don't think many are personally invested in the outcome of the bill. So many Congressmen are so rich that piracy doesn't explicitly appeal.",
"_URL_0_\n\nI watched hours and hours of the Congressional committees debates.\n\nThey mentioned the need to fight piracy approximately once per minute.\n\nThey mentioned tech jobs and startups perhaps once total.\n\nThey mentioned public opinion and the will of the people zero times.",
"Money son... Money.",
"Devil's advocate time, downvote away, but here we go...\n\nThere are these people called artists -- writers, composers, filmmakers, etc. They make stuff and hope to make a little bit of money off of it. It's kind of like people working hourly for employers, but with a difference. You work per hour in a day job, you get paid per hour, great. The artists work a shitload of hours making their stuff, say creating one song. They make money by selling rights to that song to a big company, which sells it to everyone else, then the artists get a little piece of change back for every copy that sells. Note the word \"copy\", because that's an important part of it. The artist owns the \"copyright,\" which is the right to copy the song, play, film, book, whatever, in whatever form -- vinyl, CD, DVD, book, PDF, MP3, etc. Federal law grants this right to the creator, and makes it illegal for someone who does not pay the creator to copy the work in any form whatsoever. Period. That's pretty black and white. You make the art, you own it, or whoever you sell the copyright to owns it on your behalf. Still -- somebody owns the rights to copy that work, period. Not \"everybody.\" Somebody. A single entity.\n\nUnfortunately, one little artist can't really sell their work to the world, or at least they couldn't before the internet, so all these big companies sprang up -- publishers, movie studios, and record labels mostly. And they made a deal with the artists. \"You sell us your copyright, and we will make sure that a shitload of people hear about you and want to buy your stuff, and we'll give you a little piece of the action after we pay for advertising your stuff.\"\n\nAnd all was well and good before the internet and digital technology, when the extent of piracy was, maybe, one dude Xeroxing a couple of copies of a book for his friends (making Xerox happy and artists pissed), or someone making a really shitty recording of an LP via microphone onto a cassette to give to his girlfriend, or... oh, right -- no way to pirate movies before video tape existed. And the publishers, movie studios and record labels made an assload of money, and the authors, directors, writers, and composers got a little piece of that change and all was good.\n\nAnd then... the internet. And then... everything that could be created could be digitized and uploaded and downloaded. And then... legions of dipshit kiddies had the biggest, cheapest Xerox machine in the world, and decided that they didn't have to pay for anything. Call it entitlement. Call it being pisspoor little snowflakes. Whatever. The end result is that the big corporations acting on behalf of the artists suddenly started seeing their income shrink because a bunch of dipshits online decided that they shouldn't have to pay for the artistic output of another person.\n\nLet's get back to those hourly wage earners for some perspective. Pirating shit from the artist's point of view is just like this... you've worked a forty hour week. You've turned in your time card. On pay day, your boss hands you a check for four cents, smiles, and says, \"Hey. Why the fuck should I have to pay you to work here? That's so unfair. Take it or leave it, and if you complain I'm going to piss and moan and call you an asshole.\"\n\nAt this point, keep in mind -- those studios, publishers, and record labels have made a metric buttload of cash because they have exploited the artists as well. \"We keep ninety cents, you keep ten, but you'd have one one hundredth the fans without us, sucker.\" Sad, but true. And what do those big companies do with the money they've skimmed off of the works of their artists? Why... bribe Congress to keep more of that money. And, since Congress is full of out of touch old fucks and those companies are owned by greedy bastards without hearts... voila, SOPA, which is like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly on your kitchen window. Sure, you kill the fly, but you destroy the window as well. \n\nSOPA absolutely sucks ass, but we're going to get stuck with it because this is another 1% vs. 99% situation -- the 1% raping both artists and consumers, and they buy and sell Congress, who does not understand modern tech, boom. Overkill. Shotgun brought in when a fly swatter was all that was needed. In an ideal world, artists would sell their stuff direct to fans, and the price would be reasonable. I mean, a buck a song, five bucks a book, all profit to the creators, none to the corporate leaches, everybody happy, copyright respected, piracy not necessary. And a shitload of no-talent assholes in suits suddenly broke. Boo fucking hoo.\n\nIf SOPA passes, there's a simple way to cut if off at the knees, and it's this. Consumers have to stop pirating shit. At the same time, they have to buy direct from the artists (empowering artists to sell directly), and actually pay for it, but the artists will charge a lot less. Why? Because corporations are greedy. Know how much it costs to manufacture a CD or DVD? With the fanciest of packaging, three bucks at the most, but more like about seventy cents -- closer to fifty cents for a really, really popular artist. To create a digital only version? Original production costs, maybe twenty grand, but those costs are covered by the first X many copies, 20K divided by price charged. Popular artist, buck a shot... production cost covered in a day or two. Every single copy sold after that is pure profit. \n\nSo, TL;DR-ish -- SOPA is also an OWS issue. Why? Because the 1% -- the movie studios, record labels, and publishers -- are using the legitimate copyright claims of the artists to drive a wedge between one bunch of 99%ers -- the consumers -- and another bunch of 99%-ers -- the creators. Both groups need to tell the 1% to go fuck themselves, stop exploiting the creators and the consumers, and go pound sand in a bread line somewhere. The real future paradigm is artists to consumer direct. The middlemen can eat shit. ",
"Congress is not controlled by the majority. It's controlled by money and corporations."
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28ku9a | why do doctors and physicians use balance scales instead of electronic ones? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28ku9a/eli5why_do_doctors_and_physicians_use_balance/ | {
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" > Those are balance scales; they are inherently more accurate, need less calibration, and are easier to calibrate if does become necessary, relative to electronic scales. Also matpavelle correctly observes they have built-in height measurement.\n\n[Reddit](_URL_0_)"
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cm9xa3 | technocracy | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cm9xa3/eli5_technocracy/ | {
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"A “technocracy” is when the government uses scientists and engineers to devise what is “best” rather than what people want. It doesn’t always mean literal leadership by scientists. Often it refers to a regime that believes technology and rationality can solve social problems.\n\nThe upshot is that the technocracy institutes evidence-based and highly rational solutions, and the people don’t have to tolerate irrational or counterproductive behavior from Luddite voters. The downside - and where you will usually hear the word used - is when a government is so convinced that it’s new method is “best” that it ignores what the people actually want. \n\nSometimes a scientist or engineer becomes so insistent on what the data says must be “best” that they ignore human factors. You can see this in any tech company where the engineers (who do what is “best”) are in conflict with marketers (who focus on what consumers want). Imagine the assholes who gave us Windows 8 being allowed to run a country!",
"Technocracy is government by \"experts\". It says essentially that economic policy should be decided by economists. Criminal policy should be decided by criminologists, etc. Basically all governments have some elements of technocracy. Leaders are advised by experts and frequently appoint experts to manage government agencies. Leaders who have some scientific expertise themselves or who tend to defer to the suggestions of experts are often called \"technocrats\", though this does not mean they are governing in a technocracy.\n\nBasically no government is a \"pure\" technocracy. Experts in government are still ordered around by either dictators or politicians. A pure technocracy would require some way (that wasn't democratic) of selecting who was best qualified for making decisions, like an exam or a contest. Designing such a mechanism that everyone would agree on is all but impossible."
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e7v3e2 | why mobile phones require pin after boot, even when fingerprints/irises/faces are registered? | Isn't the security the same? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e7v3e2/eli5_why_mobile_phones_require_pin_after_boot/ | {
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"A pin is also used as an encrypt/decrypt key after reboot and the fingerprint is used as for ease of authentication only.\n\nYou cant use fingerprint after reboot as the biometric info is stored in the encrypted state.",
"Fingerprints, irises and faces can be compelled, pin codes generally can't. For example, someone could knock you out with chloroform and use your finger to unlock your phone. Can't do that if it requires a pin code, so the security profiles are vastly different.\n\nThat said, the general reason that it requires a pin on bootup could be to decrypt your phone. Even without a sim card, modern smartphones store all kinds of data in memory chips which is encrypted at rest in many modern smartphones.\n\nThe reason the phone designers decided to request a pin at startup is likely a combination of both concerns. If they so choose, they could use your fingerprint as a decryption key, but it would be less secure.",
"Modern phones encrypt their storage. This means that the data is stored in a scrambled form and you can't unscramble it unless you have a secret code. This protects your data in the case that someone physically removes your phone's storage chip and sticks it into another phone or a reader device. Note that this secret code should NOT be your PIN.\n\nWhy can't your PIN be used as the \"secret code\"? Well it turns out that encryption using short codes is not very effective. The code needs to be long in order to be resistant to brute force attacks (i.e., trying all the combinations). A sufficiently long password could work, but typing passwords on a phone keyboard is rather annoying and most people would just pick a really easy password.\n\nSo here we have a dilemma. We want to scramble the data on the phone such that a long code is necessary to read it. But nobody wants to type long codes into a phone; most people would prefer a short PIN. How do we solve this?\n\nThe solution phone manufacturers have arrived at is to put a fortified, tamper-resistant security chip into their phones. One main job of this chip is to store the secret code necessary to decrypt the storage. The chip will never reveal the code - not to you, and not even to the phone's operating system. When the phone boots, the security chip asks the operating system (which in turn asks you) for the PIN. If the PIN is correct, the security chip uses the secret code it has stored to unscramble your data and deliver the unscrambled data to the operating system. The security chip also enforces things like how long you have to wait before PIN guesses.\n\nWhy does this add security? If someone were to physically remove your phone's storage chip and try to brute force the secret code, they won't be able to because the code is very long and it is stored in the security chip. If they were to remove both the storage chip and the security chip together, the security chip will still be enforcing PIN guess lockouts.\n\nTL;DR when your phone boots there is a security chip inside your phone holding your data hostage until you supply the PIN."
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t5re8 | how to write a symphony? | The basic structure and what have you, I've been reading up on Mozart and have found myself rather curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/t5re8/eli5_how_to_write_a_symphony/ | {
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"Nice try, Salieri",
"The basic structure of a symphony is that it has four movements.\n\nThe first movement is typically in sonata form, which is a pretty highly structured way of building a piece of music based on a few musical ideas. It's usually quite fast. I can try to explain Sonata Form like you're five if you really want...\n\nThe second movement is typically a slow movement. It doesn't have a particular structure, but is likely to be more reflective in mood.\n\nThe third movement is traditionally a dance - a minuet and trio. This is sort of a pre-cursor to a waltz, and is in three time, and quite fast. You have the \"minuet\" section, then the \"trio\" section which is a change in tune/mood (and isn't actually related to three in any way), and then a repeat of the \"minuet\" section again.\n\nThe fourth movement is fast again. It can be a rondo, which is a structure with a tune that you keep coming back to, then a bit more music, then the original tune again, and then more music etc.\n\nAs well as knowing the basic structure of a symphony you'd also need to be familiar with the instruments in the orchestra, what you can do with them (eg, strings you can have playing long sustained notes or you could have them pluck the strings for a different sound), and what sounds good with what (eg. if you get the brass to play loud and the strings to play quiet, the sound of the strings may not come through). \n\nFinally you would also need to know about harmony, as in what notes sound good together, and which ones don't.\n\nDifferent composers have done different things with symphonies, but generally it's a good idea to know what the Classical rules are first so that you can break them effectively. :)"
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atve2v | how do spacecrafts not melt off through launch if the temperature in the exosphere is 1700 degrees celsius? | I had an argument with a flat earther, and they told me to google the temperature in the exosphere, asking how come every launch goes so smoothly *if* temperatures are really so unbearably high and nothing could survive through them. I wasn't sure how to go about explaining this.
EDIT: thank you all for replying! Honestly, the flat earther is my mom, she keeps telling me she isn't one, saying things like says "according to *their* theories", all the while claiming to question the reality of the situation since she herself can't literally go and check if the earth is round. It frustrates me to no end since she used to be such a logical, easily comprehending person. Now its all about "their theories make sense if you read them" and "i just haven't seen proof with my own eyes". I tried explaining to her along the lines of what you all said, which completely makes sense to me, but doesn't make much difference because she just says it still doesn't make sense to her. She says things like: "If you google the exosphere temperature, why would it say such a high number if it doesn't even truly affect anything?".
I've tried giving examples like ships seeming to "sink" below the horizon and the sun setting in the same way, but she claims she never sees the ships sinking and the sun just orbits around the flat earth according to *THEIR* theory. She likes to say she is just sceptical and doesn't fully believe either idea.
Anyhow, this was super helpful for me to understand so thank you everyone, next time she starts this bs again i'll have an informed and factually correct response.
EDIT 2: grammar and cohesiveness
EDIT 3: Also apparently the flat earth theory has a made up answer for everything if you look at their diagrams, with explanations for seasons, gravity, time zones, you name it. Everyone's responses have been great but theres no reasoning with someone who chooses to be sceptical about the whole system. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/atve2v/eli5_how_do_spacecrafts_not_melt_off_through/ | {
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"The pressure is so low that it will cause the molecules to be extremely spaced apart. Thin air does not transmit heat very well. ",
"Temperature is effectively a measurement of how fast particles are moving. Or the kinetic energy they have. Since there are so little particles in the upper atmosphere the heat will hardly transfer. Although the particles themselves move very quickly.",
"It's actually impossible to measure the temperature of the exosphere because everything is so spread out. Individual particles might be 1700 degrees, but the air itself is not heated uniformly as it would be when you step outside from your house because of the space between those particles.\n\nI would also argue that not every space launch \"goes so smoothly\".\n\nI would also point out that these spacecraft are designed to endure extremely high temperatures. NASA's thermal protection system for its space shuttle program protected the shuttle from re-entry temperatures of up to 1,650 degrees Celsius (and that excludes the boundary layer of air beyond the surface that could rise to 5,500 degrees Celsius.",
"What everyone else said about heat transfer in extremely rarefied atmosphere is correct, but the bigger issue is why argue with a flat earther? There's literally no facts, evidence, proof, etc. that would change his or her mind. On the other hand, I'd ask how they know the exosphere is 1,700 degrees C. I assume it's from some information they learned online or in a book that was determined and published by some sort of science-based organization (NOAA, NASA, etc.). Unless they went up to the exosphere and took some measurements themselves, they're relying on data provided by an organization that undoubtedly reports the earth is not flat. Why would they believe that information and disbelieve the information those same organizations say about the earth being a sphere?",
"For ~~temperature~~ HEAT in the atmosphere you can look at [this chart](_URL_0_). As you can see, generally tends to decrease, and at no point is it hotter than at ground level, except when you factor in sunlight, where ~~temperatures~~ HEAT may reach 128ºC. Even then, that's VERY far from the 1700ºC this guy mentions.\n\nThis leads me to think he's talking about heat during reentry, not during ascent. How does stuff (the pieces actually made to survive it) survive reentry? There's multiple things to factor in:\n\n* You're coming at ludicrous speeds, this compresses air and heats it up (it's not due to friction, like most people believe)\n* That same compression can separate the heat from the ship (Depending on the general shape anyways, not all of them do this), thus you don't need to survive the full temperature, just a fraction of it.\n\nEven then, there's multiple ways to survive such temperatures:\n\n* Ablative shielding: A shield made of little particles that will fly off when hot enough, thus taking the heat away with them.\n* High temperature resistant materials: Carbon-Carbon and ceramics (both used on the Space Shuttle) come to mind, they have really good heat absorption capabilities. They'll absorb and store the heat and slowly dissipate it away. [This video shows the ceramic tiles in action.](_URL_1_)\n* Active cooling: Used on some rocket engines and proposed for the SpaceX Starship, cool liquid circulates trough the material, absorbing the heat and carrying it away.\n\nHope that clears it up.\n\n**Edit, adding extra stuff to complete this post:**\n\nThere's temperature, and there's heat.\n\n* Temperature is a measure of how much energy individual particles have.\n* Heat is a measure of how much energy is contained by all the particles in a given volume.\n\nThe thermosphere and exosphere are incredibly sparse (as in the opposite of dense), so even though individual particles hold a lot of energy (Temperature), there's not enough of them in a given volume to effectively transmit that energy to a body (as heat). Given this conditions, the only way those particles have of heating something up is trough radiation, and countering this is as simple as making them out of \\[heat\\] reflective materials.\n\nYou can actually calculate how hot sunlight can possibly make a bulk object at a given distance from the sun, using the [Stefan–Boltzmann law](_URL_2_). It's a simple formula and I don't think it breaks the 5 years old theme. We need to know the equilibrium temperature of a body, which is the temperature in which the body radiates heat at the same rate it gets heated up, in this case by the sun and particles in the exosphere/thermosphere.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEquilibrium Temperature = Temperature of the sun (580ºK) \\* (radius of the sun / distance to the sun), so:\n\nT = 5800K \\* (695000km / 1.5x10^(8 km))\n\nT= 395K\n\n395K = 122º Celsius, or 251º Fahrenheit. Your satellite is not going to get hotter than about 250ºF.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Super important edit 2:**\n\n & #x200B;\n\n/u/RapidCatLauncher, /u/deja-roo and others (tagged only the two of them because they actually explained stuff) have pointed out that the definitions provided for temperature and heat are not accurate. While I do agree with that, the reason I left them uncorrected is because I do believe they explain the stuff better than the real, factually accurate definitions for those two words. I of course invite you to read their corrections in the replies below (that's why I tagged them in the first place). Lastly, /u/NogodsaMan provided the best TL;DR:\n\n > Since other explanations seem way too confusing, the temperature can get to 1700 C, but theres not a lot of particles at that temperature (thin atmosphere) and so the hot particles are barely actually transferring much energy since there’s so few of them to do so \n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;",
"Firstly , spacecraft don't launch through the exosphere. The exosphere is the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere, and it begins hundreds up km up, depending on solar activity. By the time a spacecraft reaches that altitude, it's already in orbit, and well past launch. All human activity takes place below the exosphere. \n\nSecondly, the exosphere is so thin that for all intents and purposes, it's a vacuum. It's a better vacuum than the most perfect vacuum we can create here on the ground. Temperature is just the average measure of the kinetic energy of gas particles. So yes, the particles in the exosphere have a lot of kinetic energy, which means that they have a high temperature, but there are so few of them there's basically no energy transfer. The actually temperature of objects in this part of Earth orbit is roughly 121 degrees Celsius (250 degrees Fahrenheit) in sunlight and -157 degrees Celsius (-250 degrees Fahrenheit) not in direct sunlight. Yes, that's right. Objects in this part of space are hundreds of degrees *below 0* unless they're in direct sunlight.\n\nAnd finally, stop arguing with flat earthers. They'll never change their minds and have no intention of having any rational discourse. You're just banging your head against a wall.\n\n & #x200B;",
"if you put your hand in water thats even 105degrees, you'll be extremely uncomfortable and any higher will risk burns.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nYet, you can hang out in a sauna at temperatures upwards of 190degrees Farenheit, even though it contains a small amount of dissolved water (humidity), the lower density of water in this situation demonstrates how it reduces the ability to transfer that heat to an object.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAs for proving air pressure drops in the exosphere, well, that can be demonstrated for yourself with as little as an elevator trip up a tall building. Obviously something more extreme starts to risk our health, you cant exactly stick your head out the window of an airplane or something, so you would have to trust the pressure instruments at that point.",
"Ask her to pour boiling water into two cups. One a metal or ceramic cup, and one a Styrofoam or double-walled thermos cup. Then hold one in each hand - wrapped around the container, no handles - and see how long she can hold them. The thermos is low density, low thermal transfer, the metal or ceramic is high density, high thermal transfer. ",
"Everyone else has mentioned the answer for the exosphere. Why hasn't anyone talked about how to directly observe the earth being round?\nThere are several ways to do this, the simplest is to go to a port or harbor and watch some ships go over the horizon. The ships appear to sink as they pass out of sight which is caused by the curvature of the earth.\nAlternatively, you can get a telescope/binoculars and a relatively tall building. Use the telescope to compare how far you can see from the ground to how far you can see from higher up inside the building.",
"She can easily check, she just chooses not to.\n\nShe may have noticed that her favorite shows are on TV earlier in New York than San Fransisco. The reason (easily verified by watching any live outdoor programming) is that the sun sets about 3 hours earlier in NY than SF. It rises in the east, peaks at noon and sets in the west. It does this everywhere in the world (again, easily verified without leaving the living room). So the question is, how does light work so that it can't be seen from flat New York when it is directly over flat Tokyo and that \"due south\" rotates 360 degrees every 24 hours?\n\nWith a bit of patience (and the need to leave the living room), she could chart where in the sky the sun, moon and one or two planets are over some period of time. If she thinks that Kepler was a fraud, she can easily check this herself but she *chooses* not to. \n\n\nNow here's the bit that might make it easier for you. All scientific models are just that: models. If you are framing a house or playing marbles, a flat earth is a totally useful model. If you are traveling very long distances (sailors, pilots etc.) or researching space, the flat earth is a very inconvenient model and a sphere is better. If you are modeling global ocean currents, even a sphere may not be accurate enough as you need to account for the bulge due to spin.\n\nIt is not that you *can't* model the earth as flat and light as curved, it just requires the use of some awkward geometries and making otherwise simple things like calculating the position of the sun or moon, the range of a marine radio or the shortest distance from New York to Tokyo really, really hard. As long as your mom doesn't have to do any of those things then her choice of model is not an issue. ",
"I'm just wondering why she believes the scientists and engineers who say that exosphere temps are 1700C, but doesn't believe the same scientists and engineers when we say Earth is a fuckin sphere. ",
"I just want to thank you for properly using the word 'affect'. \n\n\nAs a partial answer / parallelism to help illustrate in ELI5 fashion the difference between temperature and heat: The exosphere is so 'dilluted', as in it is so thin out there, that the temperature of its particles may be high but the heat they store is low. Compare to putting your hand inside an oven at 250ºC (482ºF), which is bearable for a while and dunking your hand in boiling water (100ºC - 212ºF) which will make you scream in pain right away. This is because air in the oven is less dense, it is thinner than water. So the heat it transmits is lower, though the temperature is higher.",
"A more ELI5 way to show the difference between temperature and heat is to look at your oven. \n\nHave you ever lined a pan with aluminum foil? You can reach into the hot oven and pinch the foil that dangles over the edge of the pan and it will only feel a bit warm. But if you touched the aluminum pan next to it, it would burn your hand instantly.\n\nThey're the same material at the exact same temperature. The difference is the *quantity* of heat in each object. Temperature is just the average heat in the material; it doesn't tell you how much total heat is in it. A larger mass of aluminum like a pan carries much more total heat than a thin film of aluminum.\n\nI have no idea what the temperature in the exosphere is, but even if it's way higher than at the surface, the air is so thin up there that it would carry very little total heat.",
"If earth is flat where is the edge?",
"\"Google it!\"\n\n\"Eeerm... Okay... Sure!\"\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C (4,530 °F) during the day. Despite the high temperature, an observer or object will experience cold temperatures in the thermosphere, because the extremely low density of gas (practically a hard vacuum) is insufficient for the molecules to conduct heat. A normal thermometer will read significantly below 0 °C (32 °F), at least at night, because the energy lost by thermal radiation would exceed the energy acquired from the atmospheric gas by direct contact. In the anacoustic zone above 160 kilometres (99 mi), the density is so low that molecular interactions are too infrequent to permit the transmission of sound.\n\nI didn't know disproving flat earther nonsense is as easy as reading Wikipedia. 🤔",
"I love how she believes the reported temperature of the space craft but not the spacecraft itself"
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|
e5l5ci | why does a car's recommended tire pressure depend on the car, not on the tire? | Shouldn't the tire pressure be dependent on the manufacturing of the tires, not the design of the car? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e5l5ci/eli5_why_does_a_cars_recommended_tire_pressure/ | {
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"f9kck9y"
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"text": [
"The weight of the car determines the required pressure\n\nAll tires have the same sized contact patch at ideal pressure. Narrow tires have a square patch while wide tires have a very rectangular patch, but both have the same area.\n\nThis constant area times the tire pressure will equal the weight of the car. A heavy car will push down more so you need more pressure for the tire to hold it's optimal shape and a light car won't push down as much so it'll ride on a smaller patch if kept at the same pressure as the heavier car\n\nYou have to understand the constant contact area otherwise it does seem like it should be up to the tires rather than the car, but the tires are rated for maximum safe pressure rather than optimal performance"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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