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4285iu | my friend says the tides are higher on a full moon. is he correct? if so, why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4285iu/eli5_my_friend_says_the_tides_are_higher_on_a/ | {
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"The tides are strongest on a full moon *and* a new moon. This is because of how the moon lines up with the sun - the sun itself creates tides, too, and during those phases the sun and moon's tides line up. ",
"Yes. When the sun and the moon work together there is an extra-high tide called a [spring tide](_URL_0_). You also get one when there's no moon, for the same reason - the sun and the moon are lined up with the earth.\n\nWhen there's a half-moon you get low tides.\n\nBy the way - spring in this context has nothing to do with the season - it means they spring up higher.",
"Tides happen because of gravity. The pull of gravity decreases with distance. \nWhen the moon is directly overhead the gravity of the moon pulls water towards it, so the tide goes up. \nWhen the moon is on the opposite side of the earth, the pull of gravity is weakest, so water can flow away from the moon, causing the tide to also go up. \nThe sun also affects the earth with its gravity.\nWhen the sun is directly overhead the gravity of the sun pulls water towards it, so the tide goes up. \nWhen the sun is on the opposite side of the earth, the pull of gravity is weakest, so water can flow away from the moon, causing the tide to also go up. \nDuring a full moon, the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun, so the effects stack. \nDuring a new moon, the moon is directly in line with the sun, so the effects stack. \nThe NOAA has created a [nice GIF](_URL_0_) of this.",
"There are tides caused by the moon and tides caused by the sun; the moon's tides are much stronger than the sun's tides, because the moon is so much closer. There are two high tides of each per day, roughly when the moon (or sun) is directly overhead, or directly below (ie, on the other side of the Earth). Twice per lunar cycle, those tides line up: when the moon is between the Earth and the sun (a new moon) and when the moon is opposite the sun (a full moon)."
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5ydai1 | why people rush to board an airplane? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ydai1/elif_why_people_rush_to_board_an_airplane/ | {
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"People want to put their stuff in the overhead bins, they fill up quickly, and if you can't fit them in, they take your bag and put them in the cargo hold.\n\n",
"I never rush. I usually board last no matter my seat.\n\nI think people rush to get overhead space for their carry one. Since some carriers oversell their flights, there is usually not enough space. ",
"The space in the overhead bins is often scarce, and even when it is not, people often fill them inefficiently, keeping a jacket or something first. Most people do not want to check-in their carry-on and hence the rush to board the plane first.",
"As a business traveller:\n\nIf you're not able to board early due to elite status, there is a 50/50 chance you'll be forced to check your bag. Most business travelers do not check any bag at all, so we can quickly head to the office or catch connections that are very closely-timed. The chance that you'll lose a bag or miss a connection or your bag will be sent to the wrong city are just not chances we want to take.\n\nOn routes that are very heavy on business travelers, often 60-75% of the people have elite status, meaning if you don't, you MUST be one of the first \"normal\" people to board or you have 0 chance of getting overhead space.",
"Also related: for people with a high amount of social anxiety, boarding later means boarding a full plane and walking very slowly to the back of the plane as a hundred+ people sit and judge you as you pass.",
"I always book isle seats. I like them better than window seats because I have a little room to breathe. I never bring on more than what will fit in my backpack. I board last and shove my bag under the seat in front of me. I'm never stressed about airplane travel. Feels good man.",
"From NZ, when I fly out to other countries the planes are always huge with plenty of space for hand luggage (because NZ is in the middle of nowhere). The large planes never have a space problem, so for me (and many other Kiwis I presume) there is never a rush to get on the plane. Perhaps you are used to flying on larger aircraft as well?\n\nBut when I was in Europe taking flights between European countries, the smaller planes being used had very little hand luggage space and it was very common for staff to forcibly check your hand luggage into the hold if you were among the final 3rd to enter the plane. I suspect that people used to flying on these smaller planes are very used to the luggage problem, and adopt that behaviour out of habit even if the plane IS spacious and there is no need."
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1x55pl | why are loading bars and percentages so inaccurate? | This can be for downloading, uploading, installing, etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x55pl/eli5_why_are_loading_bars_and_percentages_so/ | {
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"* For most download time or simple file transfer estimators I just blame BAD code... There are many ways you can estimate transfer time but there is very little excuse for the ones that jump all over the place.\n* Program installation on the other hand is REALLY REALLY hard to estimate.. Most complex programs have to deal with a bunch of vary different tasks during installation that are hard to estimate on every different possible OS. Even if you just set fix points in the code some parts will take longer than others and cause the bar just to pause for long periods of time on a slow system.",
"Whenever there is a loading bar/percentage the important things to know are how much you've done and how much you have left (and how long those will take). Sometimes this presents a relatively easy problem, other times not so much.\n\nFor example, let's say you're doing your math homework and you have to do 100 problems where each one is 3 digits of addition (e.g. 253+412). If you've done 40 of the problems then you are 40% of the way through your assignment. How ever long you took to do those first 40 problems (say, 30 minutes) will probably be a pretty good estimate of how long it'll take to do the next 40 problems, then you'll need half again as much for the final 20 (total of 45 minutes remaining). So, when your mom asks you when you'll be finished and ready for your dinner you say \"45 minutes.\" This would be like being 40 MB into a 100 MB file download.\n\nHowever, what happens if you break your pencil and have to spend 5 minutes looking for a new one/finding a sharpener? You didn't foresee this but it affects when you are going to finish. Maybe you wind up needing 50 minutes instead of 45. That would be similar to if your internet connection was briefly (but recoverably) interrupted. Also, what happens if your friend calls and you wind up talking to them while finishing your homework, causing you to take a little while longer on each one? This would be similar to what would happen if your computer needed to download something else at the same time.\n\nSometimes the original estimate is just harder. For example, it's pretty easy if you have 100 equally-challenging problems of the same kind, but what if you're 40 questions in to a 100 question math assignment but you also have assignments in English, History, and Science? If you haven't even looked at these assignments then you can't estimate how long they'll take. Furthermore, if someone were to come up with an equation that tells you how close you are to completion it would be different for someone who is better at English vs someone who is better at Science. This is the trouble that installation progress bars face. The computer has to do lots of different things and some computers may be better at some things than others.\n\nIn the end computer users have proven to be pretty accepting of bad time estimates and progress bars that fill up unevenly as long as they can always see the bar moving. It's just not worth the dozens of hours it would take for a developer to work out a more accurate estimate.",
"Now a days, you need to consider a progress/percentage bar as how much has been done, and an *estimated* duration, not how much longer an install/download/upload will take. Also, installing applications requires a lot of cleaning up when the installation has finished (generally around the 100% mark); this is not factored into the installation progress."
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8w1gph | why is the world record for a marathon on a treadmill so much slower than the record for a road-based marathon? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8w1gph/eli5_why_is_the_world_record_for_a_marathon_on_a/ | {
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"\nTreadmill running some find a lot harder than road running because there's nothing to concentrate on. Your stride length can be limited on a treadmill too depending on your style of running. \n\nPlus I'm not sure how you'd fairly do it. Treadmills move at a set pace don't they? In which case 'beating a record' is just a case of setting it a tiny fraction over the speed necessary to cover the distance in a record time, and then staying on it until you run out the clock.\n\nNot that I'm suggesting that would be easy for anyone who isn't a top athelete, mind you.",
"I notice I run slower on a treadmill vs. outside and I only do 3-5mile distances. I'm about 20-30secs slower per mile on a treadmill. The theory I have come up with is that you HAVE to run at the speed of the tread vs. on the road/trail when you naturally can slow down and/or speed up based off the terrain, breathing and comfort. Basically I believe it takes more energy to maintain a set pace vs. letting your body do it's thing. \n\n",
"Probably because treadmill record setters go for a more consistent speed, instead of adjusting it as they would if freely running.\n\nIt’s considerably harder to adjust your speed on a treadmill for a more optimal performance. I’ve checked the [general rules](_URL_0_) for treadmill record setting and there appear to be no rules regarding to adjusting your speed mid-run, but changing your speed while free running doesn’t require you to break your concentration. \n\nI’ve also skimmed through attempt videos from the same page and haven’t noticed any of the runners changing running speed at any point.",
"Probably just the caliber of people attempting it, rather than any major disadvantage on the treadmill. Pacing on a treadmill is easier, there's no wind resistance (although that means temperature can be an issue) and pro athletes should have no (real) difficulty keeping engaged for 2 hours. On the flip side, perhaps the running surface is not as optimal as tarmac?\n\nSupporting the idea that competitor ability is the predominant factor, the treadmill half marathon record is 1:03, versus 58 minutes on the road. The holder of the treadmill half marathon record ([a US olympic marathon trialist](_URL_0_)) is 'only' a 2:16 (road) marathon runner, versus the 2:02 world record. So, a guy who's 11% slower than world record at the marathon on the road is only 8% slower than the road half marathon record when running on a treadmill. Of course these aren't directly comparable abilities, but it should highlight that the time difference could be entirely explained just by running ability.",
"Running in an actual marathon triggers the competitive nature of some brains. In many cases, a human can push themselves to catch the person in front to them...the ‘competition’ takes on its own aspect. Running on a treadmill rarely pushes that competitive spirit (adrenaline) as far and fast as it would in a competitive race. "
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cf548j | how is calculus used in machine learning? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cf548j/eli5_how_is_calculus_used_in_machine_learning/ | {
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"In my experience with programming apps that use machine learning I haven't used calculus before, and I'm pretty sure none of my friends have either",
"Calculus is most prominently used when dealing with backpropagation: calculating how you should change the weights and biases of the network to move towards your goal. \n\nThis is a complicated subject, so the brief version is:\n\n* you have a network, that is feed some input, and gives some output. this is essentially just a very complicated function. \n\n* Given that this is a function that is dependent on all the weights and biases of that network, you can calculate the gradient (derivative) of that function, one layer at a time.\n\n* This negative gradient can then be used to indicate how you should adjust the network to move it closer to the correct goal. \n\nCalculating that gradient is pure calculus, so to speak. \n\nif you want a more detailed explanation I'd recommend three brown, one blue's video series on machine learning. Chapter three and four go in to the calculus side more in depth."
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3weym3 | what will happen to millennials when they are all in debt and can't find jobs because the people with the highest pay keep getting older and wont leave the workforce? | While the job market is certainly better, I think it is reasonable to say that many millennials are underemployed. Most of them have crazy amounts of debt, and job productivity is only going up.
What's predicted to happen to our economy when there are too many college educated people and not enough decent jobs to support them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3weym3/eli5_what_will_happen_to_millennials_when_they/ | {
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"Well this comment will likely be removed, but likely the same thing that is happened ing to the 20-35 croud. They will get way more education than they need in the hopes to find thatbone job that used to require a highschool diploma but now needs at leat a masters. \n\nThose who are not as lucky (the majority) will get stuck in dead end minimum wage jobs after completing college or university, lucky to get full time. "
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37zp3j | how do emergency rooms work? i recently went and was told the wait would be around 14 hours. seems like a lot of people could die within that time range... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37zp3j/eli5_how_do_emergency_rooms_work_i_recently_went/ | {
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"Emergency rooms work on a case by case basis. A 14 hour wait was for your level of need. A critical injury where death is imminent would take precedence over for example, someone breaking their arm.\n\nThey also try to give worst case scenario based on doctors hours, available staff, and the current list of injuries and estimated time for each type of injury.\n\nSource: have numerous friends that work in emergency",
"In most emergency rooms, you give a receptionist a brief description of your situation. They then use these descriptions, as well as other factors, in their assessment of priority. This priority is designed to maximize lives saved.\n\nObviously, the individuals who come in ambulances who are literally dying will be treated first, followed usually by the rest of the people that came in ambulances in some critical condition. People who are screaming in pain can be expected to get quick attention, too. By the time they get to you, they've already addressed everyone who is more at risk of immediately dying than you are.",
"Emergency rooms are not first come first serve, patients are seen based on the severity of their injury/illness. Weekends are worse because primary care physicians don't work weekends. For some people this is their only access to medical care.",
"I went in with a head wound from a car crash, gushing blood, and they sailed me right past the crowd. It's all about priorities in the ER.",
"Another issue is that people who don't have health insurance use the emergency room as their primary health care, because they won't be turned away. I'm not judging them, because it's literally all they have. But it's a serious burden in the emergency system, and it's pretty fucking stupid that this is the only resort for those people. ",
"Infants and toddlers jump ahead too.\nWhen my 1 year old son gets sick he has trouble breathing. Everytime we took him to the E.R. we were with a doctor in no time. \nThis happened twice, now we just have the medicine and machine the doctors used at home. Saves us about 6 hours of sleep when he gets sick.",
"I was always told that you should never complain about being kept waiting in A & E because if it was the case that you didn't have to wait it would mean that your injuries were life threatening. If you are waiting then you are going to survive.",
"Assuming you're slightly older than five, one word is all you need: [Triage](_URL_0_). Slightly longer version: They're prioritizing. Like Superman does when he flies around hearing multiple (all) current crimes in progress simultaneously.",
"Technically there's should be a protocol based on age and patient complaints... Walk in with symptoms of a heart attack they should take you immediately. Children and infants usually go first as well. Especially infants because they can't tell you what's wrong. \n\nI called my fiance about a month after my son was born while at work to check up on them he had been having issues with projectile vomiting. As they started I wasn't seeing it happen. (I had witnessed it that day prior to leaving) she answered the phone in writhing pain uncontrollably throwing up. So I left work to get her to the hospital and get some one to watch the baby. She could barely stand from using up her energy... Went to St. Johns they told her all of the beds in er. We're full and she would have to wait. After 2 hours I threw her in the car and took her to McLaren not knowing what the issue was. They determined that she had pancrientitis wich is something that happens to women after birth... **news to me** I believed it was a drug addict/ alcoholics. Finding out later it had gone necrotic which essentially meant she was dying if they couldn't get the Condition stable.(she's okay all though times are hard because of it now) My point is St. John hadn't followed a protocol just first come first serve attitude.... Now she wouldn't have died immediately as far as I know the only way to treat it is surgery to remove the dead tissue and stop the infection but swelling needs to be reduced and so on prior to anything. She ended up having to be transfered to another hospital in the intensive care unit. Had St. John actually took into account her symptoms instead of giving her Zofran and barf bags in the waiting room. Truth be told there's no way every single person in the er needed to stay exactly where they were at. Which is why we left. She had to wait at the other hospital as well but it was 30 minutes. At St. John we would have been there for hours ",
"STEMI/falls (elderly)/strokes get in with little to no wait. If you have a blister/cold/bruise/cut/ache you're going to be waiting for hours.\n\nPSA: Folks, it's an *emergency* room. Get a primary care doctor.\n\nSource: I work in an ER.",
"Triage protocols. They decide who needs help the most, and you can usually do that by sight. After all, who would you admit first? A child who swallowed a penny but is happily flicking through a charmingly racist vintage picture book from the 1920s, a woman with a broken wrist who is screaming her head off, or a man with a hole in his chest that is very, very quiet?\n\nSilence is always worse than screaming.\n",
"The vast majority of people who go to the ER are not seriously ill. Theyre there for convenience--their pediatrician has a 2 week wait, their PMD isn't open after work, they ran out of their meds on a weekend. Others want free care: Medicaid will pay for ER visits but not urgent cares. Or they are destitute and NEED free care--and no one else is set up to provide it.\n\n\nYour friend had symptoms confirmed to mirror an aneurysm. That's almost meaningless. The Internet has a tendency towards hysteria--ANY symptom can be a stroke or MI or cancer or some other \"emergency.\" It is hard to tell the difference between the sick and the worried well, but that's what the four years of med school and 15,000 hours of residency training is for. ",
"Ideally, the situation is as others have described--there is a triage system in which the most critical are seen first, and the least critical are put at the back of the line. In reality, there are a lot of holes in this method, as some people are not so good at conveying just how sick they are, and some people meet with prejudice so their symptoms are denigrated and they are put to the back of the line. A major factor is also how busy the ER is. If you're having a 14 hour wait, then that's one extremely busy ER! Another ER might take you right away. Also, if you come in in an ambulance, you may be seen sooner than if you drive in. ",
"I took my very drunk friend to the ER because he punched a wall a few times and we thought he broke his hand.\n\nAnyways when we were there, we were bumped to the front of the line because said friend was blackout drunk trying to punch the walls of the hospital. Good times\n\nAnother time I had a compound fracture, my collar bone was outside of my body, and I got to skip the line because I also suffered a head injury from my fall.\n\nThe ER assesses the severity of your injury, those in more danger get bumped to the front while those with less serious injuries have to wait.\n\nI waited for hours when I broke my elbow because I wasn't in much pain and it wasn't needed to be looked at right away",
"i went to my local one when i cut my finger on a saw in a cabinet shop, i was called right into the back immediately since i was bleeding all over the place. The people in the waiting room looked pissed ;-/ Basically if it looks bad they get you right in, if you say you have pain and they cant see it.. you gotta wait LOL. Its fucked up but its busy",
"Exactly that happened to [James Woods](_URL_0_) brother here in RI.\n\nSince then the ER routine has been vastly improved. I had broken my foot(I hopped my way into the ER) a couple years ago, when I entered the ER I didn't at all, I got a wheelchair, pulse monitor and some other diagnostic routines done before I spent anytime waiting or even was asked what my name was. \n\nAfter they made sure I was stable enough to wait, I did.",
"Australian here and as this has taken a turn toward telling our stories *clears throat*. I have been rather accident prone in the past and so I have been to emergency like 15 times for various levels of injury. I can confirm that, at least at my local they are fantastic at triage:\n\nI was brought in in an ambulance with a snapped fibular. However given that I was only in pain and not in any real danger I was left for about 5 hours with only pain medication. I completely understood: I wasn't bleeding, I was just in extreme pain, and therefore pain medication was all I needed. I had surgery 2 days later when they could get me in, but in that time I was put in a cast to minimise my pain and given morphine drip. \n\nI attended with a severe jaw infection. I was completely out of it and my jaw was so swollen I couldn't open my mouth at all. Probably the worst pain I have ever been in. The nurse took one look and actually came out from behind the glass to push my mother and me through the doors to a doctor. I was on a drip less than 3 minutes later, before the paperwork had been filled out. She had identified just by looking that I had a serious condition and I did, my fever was 41 C and I was dehydrated and delirious. Possibly the best feeling I have ever had was when my fever broke.\n\nI shattered the hell out of my thumb playing base ball, copped a ball to the hand while batting. I was sitting in emergency with an ice pack they gave me for probably 10 hours. All I needed was a splint. My parents and I knew what we were in for tho and were happy to wait (even if it is stupidly boring).\n\nI had sliced my finger on a computer. It required stiches and was bleeding profusely. They monitored me for about 10 minutes to ensure the bleeding was under control and then asked me to wait. I was seen pretty quickly (about 2 hours) because of the fear of infection... which actually happened. I went back to the hospital with a note from my doctor and was in surgery in under an hour because I was about to lose my finger. Again they looked at the symptoms and whisked me straight in, I had a shot within about 5 minutes of getting there but then had to wait for the hand surgeon to be available. \n\nBasically the only thing I can complain about is how BORING waiting rooms are. I would prefer if they would have like a cinema set up or something hahaha. \n\nIf you are going to emergency you have to be willing to wait because if you are just in pain, then yes it is an incredible inconvenience and personal experience but Hospitals are there to save lives primarily and so if you ain't gonna die then you just have to wait. ",
"Related LPT: Going to the ER by ambulance will not get you seen any faster. See also: the patient I just took by ambulance to the hospital this morning who ended up in the waiting room. There are also other means of treatment besides the ER. Urgent cares, primary doctors, and even home care can be better options than a trip to the ER depending on the severity of your illness or injury. Mentioning this because the 14-hour wait is due in part to the numerous patients who are in the emergency room and not having an emergency. It ties up the care providers both inside and outside of the hospital, resulting in these delays, which ultimately ends up screwing over people who are having true emergencies. It's a vicious cycle that should be fixed (at least IMHO) by education of proper use of both the ER and the 911 system.\n\nSource: Work as an EMT on an ambulance and in conjunction with ERs, and see this on the daily.",
"I was waiting in an ER once, and the group in the next bed started complaining at a nurse \"We were told we'd be the next ones seen!\". \n\nThe nurse said \"We have someone in the next bed trying really hard to die. If they succeed, we'll be right over.\""
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6m841b | how does the entire staff of a major motion picture get paid? are they salaried or job-to-job? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6m841b/eli5_how_does_the_entire_staff_of_a_major_motion/ | {
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"It depends.\n\nThe movie itself will only have a set budget and pays for the 'wages' out of that. So there's only enough money to pay for that job.\n\nSo technically everybody is getting paid job-to-job.\n\nBut movie studios want to keep good workers available so may be prepared to offer people contracts for set periods of time to keep them around.\n\nA lot of work is also outsourced to other companies who will also have a mix of permanent staff, contract workers and short term/day labourers. \n\nThey will often have a set amount paid to these companies, who then decide how to split it amongst their workers. \n\nOften a lot of people/companies (esp back of house stuff like editing, effects, etc) will be working on multiple projects at once.\n\nThen you have situations where production/technical companies are also financial backers of the project and how much everybody gets paid will depend on how much the movie makes.\n\nIn short - it's complicated and each studio, movie, company, and worker will have a different way of doing things. But the more technical your job is the more likely it is you have a favourable deal.\n\nThe coffee guy for example probably gets paid daily (or works for free to get a foot in the door).\n\nThe labourers like riggers, set builders, etc would probably be contracted for the length of the movie.\n\nThe technical labourers like the camera crew, lighting, sound, etc are usually studio employees shifted around between projects.\n\nIronically enough the top end workers like directors, producers, editors, casting agents, (and actors) are hired from job to job. But also paid enough to make it worthwhile.\n\nBut none of this is set in stone and working in the 'entertainment industry' is one of the most unstable jobs you can have. "
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6gph72 | what does puerto rico's favoring statehood actually mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gph72/eli5_what_does_puerto_ricos_favoring_statehood/ | {
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"Nothing if the US Government doesn't decide to act on it. Also, with a 23% turnout, and an opposition boycott of the election, there isn't really a definitive message to be drawn, and they'll likely be having another one of these elections again later on."
]
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||
7uebqv | how do people who specialize in computer forensics retrieve data on a hard drive that has been formatted or magnet wiped? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7uebqv/eli5_how_do_people_who_specialize_in_computer/ | {
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"When you delete files, they aren't actually deleted. The location where those files are become labeled as safe to overwrite. Until your computer actually saves something new over that location, the \"deleted\" files will remain.\n\nFormatting your hard drive doesn't completely\"delete\" the data either.",
"Reformatting can be as simple as deleting the file system and rewriting it. That won’t delete any of the data, just remove knowledge of where it is. Secure formatting will rewrite all the bits and is not recoverable. \n\nMagnets generally aren’t strong enough to ruin a drive, those that are will do so by physically bending the case or disk. \n\nThe easiest way to securely delete a drive is to encrypt it and throw out the key. ",
"This is becoming increasingly impossible.\n\nSSD drives store data through what I'm going to simplify as a \"floating gate transistor\". These transistors can hold a charge, like a wool blanket in winter. And they can hold that charge for a looooooooooong time, it can easily be a decade. When a drive writes data to this medium, it will do so in whole blocks of them at a time, typically 4 KiB. Even if you're only writing 1 byte to a file, a 4 KiB block is getting zeroed, and then your non-zero bits are \"pulled up\" to store a charge.\n\nThat said, when you blank a block, that data is gone forever and there is absolutely no way of recovering it at all. There is nothing \"residual\" forensics can pick up on.\n\nThe only reason that's not entirely true is that to preserve the lifetime of these gates, and for performance, the drive won't blank a block just because you deleted a file. The \"record\" of the file is what gets removed, and the data contained in that file is left abandoned until the drive reuses that block for something else, some other file. Until that block is reused, your old data is still there.\n\nAs for magnetic disk drives, the good ol' hard drive as we've all known it, same thing - the drive isn't going to do work it doesn't have to, and will simply abandon blocks and sectors on the platter until it needs that space, it only deletes the record of the file having existed.\n\nNow, with these drives, even if you overwrite the block, forensics may still be able to recover the data. This was far more true of old drives than drives of even a decade ago. I mean old drives, pre-2000. Older even. The way this is *theoretically* possible is because you have an electromagnetic head that physically moves over the surface of the platter and emits an electromagnetic field to change the magnetic polarity of the surface of that disk. It's not perfect, and there could be surface area outside the intended trace along that path that also had it's surface area polarized. You would need millions of dollars in equipment and specialists to read across the surface of the disk with high precision probes looking for this slop.\n\nThe problem is, there's only 3 ways to increase data density on magnetic disks - more platters, smaller write areas, and more tracks. Manufacturers are doing all 3. So now you're writing data more precise, and more data densely packed on the platter. It's getting too hard to find the magnetic slop between the tracks because there is almost no wasted space on a platter these days.\n\nI remember an open challenge of a drive that had one text file on it with a simple phrase. The file was deleted and overwritten with zeros in a single pass. The challenge would tell you exactly where on the disk to look for the file. All anyone had to do, to win a few thousand dollars, is take the drive and recover the phrase. It stood for years and no one would byte, because no one could do it. This was 2006-ish. I don't know if that specific challenge remains open, but I'm sure others do. It should be forever only \"theoretical\" that data off such a drive is somehow recoverable.\n\nMost forensics out there use publicly available and free data recovery tools. These programs look at the abandoned and empty spaces, especially of magnetic drives, to find abandoned bytes, and the algorithms employed are able to deduce which groups of bytes belong together and in what order, to reconstruct documents and pictures. Notice that even shitty encryption can foil top agencies like the NSA, who had to beg Apple for a means of unlocking a phone of some criminal suspect (they said no, and a 3rd party had a hack for that specific make model, and software version - they were able to charge whatever they wanted because they were the only ones who could have done it, and it was by complete happenstance).\n\nSo it's not hard to defeat, and these so called \"forensics\" are really just IT guys who know nothing more than how to type in a command. 99% of them are stopped dead in their tracks by the inherent behavior of new technology and good, basic security practices that are increasingly becoming the default."
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23t934 | why does it waste water when you leave the tap on? | Doesn't it all get sent back to the water purification plant? Some would evaporate but wouldn't it just rain and be picked right back up? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23t934/eli5_why_does_it_waste_water_when_you_leave_the/ | {
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"Yes, but you're wasting energy by having them re-purify water unnecessarily.\n\nPlus, someone is getting a bill for that water unless you have a well.",
" > Doesn't it all get sent back to the water purification plant? Some would evaporate but wouldn't it just rain and be picked right back up?\n\nAbsolutely not. Not every area even *has* a water reclaimation facility. \n\nFurthermore, your whole rain-to-tap theory is *true* but you're not taking into account the *time* it takes. Most drinking water is pumped up from deep aquifers that are thousands and thousands of feet beneath the surface of the Earth. 1 inch of rain doesn't just auto-magically fill the aquifer 1 inch higher. It takes *years* for aquifers to replenish themselves once they've been heavily tapped by humans and some can't replenish themselves as fast as we take water out of them. \n\nSo when you leave the water run... you're wasting on many levels. You're wasting the energy it took to pump the water up, to purify/chlorinate it, to pump it through the city's water grid, etc. You're wasting the water itself because it's just swirling down the drain and accomplishing nothing. You're wasting energy on the tail end as the waste system is used to manage, direct, and (potentially) reclaim the water. \n\nEven if you live on rural land with a well, you're still wasting the energy it takes to pump the water up from the aquifer, and then wasting the water because you don't use it, and then dumping it into your septic field where it will take ages to trickle back down to the aquifer again. "
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49z2xg | how do press conferences work? how does one person always ask their question more loudly than the rest? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49z2xg/eli5_how_do_press_conferences_work_how_does_one/ | {
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"It depends on the press conference.\n\nAt the more civilised ones, a microphone is passed around or reporters/journalists are given an order in which to ask their questions.\n\nAt others, it tends to be a case of there's a microphone guy who holds the mic to the person asking the question, but the people around are still shouting over them.\n\nIn short, though, the answer is the same for both: a microphone."
]
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||
3a7lxb | when are movie trailers made? | Whenever a trailer is made it has scenes that will be in the movie, so is it made after the movie is? If so why is the movie released months, sometimes a year later? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a7lxb/eli5_when_are_movie_trailers_made/ | {
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"Trailers aren't usually made by the same studio that produces the film. Instead, they're made by marketing companies who are given footage by the studio. Because they're only putting together a minute or two of video and don't have the capability to edit effects or do emergency reshoots, they can get the trailer put together long before the movie is assembled into a final cut.\n\nThis is also why you sometimes get previews that spoil all the good parts of a movie, ruin the ending, or badly misrepresent the movie."
]
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bzjuwb | how would you go about making a search engine like google from scratch | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bzjuwb/eli5_how_would_you_go_about_making_a_search/ | {
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"There are several components in the Google search engine:\n\n1. The \"spider\", which browses through websites and collects the data.\n\n2. The indexer, which parses the collected data and makes indexes of keywords and ratings.\n\n3. The user front-end, where the user enters the query which gets parsed and searched against the indexes.",
"You're question is basically about Search Engines. You can research it yourself and learn how to make a simple search engine with Apache Solr (Completely open source).\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI'm a Tech Lead for my company's search engine, meaning I'm the owner of the search application.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI'll break this up into different sections and update at will\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**What is a Search Engine? The root of a search engine is the index.**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nWell really it's an inverted index. Basically imagine a large file with different sections, each one containing a word (token). Then imagine following each word is a bunch of information separated into numbers. Each number describes a document and will be followed with a frequency (amount of times that word occured in the document).\n\n & #x200B;\n\nA document is a dataset describing one set of information. That information is separated into fields. Each field can have different data transformation steps for both indexing and querying. So for example if you're building Google, a document would probably be the page of a website. Then it might have a field for the language, another field describing a general type (ex. shopping, scientific, medical, etc.), a title field, and then a field containing all the words on the page.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEach of these documents listed will contain that token. Then when you search something, your search will be broken up into tokens (e.g. \"hello world 123\" - > \"hello\", \"world\", \"123\"). The documents containing those words will be scored based on how many of the words they match and the frequency of said words. The matching documents are then returned to the user, ordered by score.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Indexing data**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nData needs to come to the search engine., but how? That really depends on the application of the search engine. For google, that'll consist of something called a 'spider'. A spider essentially discovers web pages and then saves the data (fully parsed). For Amazon, that would consist of a Database connector which connects to where all product data is stored and then combines that data into a useful format for the Search Engine.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis data is then separated into fields (the method in how its done can be greatly customized) and then transformed based on the field type. Once transformed, the remaining tokens will be committed to the index in the format previously mentioned.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Data transformation**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nData needs to be transformed. How will differ greatly from field to field. If you have a field describing the language, you might send the data to an AI program that will auto-detect the language and respond back with something like \"en\\_US\" (English) or \"ja\\_JP\" (Japanese). Solr can actually auto-detect language out-of-the-box and it's not even AI. If the field is a description, it might contain all the < h# > tags on a page (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5) or the text with bigger font weight). Of course that would be with all the HTML stripped out.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis is all up to you. Solr has many different tokenizers (which breaks data into tokens) and parsers (which transform tokens further).\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Querying data**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe search you send to Google is called a \"query\". A query is also transformed and broken into tokens etc. The are sent to the index in an OR format (e.g. 'hello world 123' = > 'hello' OR 'world' OR '123'. The tokens in your query will be looked up in the index and each document will be scored. Documents can be filtered out of the result set and even multiple documents can be combined into one via 'grouping'. Documents can also be boosted based on custom parameters. For example, if you searched 'baby blue dog' and a page contained those words many times while describing 'A Complex Process Through Difficult Grief' (why? no idea). Obviously, this may not be the best match. If you came across a page titled 'The Baby Blue Dog's Walk to the Post Office' that is obviously more related. Here is a good example of why most documents will have a 'title' field and why most query pipelines boost on the title field. Documents that contain the phrase in their title have more relevance.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nGoogle actually has a complex query pipeline (no surprise). They alter your query many different ways and send each form to another pipeline. It will then combine the results of all based on scoring to boost the relevance. This is a very complicated topic so I won't go into that further.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Advanced topics**\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSearch Engines are all about Relevance and Recall. Relevance being how close what you're looking for is to the top. Recall being the ability the return all documents that match the query. The act of making a good search engine all comes down to useful data and optimized to a specific balance of relevance and recall that suits your application.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThere is also a topic called 'Head-Tail Analysis'. This is most easily explained by 'blue iPhone'. If you search for that in amazon, you will obviously get many iPhone results. However, many of these may not contain the word blue. So you would perform complex analysis on the query and end up boosting 'blue' and changing to query to 'blue'\\^5 OR 'iPhone'. This ensures results contain both and that blue iPhone's are ranked at the top by boosting the token 'blue' by a factor of 5. I'm not experienced in this topic so some of that may be off, but the main concept is right.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIdk. There's a lot that can be done with Search Engines. May update some more later, but honestly getting bored of this topic."
]
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2bu7jv | why can't many people fall asleep if there bare feet aren't covered by a blanket? | I know many people that must have their feet covered in order to fall asleep. I know it's not physically impossible to fall asleep just very difficult. What's the science behind it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bu7jv/eli5why_cant_many_people_fall_asleep_if_there/ | {
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"I can't speak for everyone, but in my case, when the rest of me is comfortable, my feet are freezing, and I can't sleep if my feet are cold.",
"Probably has something to do with both our genetic makeup and the way we were raised. We always have a blanket growing up and many people start to associate blankets with security and safety. Even when we are older, many people have a difficult time sleeping without a blanket even in the hottest of night because it just feels unsafe. And when just our feet are exposed, we feel like they are vulnerable to harm even when we know nothing is going to happen and that the blanket doesn't matter. Kinda like how people have a difficult time walking through a dark room alone: you know nothing is there to hurt you but it still makes you feel uneasy. "
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1l97ul | what is the benefit of element 115, or any unstable element that lasts only a fraction of a second before decaying | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l97ul/eli5_what_is_the_benefit_of_element_115_or_any/ | {
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"There is no purpose to element 115 per se. It is mainly just human nature to keep testing and testing until we get something new, and humans like to say we have made something for the first time, possibly ever. Now that's pretty damn cool.\n\nBesides from just being cool, scientist are continuing to do this that one day they may create new elements that are stable, and don't decay in seconds, and these elements could possibly have a use, or may just float in a glass container like a trophy.",
"The aim is to test the \"Island Of Stability\" hypothesis: _URL_0_\n\nWhich states there may exist a group of extremely heavy elements that do remain relatively stable. If this can be confirmed, or proven entirely wrong, we might comprehend another piece of the universal puzzle, enhance our current understanding, and make further predictions based on our standard model.",
"While it's true that ununpentium(115) only lasts a couple hundred milliseconds, it alpha decays into ununtrium(113), which is extremely radioactive and lasts about 20 seconds. \n\nUnuntrium has been observed to decay, in a series, to: roentgenium(111), meitnerium(109), bohrium(107), dubnium(105), lawrencium(103), and finally, mendelevium(101). \n\nWhy is this important? I don't know, I'm not a scientist! If I had to guess, I'd say it might lead to advances in nuclear fusion or it's possibly just because we like making new stuff. [edit: added (#)'s]"
]
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awn6x3 | how can product prices be set at a national level without it being price fixing? | So we all know that some manufacturers "set" the price for their products at a national level and allow their retailers only to sell their products at the set prices.
How is this different from the very illegal price fixing concept? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/awn6x3/eli5_how_can_product_prices_be_set_at_a_national/ | {
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"The difference is that it is only one company setting the prices of their products rather than multiple companies collaborating to fix the prices for an entire industry. ",
"Price fixing is when *multiple* companies all agree to set the same price. \n\nTo keep things simple, suppose that we're talking about two companies that each make an identical product. If they sell this product for $1 each, they're able to pay for materials/labor/transport, but there's no leftover profits for the owners of the firm. In a competitive market, both firms will charge a price of $1. If one firm tried to make a profit and charge $1.01, everyone would buy from its competitor instead. If one firm tried to undercut the other and charge $0.99, it would be losing money. The key thing is that the firms are *competing* on price. \n\nBut what happens if the firms work together (collude)? If they both raise their price to $2, consumers will have no choice but to pay $2. This means that the two firms are effectively acting as one firm with a monopoly in that market. The government has decided that, for the most part, monopolies are bad, so it will try to avoid the creation of monopolies or groups of firms that function like monopolies. One tool it can use to do this is anti price-fixing laws. In practice price fixing is hard to detect, because in both the competitive and the collusion case, you'd expect all the firms to charge the same price. The colluding firms can just claim that $2 is the break-even price now. What you need is some evidence that they communicated about how to set prices (the movie The Informant! (sic) deals with a true-life investigation into price fixing)\n\nSo in summary, all companies set prices. It's one of the main things they do. The government doesn't really care if those prices are set on a national level by some central management or allowed to vary with the discretion of regional retailers. The key thing is that each company must set prices independently from the others companies in that market. ",
"Retail Price Maintenance, manufacturers setting prices that retail shops have to sell the item at, is generally illegal in the UK and under EU law."
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1ns7dx | what exactly is going on when a doctor places their hand "down there" and asks me to cough? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ns7dx/eli5_what_exactly_is_going_on_when_a_doctor/ | {
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"The doctor is checking for hernias , coughing increases the pressure inside the abdominal cavity so when you cough if there is a hernia it will be pushed further and he'll be able to feel it",
"Hate to break it to you but that guy at the bus stop was not a doctor. "
]
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1lk4m0 | cell phones: whats happening when someone gets a message that was already sent and delivered months prior again? | I was texting my girlfriend and she gets a message that I had sent 6-8 months prior talking about phone cases for and from a phone I no longer have. Im just curious as to the why/how this happens. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lk4m0/eli5_cell_phones_whats_happening_when_someone/ | {
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"Glitch in the matrix"
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46bu2g | why is it that if someone makes a false rape accusation, there is no penalty? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46bu2g/eli5_why_is_it_that_if_someone_makes_a_false_rape/ | {
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"There are many cases of false rape accusations getting the accuser in trouble. However proving that someone didn't do something can be much harder than proving they did. Often what will happen is the case/charges will just be dropped. Social shaming will probably have the biggest effect honestly (\"this person made a false rape accusation. do not trust them\"). Also the topic of rape is still such a touchy subject that people have a hard time looking at it pragmatically and without emotion. When someone claims they were raped, its difficult to treat the situation like a strictly legal matter ",
"Falsely reporting a crime IS a crime. And I think most states have additional penalties added if it's for a rape allegation. ",
"Why is it that people (or Redditors) are obsessed with false rape allegations as opposed to false accusations of others crimes? Seems a little rapey to me. ",
"You can be prosecuted for maliciously, falsely reporting any crime. Yes, also for false rape charges.\n\nThe problem is that it is often incredibly hard to prove that someone maliciously made a false rape charge. After all, just because someone is found not guilt of a particular crime, doesn't mean that the charge was also made falsely. It might be the girl in question was genuinely raped, but it was not proved beyond reasonable doubt in the trial. It also might be that the girl in question was genuinely raped, but misidentified her attacker without any malice. There is a lot of scenarios that could lead to someone being found not guilty of rape, but it also not being accurate to say there was a malicious false charge. And yes, there is some concern that if we start prosecuting cases that are not incredibly incredibly clear cases of malicious false charges that doing so will discourage people from coming forward after getting raped. \n\nCharges for malicious false rape can be as much of a he said, she said thing as a rape charges. It very very rarely is as clear cut as the reddit outrage wants you to believe. ",
"If you make a false rape allegation, you deserve to go to jail for as long as the person being accused would have.\n\nNot only is it insanely immoral to ruin someone in that way, it detracts from the very *real* rape crimes that need attention.",
"I'm no lawyer but wouldn't this fall under slander or defamation of character? Or if the accuser testified in court it would become purgatory?\n\nEdit: Assuming of course that the allegation was proven to be false and had malicious intent."
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4a6glp | how does a president of a superpower (like the usa or russia) have enough time in a day to take care of everything? | I mean the job must have some insane requirements, and although these people probably delegate everything, still... How does a human being take care of or find out that much in a single day? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4a6glp/eli5_how_does_a_president_of_a_superpower_like/ | {
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"They are essentially always working, and the delegate a shit-ton to a HUGE network of staff - both politically appointed, and the full-time, for hire life-type career support staffers that exist at all layers of government. From the cabinet down to the janitor in the executive branch every single person is supporting the president.\n\nThere are _lots_ of people who have jobs that are demanding - being the CEO of a major corporation is a full-time job, there are people engrossed in their startups 100% of the time, there are doctors who work incessantly and so on. You don't make it to that job if you aren't one of those people with the capacity for tremendous volumes of work at a very high level of functioning.",
"They don't do everything. The political leader of a large superpower has a huge staff that does a lot of the things that the President either takes the credit or gets the blame for. Granted the Leader will have regularly scheduled briefings so he can advise and consent to the actions of his staff, but the staff generally has his mission plan in mind when things come up and know what must be done. "
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96gok9 | how do space stations dodge asteroids? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/96gok9/eli5_how_do_space_stations_dodge_asteroids/ | {
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"They don't, and your image is quite mistaken.\n\nThe ISS does have thrusters, but only for tiny adjustments, not massive dodges around incoming boulders. Not to mention that low earth orbit has a million times more artificial space debris than asteroids. The bigger danger is from tiny flecks that don't smash through the station rather than make pits in its surface that build up over time.\n\nPeople often get the wrong idea about asteroids in space. Even in the asteroid belt, where they are comparatively dense, it's nothing like the scene from Star Wars. They're so far apart that you'd have to deliberately plot a trajectory towards one or you might not even see any."
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6kofn0 | what are the differences between the various partition tables and file systems one encounters when working with various hard drives and operating systems? | What is the difference between an MBR and GPT partition table? What *is* a partition table?
What is the difference between NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, HFS+, etc? What *is* a partition? Why are there so many different kinds?
Bonus question: How does a bootloader work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kofn0/eli5_what_are_the_differences_between_the_various/ | {
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"Disks have lots of sectors. If you want to say which sector a file starts in, it takes a number big enough to have a different one for every sector. In the olden days, disks were much, much smaller and choices for \"how many bits to store a sector number in\" were made for each format (the NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, HFS+, etc in your question). The old formats, like FAT, didn't pick enough bits to work efficiently with modern hard drives. However, many computers were made with software that only supports old formats. For backwards compatibility with cameras, printers, and all the other things that can read a storage card or USB drive; operating systems continue to support the old formats.\n\nSo you have a huge drive and you want to use a format that's only efficient on small drives, the obvious thing to do is to say that the first {small number of sectors} is it's own disk. These sub-disks are called \"partitions\". The partition table stores the definitions of these little sub-disks. Just like disk formats, there is the \"old\" partition table format (MBR) and the \"new\" partition table format (GPT). \n\nThe bootloader reads the partition table to find where the partitions are and looks at each one to find a bootable partition, and mounts that to boot your computer."
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34fytb | why are people so enthused about the apple smartwatch? | People are acting like it is the first Smartwatch ever released, when in reality Apple were pretty late to the party.
Does the Apple Watch do something that the other watches don't do, or is it Apple's genius marketing at play? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34fytb/eli5why_are_people_so_enthused_about_the_apple/ | {
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"I don't think people are that enthused. Every one I know is taking a wait & see approach, including me.\n\nHistorically, Apple didn't make the first MP3 player. Apple didn't make the first smart phone with apps. Apple didn't make the first tablet. But they dramatically expended each product category they entered. Very few people used tablets before iPad and very few people used mp3 players before iPod. Very few people use smart watch now.\n\nThen again, this is the first post-Jobs new product category. So we will see. I don't think I can be convinced if the rumors of a 12 hour battery life is true."
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36wfox | why my vote does or doesn't matter in the presidential elections | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36wfox/eli5_why_my_vote_does_or_doesnt_matter_in_the/ | {
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"If you vote for the candidate who wins your state, your vote mattered. If you do not, your vote will not go towards the election of any candidate, and may as well have not been cast. In addition, any vote which goes over the 50% threshold a candidate needs to win a state doesn't really matter either, and once a candidate has enough electoral votes to win, the votes of all remaining states don't really matter either. This doesn't usually happen, as the biggest state (California) goes nearly last, but it is still a consideration. In addition, if you live in a state with few people, your vote matters more than the votes of people living in states with more people because of how the Electoral College works. Also, in 2010, Congress redistricted according to the law and their whim, and the Republicans in control did as much as possible to marginalize Democratic districts. This is why, even though more people voted for Democrats in the 2012 elections, the House was still overwhelmingly a Republican institution.",
"In a practical sense, unless your state's result is within one vote of a tie, your vote isn't going to change the outcome. And unless the final count of electoral college votes is quite close, even changing your state's result might not change who becomes president.\n\nHowever, if everyone thought that way then maybe that does affect the result. If you're in a safe Republican state and every Republican voter thought \"there's no need to go and vote, we'll win anyway\", it wouldn't be a safe Republican state any more.",
"Most of the time you may feel like your vote doesn't matter. In reality, many politicians pay close attention to who people are voting for and what their platform is. Many presidential candidates take a centrist view on issues because that's where a lot of people reside. Democrats and Republicans aren't playing for their voter base, they're after the independents. In the upcoming presidential election, you will hear a lot of attacking towards Obama's policies. But, those politicians will also try to find a more central viewpoint while still retaining their voter base.\n\nPoliticians do pay attention to the voting outcome. While you may have not voted for the winner, an opponent receiving 48% of the vote will still have some play in how the elected performs.\n\nP.S. Never let anyone let you think your vote doesn't matter. If everyone who won't vote next November actually does, it will drastically change the outcome of the elections and could put a third party candidate into office."
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8yxdjb | why are there different ethnicities? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8yxdjb/eli5_why_are_there_different_ethnicities/ | {
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"Until 100 or so years ago, we didn't have TVs, radios, or airplanes. People just lived in one place without ever really leaving. When you have groups of people that are cut off from each other, their language, customs, etc. will drift apart. If there's some genetic differences in the starting populations or differences in their environments, you'll see physical differences emphasized over time. Once people settle in an area, they're going to base their society around using the resources (plant, mineral, animal) available to them.\n\nThis started happening *a hundred thousand years ago*. Now we've got all sorts of languages, foods, cultures, religions, fashion senses & physical appearances."
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2lixdk | why do i still have to wait for weekends and business hours for online bank transfers? | For example when we make bank transfers online on Friday we have to wait until Monday for the transfer to be processed. Also transfers after a certain time of day will only be processed the next day.
Sure you don't need people in bank branches to crunch the numbers. In this day and age of servers and global networks, having some computers add and subtract some numbers should be near instantaneous? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lixdk/eli5why_do_i_still_have_to_wait_for_weekends_and/ | {
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"Online transfers are instant for me. The only things I have to wait for are payments to credit card companies and mutual fund purchases. ",
"It's because your bank has a shitty system. If it's causing you problems with your finances, consider calling other banks (or credit unions!) in the area and ask them how quickly online transfers go through.",
"We have that, too here in Finland. It's instant if you transfer within the same bank but you have to wait until next day for transfers between other banks. I thought this was a universal thing?",
"It's called the [clearing and settlement]((_URL_0_) process. Some clearing and settlement services are, in fact, in real time. Many are not.\n\nThere are a number of ways that banks exchange money. I won't delve into the complexities of the systems (as this is ELI5), but I'll try to give you a simple example.\n\nYou bank with bank A. You are using online banking to transfer to bank B.\n\nBoth Bank A and Bank B use a *clearing system* to transfer funds to one another that is not real time. It would not be efficient for their clearer to be constantly exchanging micro payments (micro from the bank's perspective). So **all** the payments take place at **one time of the day** (or days) depending on the schedule of the clearing system that is being used. This is called 'bundling.'\n\nSo you decide to transfer $150 to an account with bank B from your account with bank A.\n\nAt the end of the day, the total value of transfers made from bank A to bank B is $120m. Similarly, at the end of the same day, the number of transfers from bank B to bank A is $100m. Therefore, $20m will be transferred from bank A to bank B, being the difference in values. When this settlement finally occurs, the banks will then ensure that all of their customer accounts are credited and debited correctly.\n\nThe reason this doesn't occur on weekends is generally due to the clearing service, not the bank itself.",
"The ELI5 answer is simply that the settlement for these transactions (between different accounts and/or different banks) take a long time to be processed, thus can only be done once a day. So all the jobs that perform clearing and settlement has to run at a certain time. Some jobs depend on triggers from another banks. There are other issues that arise such as time zones/weekdays/holiday that are different all over the world that make the matter of settling these amount between parties a time consuming process.\n\nSource: Software developer who used to work closely with core banking applications.",
"NPR's Planet Money did a segment about this and explains why it takes so long to send money. If you have the time I would recommend giving it a listen.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Good question. What I have never understood is why Interact automatic bank payments go through (e.g. by email) right away, but credit card payments out of my bank account take two or three days to get back to the provider? I had always chalked it up the bank wanting to make a few days extra interest prior to accepting the payment. ",
"I have USAA, and all my transfers are instant! It's great!",
"Check out bitcoin. This is one of the problems it solves :)",
"In the UK it takes a matter of hours no matter what the day or time - _URL_0_",
"Get a capital One 360 account. You can always transfer money instantly",
"In the UK we have the \"Faster Payments\"system. Almost instant inter-bank transfers. Takes usually a few seconds to send funds. I had a call a couple of weeks ago from my son, he was in London & needed some money, but his account was empty. Opened the mobile app on my phone & sent some to his account - with another bank. He was able to immediately withdraw it from an ATM - magic. Al this bull about settlements is just that, bull. Yes, banks need to settle up each day, but that is NOT an impermanent to instant payments. The banks just need to agree to do it & it could happen in the USA as well. They are not keen because they get to hold onto the cash for an extra day (or more) and the costs of changing their systems is high. ",
"Because the current banking system use a pre-internet design with antiquated clearing houses, but there are more efficient ways to transfer money worldwide, here is a beer from france ! /u/changetip",
"Wow. I am assuming the OP is in the States.\n\nMy online banking payments (from UK) get transferred to the recipient within the hour no matter when I do the transfer, as do each of my housemates', each of us with different banks.",
"As an web / Data professional, I KNOW that it's totally possible to easily have this done in hours if not seconds.\nAs a life long impoverished person I suspect that the bank will never do it willingly. I suspect it's for the same reason the bank keeps your real bank account balance a secret from you and deposited checks take up to 10 (or more) business days to really clear:\nSO THAT MORE PEOPLE WILL OVERDRAFT MORE OFTEN. The banks make a literal fortune every day off overdraft fees. \n\n_URL_0_"
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2yeeyj | what stops an automatic car from stalling? | from a manual. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yeeyj/eli5_what_stops_an_automatic_car_from_stalling/ | {
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"The manual has a full metal linkage through the whole gear train, and you must manually depress the clutch. Automatics have a torque converter, which uses one turbine coming off of the drive shaft and fluid under pressure to drive a second turbine on the output at low speeds. As the speed increases, the computer moves in the mechanical linkage to bypass the fluid. But what that means is that when the wheels are at rest, there is enough give in the fluid drive to allow the engine to rotate without choking, while a manual clutch is under so much pressure on the clutch plates that it's as if the engine were directly connected to the wheels and forced to stop, rather than slip.",
"The engine is not rigidly coupled to the wheels; there's some slippage possible in the fluid coupling. Obviously, this is inefficient, so the transmission also has the ability to lock up above a certain speed."
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4yxtsf | richard dawkins' memetics/why are internet "memes" so popular? | I would be greatly appreciative if someone could summarize Dawkins' view on memetics in a fairly detailed way.
I know what a meme is but, specifically, I do not understand the point or motivation behind Internet "memes" and their popularity. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yxtsf/eli5_richard_dawkins_memeticswhy_are_internet/ | {
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"Dawkin's stuff on memes, he coined the word meme, was based on an analogy to genes. The way genes are biological traits that get passed down, they can be inherited, and if the genes do something useful towards making the organism more successful in an evolutionary sense of making babies, then those genes get passed down more. \n\nReally in a sense the notion of evolution by way of selection doesn't really cover only living things, it covers anything that reproduces. Anything that gets copied, if its a thing that encourages more copies it out-competes a thing that doesn't get copied as much. A virus isn't alive, but its a bundle of information that gets itself reproduced, and it undergoes evolution. \n\nSo once you have an animal that can pass information on, like humans can, then that information despite not being in the genes gets subject to evolutionary pressure. The idea of using a spear to kill an animal probably isn't encoded anywhere in humans genes, its something people came up with, and told their kids about, told their friends about and the idea helped those people to survive and reproduce, and thus the idea was carried forward. \n\nSo that's what Dawkins was talking about with memes, a meme was to him the sort of conceptual unit of information inheritance. And once you get onto things like the existence of the printing press and publication of ideas spread further than an individual it gets into a weird space in which meme isn't really of a single person and a tribe that passes it on through word of mouth and down through the generations. Its beyond the individual and has an independent existence. Information memes are sort of like a benign virus in a way. \n\nNow the notion of the internet meme, was using the meaning originally in terms of the earliest pictures, primitive videos, usenet posts and websites that spread over vast differences through the at the time new internet. These things that spread exponentially through the relatively small early internet userbase, in-jokes. These were transmissible pieces of information, that spread around. But with time the use of the word meme for a specific internet trend outweighed the original coining, and its sort of become what it is now, often just confused for the term \"image macro\" or meaning a sort of \"wacky fad\". Perhaps the virus of the meme from the days of the printing press has mutated a bit less symbiotic... "
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1jmzsx | how does our body make poop and pee come out of different places? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jmzsx/eli5how_does_our_body_make_poop_and_pee_come_out/ | {
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"Liquids and solids are processed in different areas that exist through different tubes outwards. It's designed to be a very low-energy, efficient background process and thus the tubes that each selective substance go through are just a matter of connection and physics.",
"You drink water and eat food through your mouth, but water is sucked out of the process in your intestines (i think?), leaving just the solids. The solid foods are processed and pass through your intestines to your rectum (poop). the water makes its way into your bloodstream, (blood is mostly water) your blood is filtered by your kidneys, which moves the waste water into your bladder, then through your urinal tract (pee).",
"Poop is food waste that could not be absorbed by the body. It goes into the large intestine and is consumed by bacteria there, while the water is absorbed into the body. What's left over is poop.\n\nUrine is waste filtered out of the blood stream by your kidneys.\n\nDifferent kinds of waste, different disposal systems."
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4ynq2q | why is s rank higher than a in most cases? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ynq2q/eli5_why_is_s_rank_higher_than_a_in_most_cases/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n > Originally created in Japan where anything below grade ‘C’ was considered a failure. The 'S-Rank' allowed for a wider range of obtainable grades and thus player motivation, meaning that it was soon adopted by western developers who realized that the ‘S-Rank’ was much cooler than the boring ‘A’. An A rank is commonly obtained by getting a 90% to 95%. If the player is flawless or achieves perfection in something, it qualifies as an S . Many people have wondered what the S stands for… Special? Super? No one knows for sure.\n\n > S ranks can be used in many areas but are most commonly found in video games although they are used in other places such as in certain governmental agencies, the military and in some schools.",
"It's used in some Japanese universities as an \"A+\" grade, since shū is Japanese for excellent.",
"If you get the 4th best rank and the game says you got a D, it feels like you failed. If you perform the same and get a C though, it feels like you did mediocre, which is more desirable to keep people going - so a lot of games rank you CBAS rather than DCBA. It's similar to naming the difficulties \"Normal / Hard / Super Hard\" instead of \"Easy / Normal / Hard\" - you feel like you're doing better if you beat the game on Normal instead of something called Easy.\n\nOf course, some games go a bit further - the newer Mario Kart games for example. C, B, A, S, SS, SSS, 1-star, 2-star, 3-star. *S-rank is below the middle rank!* But most games aren't THAT silly about it :P"
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yspn2 | the internet, how it works and stuff. | I know a small amount but where is it all 'located' why is it that I need permission to access it through my ISP, why can't I connect to it without a liaison through an isp? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yspn2/eli5_the_internet_how_it_works_and_stuff/ | {
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"Say you want to build the internet. You and your buddy telecom companies make agreements to build transmission lines across the country from city to city, and you agree to let each other send data over each others lines by paying each other money based on how much data is sent. Some of these lines even cross under the oceans to other continents. These lines are called a backbone -- almost all internet traffic goes over them at some time. \n\nNow its not much use to just send data between the telecom companies, you want to expand. So at the hubs where the transmission lines meet, you set up a center that offers to connect local buildings to the internet backbone. This is basically what ISPs do, they get data to and from the internet backbone. \n\nActually sending the data is a little more complicated. Each computer attached to this new network has an address called an IP address -- its a series of 4 numbers, each between 0 and 255, connected by dots. 192.168.1.1 is an example. When your computer wants to talk to another computer, it sends the IP address along with the message. Each computer that the message gets to on its journey has a set of rules for where to send messages based on their IP address. For example, you send a message to say, 234.123.22.33. Your router knows that addresses starting with 192.168 (varies depending on the setup) are computers on the local network, and basically everything else is somewhere outside, so it sends the message to the ISP. The ISP (let's say its located in atlanta) knows that IP addresses starting with 234 get sent on the line to Raleigh, while IP addresses starting with 233 get sent to Birmingham and 235 gets sent to Orlando. All those numbers were made up, but thats the idea. Once it gets to Raleigh, the servers in Raleigh make a similar decision, and so on until it gets to its destination in Rochester NY.\n\nRemembering bunches of numbers is hard work. Most people have little books to do it for them, but what if you want to send a message to someone you have never talked to before? There are servers called DNS servers, and their job is to be a big address book that knows the name of websites (_URL_0_ for example) and the IP address that corresponds to it. So if you want to talk to _URL_0_ you ask the DNS server what google's IP address is, then send a message to google yourself.\n\nThat's the internet in a nutshell. The reason you can't easily connect without an ISP is because ISPs are the companies that make the connection between you and the internet backbone. You could do it yourself, but it would cost insane amounts of money, and you would have to make peering agreements like all the big boy telecom companies.",
"dsampson did a pretty good job of explaining it. I'd just add that the internet isn't \"located\" in any one place. The internet is the infrastructure that allows two or more computers to talk to each other over long distances. When you access a web page, download a file, or stream video, you're connecting to another computer, generally a server. \n\nThe internet has no more of a location than electricity. You can see the power lines, power plants, and the devices it powers, but you can't point to a single location and say \"there's electricity\"."
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3ueeii | the 5 major extinction events. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ueeii/eli5_the_5_major_extinction_events/ | {
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"Not sure what you're looking for here, but I'll give it a shot:\n\n1) End-Ordovician extinction. Seems to have been triggered by sudden glaciation. Ecosystem structure changed a lot, with many primitive groups being reduced to nothing or close to it.\n\n2) End-Devonian extinction. Also seems to have been triggered by glaciation, although some people think an asteroid impact may also have been involved. Resulted in the end of several major lineages, including placoderm fish. Almost wiped out our fish ancestors, but a few species pulled through to colonize the land.\n\n3) End-Permian extinction. Seems to have been caused by extensive volcanic eruptions, which triggered catastrophic global warming and the release of poisonous gases into the air. 95% of species died out. This is the closest life on Earth has ever come to ending.\n\n4) End-Triassic extinction. Also seems to have been caused by volcanism, but not as severe as the End-Permian. Wiped out major lines of crocodile relatives and let dinosaurs take over the land.\n\n5) Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. Asteroid impact plunged the Earth into nuclear winter, killing off most animals (especially large ones). The only dinosaurs that survived were birds, and mammals took over the world.\n\n6) [Debated] Period from end of last ice age to present. Some people are hesitant to describe this as a mass extinction, but we've lost species so quickly over the last 10,000 years that it's probably warranted. Initial cause unknown, but likely a combination of climate change and human hunting. Human habitat disruption, hunting, and pollution are the major drivers at present."
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425wos | how do those checkbox "i'm not a robot" capchas work? | [This](_URL_0_) in particular. I'm not inputting anything, I'm just clicking stuff. I understand with the traditional capcha we have to manually interpret badly written text, but how does this prove that I'm human? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/425wos/eli5_how_do_those_checkbox_im_not_a_robot_capchas/ | {
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"It uses code, JavaScript in this case, that most bots would not render, and thus not see the CAPTCHA.\n\nGoogle most likely takes this a step further and keeps track of identifiers, such as browser, are you logged in, do you normally use this, have they seen this computer before, and different points of entropy like this. I believe Google claims to be able to identify who you are, even when you aren't logged in.\n\nIn the cases that these fail, they make you answer a question that most bots couldn't do, because of the pictures used.",
"I believe that some captchas can track your mouse movement leading up to clicking the button as well. A human will typically move more fluidly, and a robot would more or less move in a straight line.",
"It takes a couple of things into account. \n\nIt checks your browser and other information you send with your request. This information can be used to catch simple bots using well known bot or automated \"browsers\". Its also usually easy to spot a non-conventional browser by the types of headers your browser sends. Google also has one of the largest tracking networks on the web, so if they're familiar with you visiting other sites, it more likely that you're not a bot.\n\nIt also watches your mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes. Less sophisticated bots will have a difficult time performing these actions in a manner that looks human. A simple bot might not even have mouse movements, but simply move to a specific area instantly while pressing the mouse button (down and up) instantly. By watching the time it takes you to press and release mouse buttons and keys on your keyboard, it can better determine that you're a real person.\n\nThe reCAPTCHA script also likely executes some code from the Google servers in your browser, expecting a certain response in a certain period of time. It would be difficult to duplicate this behavior automatically (without a web browser), especially if it was some how tied to other metrics.\n\nThe script gives the user a score. How likely is it that the user is a bot? After a certain threshold, you'll be asked to choose some pictures of a particular object or enter a traditional captcha.\n\nIf you don't provide the script with enough data (mouse movements, keystrokes, time), it can't do anything but assume you're a bot. That's why if you check the \"I'm not a robot\" box quickly, before filling out a form, you are promoted with picture selection or traditional captcha.\n\nGranted, this system isn't perfect. It's likely been busted already. But it deters most bots and its much less inconvenient than the traditional captcha system.\n\nEdit: words",
"/u/ekto_ has the correct answer, however, its worth noting I have done development work on bots that can get around captchas and reCaptchas. We pass the captcha to a third party service via an API, it is solved, and we can continue off the page. Nothing is fool proof, not even a reCaptcha. ",
"Well, I think that Robots have to answer truthfully in accordance with the three laws of robotics.\nSpecifically, number 2 that a robot must obey orders given to it by people as long as it does not interfere with the first law of not harming a human.\n\nOf course, I might be WAY off.",
"If you're logged into your Gmail it assumes you're a human. If you're not you get the reCAPTCHA. Try it.\n\nWe recently implemented the noCAPTHA for our high-volume online sales apps and assumed Google had some proprietary black magic at work. Nope, Gmail login.",
"Reading a couple of the top comments is intriguing... \nAnyhow my experience tells me that when you load the captcha script from their servers it is done so using google domain specific cookies. If you are not signed into a google account, they will not allow you to use the checkbox feature alone and will request you to identify some imagery in the captcha, bot is kept out. It's usually food items or street signs. \n\nIf you are signed into a google account than it's very likely they run a simple algorithm that checks how human your account looks. if you have an email and you check and delete emails, if tied a phone to your profile or have recently fiddled with other google applications unrelated to whatever website you are getting the captcha on. If you have simply done things on your google account than it's determined on their side that you're just an average person getting a captcha. \n\nChecking for mouse movements and keystrokes as stated by others is very likely not what they do as it can potentially be very unreliable when you have touch devices and phones. I've requested their captcha script with bogus agents, none of that matters, they probably don't check many http headers aside from forwarded-for and the cookies header.\n\nWhat matters is the cookie string used to make the request. If you use your google accounts cookies with previous humanly activity it is enough for google to give you a small pool of 4-5 captcha tokens that will let you not have to deal with images and simply click the check box and pass through without identifying any imagery. The token pool seems to be reset every hour or two, probably longer. \n\nChecking for mouse movements and keystrokes would probably be something a novice programmer would attempt to implement.\n\nI enjoy automation and botting things so this caught my eye while scrolling. I've probably dealt with and looked into their captcha service more than I should have..",
"I think a better question would be, \"Why can't they make capchas @#$%! readable!?\"\n\nI should start a website or phone app game where the goal is to actually solve some of these capchas.",
"the browser environment, mostly javascript is very rich in information about everything you do to the page. a bot has a hard time emulating that. combine that with other factors like your IP/behavior it's not unreasonable. that and traditional capchas or notoriously bad/annoying it's not like theres a perfect way to do this",
"It is robot code that if you are a robot you can not lie about being a robot when asked if you are a robot.",
"I watched a good hacker con talk recently that covered this and much more (linkey clickey _URL_0_) and it looks at things like mouse movement, scrolling, time before clicking etc. It's about behaviour, not asking the browser\n\ntl;dr it looks at whether you use a page like a human",
"interesting fact about captchas. Generally the second word in the captcha does not actually need to be entered. It's companies like google getting people to correctly identify images such as street addresses etc. if multiple people type the same second word it creates a match. ",
"You might want to look up /u/vonahn he's one of the originators of Captcha and has done TED and TEDx talks on the subject.",
"It doesn't require passing a captcha to make a reddit username, you guys could be giving a a robot the answers he needs",
"`It also watches your mouse movements, clicks and **keystrokes** ` Erm, there keylogging? how much of that data is sent from client side to server side? ",
"Wrote a macro that moved the mouse to the coordinate within the box and had it click. This meant no hover event.\n\nFrom what I can tell it builds a profile on you, once it thinks your a bot it'll keep prompting you to do captchas until it doesn't think you're a bit anymore.",
"Great responses! It also uses that human effort to learn so that digitalised text ect is more accurate.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nTL;DR We're making the machine smarter.",
"Silly robot, you think we will explain it to you so you can beat the test. Not this time!!!",
"Along with the other answers, google has said that they use your tracking cookies and their own history of your presence on the web to judge that you arent a bot.",
"OK explain it to me like I've never been born. Guy at work was trying to send a purchased song from iTunes. Was supposed to click I'm not a bot button button but it wasn't there. Was that because it was a work computer?\n ",
" > we have to manually interpret badly written text,\n\nOr feed house addresses into a database... *somewhere*. > _ > \n\nAlways seemed shady. Criminally Automated Patsies one might say.\n\nAlways expected the next evolution to be random cropped ID cards. Drivers, SIN, Passports...\n\n\"Does this person actually have [Colour] eyes?\"\n\n\"Compare this Facebook profile picture with [Height], is it accurate?\"",
"Fun fact Google uses a variety of techniques to tell apart bots from humans based on that, it still has the correct answer.",
"[It's like those \"Are you over 18?\" And you know how EVERYONE just answered honestly, the same for the robots. No honest robot would EVER say they're not a robot. I mean, that'd be like someone lying on the internet...](_URL_0_)",
"When AI finally became aware it started posting questions on ELI5 ...\n\nDon't give it the answer!",
"Something interesting they could do is make them do an easy yet tedious proof-of-work. Or in other words, make your pc do a math problem that roughly takes a known amount of time.",
"**It's a timer**\n\nA 4 number pass code you might use at a bank ATM has 10,000 possible combinations. A 8 character password with possible numbers, letters and characters has so many combinations I don't think I would have room here to write out the number of possibilities. That's, of course, if the user doesn't use 10 or 12 characters in their password.\n\nThe best a human being could possibly do at guessing an 8 character password is know the person well enough that they figure out it's their pet, otherwise a person would have a much better chance of winning back to back powerballs than randomly guessing an 8 character password.\n\nThose reCaptcha's aren't for humans. No one is worried about a human guessing a password of a stranger. In order for a computer to guess at all those possible combinations, it needs time and the ability to make a LOT of guesses. The reCaptcha program requires you to move a mouse at human speed over a little box and click it. If a computer repeated those steps, it would take it a million years to guess every possible password. It would have to cheat and click the box over and over again instantly to accomplish it's goal of brute force guessing at that password.\n\nThis is the genius of reCaptcha, it simply makes everything go a little slower and to be even more annoying to bots trying to guess passwords, it requires you to guess pictures if you try to many times, which I'm sure is timed as well.\n\nIn short, they could have just added a timer where you wait a little bit longer after every wrong password entered, but Google probably wanted to keep you busy instead of sitting there and watching the page tell you to wait, which people hate, so it makes you guide the mouse into a little box like teaching a rat to go through the maze to get the cheese.\n\nI imagine they have other safeguards in place, like computers that open up 100,000 web browsers and try to guess passwords at all the same place at the same time. Google records the IP, I know I've setup reCaptcha, and probably uses that tool to catch people trying to cast a wide slow net. To clarify for those wondering, the computer doesn't open up 100,000 instances of Google Chrome or anything like that, it uses a very stripped down program that simply sends and receives limited data from a website. Doesn't render the page or anything like that."
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3xo1ha | why did the earth form with just a single continent? | Is there any particular reason that all the land higher than sea level formed in a single land mass? Why was it not spread out all over the world to begin with? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xo1ha/eli5_why_did_the_earth_form_with_just_a_single/ | {
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"It didn't.... I'm guessing that you're referring to Pangaea which is usually the starting point when teaching about Continental Drift, however the continents were separate before they formed the supercontinent Pangaea. \n\nIn fact, Pangaea is actually thought to have been the seventh or eighth [supercontinent](_URL_0_). ",
"The earth formed with no continents. Just a single mass of crust from slowly cooling after formation. The first crust is like that thin skin you find on certain types of lava flows. However the interior of the earth stayed in motion and so the crust started to get bunched up in some areas, and pulled apart in others, which was the beginning of tectonic plate motion. \n\nAs the planet further cooled the crust began to become thicker which slowed down the plate movements but now instead of folding immediately you could have great pressures building over longer time periods. \n\nThe earth was continuously impacted by comets and other debris which brought along water, and that along with the water already in the core, but working it's way up with volcanic movements and coming out in eruptions, led to a wetter surface and the first oceans started to form which started to change the density of crust under the ocean vs crust on land. The oceanic crust became denser basalt and if it interacted with a continental crust it would tend to dive under it being heavier which led to volcanoes at the plat boundaries, but also to changes in the mantle as solid crust was pushed down into the mantle to re-melt, and hotter spots rose up from the core forming hot spots under the crust leading to even more vulcanism and massive calderas. \n\nOver time these changes under the ground, in the currents and flows of the core, and the soft, sticky upper mantle with it's plastic like super heated rocks, the continental crust became more fractured, and the hot magma rising up under them pushed them apart, which was a continental drift. \n\nBasically you have to not think in terms of ocean and land, and instead think in terms of plates of crust floating on a sticky mantle that isn't exactly liquid, but bendable, and sometimes the mantle gets plumes of super hot rock from the core pushed up into it, which tends to cause vulcanism in the crust above it and in some cases it forces the crust apart if it's at a plate boundary. \n\nthe several billion year history of plate movements on the planet are still being played out and they are still in motion, but it happens so slowly even if you lived thousands of years you wouldn't see it. If you lived millions of years you might be aware of it but it wouldn't change your world much. If you lived billions of years, they would seem like bubbles floating around in a boiling cauldron. "
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7svxj3 | how do buttons on electronic devices work? | Today I looked at a Playstation Vita handheld console, and I asked myself the question, how do the game respond to the button I press and the joystick (thumbstick) that I use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7svxj3/eli5how_do_buttons_on_electronic_devices_work/ | {
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" > How do buttons on electronic devices work?\n\nA button is simply a switch which defaults to open with something like a spring. Pressing the button completes a circuit and sends a signal to a part of the computer, which in the case of a controller has circuitry inside it which converts the button press into an encoded signal to the console itself. How each program interprets and handles the controller input as reported by the console operating system varies by the game.",
"the joystick is actually fairly complicated. typically, they use a set of potentiometers. when you push the stick forward, it rotates a small collar, which changes the resistance in the circuit. the machine is programmed to know what those different resistances mean for the joystick and what the joystick means for the game. \n\nputting 2 of them set in a cross pattern means the computer can tell the X and Y position of the joystick. \n\nyou may have noticed that your joystick is easier to move purely left/right or straight up/down, that's because you're only pushing 1 of the collars. "
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1ol7vw | what actually goes on up on the iss? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ol7vw/eli5_what_actually_goes_on_up_on_the_iss/ | {
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"whatever HAL wants.\n\nBut actually it is used for research mainly in many fields...Things like the affects of living in space, astronomy, space weather, space medecine etc. are all researched there. These experiments are usually ones that could not be carried out as efficiently/at all from earth, hence the need to be in space.",
"Apparently a geocache (ill post the link when i get home)\n\nEDIT: _URL_0_"
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5kz2re | why ex-british colonies are now leader countries and ex-spanish colonies not | For example: US, Australia, Canada are top countries against Central America, México and Southamerica | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kz2re/eli5why_exbritish_colonies_are_now_leader/ | {
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"The British were resettling these places with their own people. When the U.S. became independent, they were taken seriously be the Europeans, they understand European diplomacy, and how to navigate European politics, and how to utilize European technology. Spanish colonies kept the native populations, and just had a small ruling class of Europeans. When these countries became independent the Europeans still felt able/entitled to exploit them, and hence you see things like a French invasion of Mexico 40 years after they gained independence."
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6mw9uo | do sound waves combat or pass through each other? | Say you're driving in a car with the radio on. You pass construction, and the sound of the radio is cut out for a few seconds. Are the waves hitting or passing? Or is it all in the ear? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mw9uo/eli5_do_sound_waves_combat_or_pass_through_each/ | {
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"Sounds waves do combine and/or interfere, but that's not what is happening here, really.\n\nA big part of it is your brain doing a sort of volume control. Your brain needs to tone the construction down to something manageable, so it turns down your mental 'volume control.' which affects everything you hear.\n\nThink of it like how the moon can seem bright during the night, but it doesn't seem as bright during the day. It's the same brightness, your brain (and eyes) have just adjusted to the brighter day."
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bvb3jp | why are vets able to be so much more precise about price than human doctors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bvb3jp/eli5_why_are_vets_able_to_be_so_much_more_precise/ | {
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"Because people doctors have to deal with insurance companies and never know how things are going to be priced. In other words, MDs have little to do with billing."
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674t8e | why are the craters on the moon circular, when impacts at various angles would create elliptical craters? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/674t8e/eli5_why_are_the_craters_on_the_moon_circular/ | {
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"Angled impacts still create circular craters, unless the angle is very glancing. When the meteor hits, the energy released is so great that it basically explodes, and the explosion spreads out spherically in all directions blasting a circular crater.",
"What a great question! I didn't know five minutes ago, but from a bit of googling it sounds like the energy involved in a crater impact is more like a bomb going off than a ball splatting into dust. So your usual intuition for how impacts happen doesn't really apply. Imagine lobbing a stick of lit dynamite at an angle, and it explodes the instant it hits the ground. The damage from the explosion expands out in a circle, and the fact that it was traveling at an angle doesn't really change how that explosion happens. Of course a meteorite isn't dynamite, but it's traveling so fast that it pulverizes into a circular explosion of hot expanding gas on impact, and that gas is what causes the crater.",
"So Long story short, Kinetic energy is Key. The equation for kinetic energy is Ke=1/2*M*V^2. V is velocity. Now stuff is space goes really fast. Like faster than anything that you have ever seen. the only thing on earth we can get to these speeds are in particle accelerators. When this collides with something, it is basically like a nuclear bomb going off. Actually, it's an order or two of magnitude more energy than your average nuke. So the elliptical impact crater that the collision would leave if there wasn't the \"explosion\" is swallowed up by the \"explosion\". Explosion is in quotes because it's not an explosion in the traditional sense, but that's just about the best word for it. ",
"This phenomenon is explained very well by Neil Degrasse Tyson on episode 919 of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. As explained below, when the kinetic energy of an object, in this case a meteor, exceeds the chemical energy holding that object together, you get a big ol' boom. \n\nDegrasse Tyson's explanation is worth a listen. Actually I'd highly recommend this entire podcast. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Hi! I'm doing a lot of work in structural geology currently and impact structures are something I work on. In order to keep this as simple as possible we can break the creation of an impact structure into three stages: \n\n1. Contact and Collision -- projectile strikes earth's surface\n2. Excavation -- transient crater is created, sediment is launched upward \n3. Modification -- erosion and uplift \n\nAs mentioned above, the intital contact is less like an impact and more like an explosion. In fact, most of the projectile is vaporized upon contact and a lot of underlying sediments are vaporized too, that's how powerful it is. Stage 3 of the impact process also contributes to this circular look by slumping the rims of the transient crater. \n\nCheers!",
"Sometimes you find a chain of craters (a catena) that probably result from loosely/formerly aggregated material (think disintigrated comet) hitting the surface like throwing a handful of gravel into sand. Here's an example:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n... But still made up of lots of individual circular craters. ",
"I was also interested in whether the increase in velocity towards the moons surface due to gravity could have a significant effect on the impact angle of asteroids. I.e. is the component of velocity gained towards the moon's surface at the bottom of the moons gravitational well much greater than the average asteroid's velocity at the top of the gravitational well. (So that all impacts are near perpendicular to the surface anyway.)\n\nThe gain in the component of velocity towards the moons surface is going to be roughly equal to the escape velocity on the moons surface. This velocity is roughly 2.4 km s^-1.\n\nThe importance of this gained velocity is dependant on how fast asteroids are going when they enter the \"top\" of the gravitational well. Does anyone have any estimation of this velocity?\n\nThe orbit speed of the Earth around the sun is 30 km s^-1 so I suppose we can expect asteroids to enter the \"top\" of the moons gravitational well at speeds anywhere between double this and some velocity fast enough not to be caught by the Earth's field first.",
"This is a great question, I really like the answers.\n\nCan I ask one on top of it:\n\nWhy are there craters facing earth anyway ?! - If the moon always show the same \"face\" to the Earth, how can asteroids/ meteorites hit it dead on if the Earth is basically \"shielding\" / \"protecting\" the moon with it's surface ?!",
"Its due to kinetic impact. Like how if you throw a snowball against a wall, it doesn't matter what angle its thrown at it will leave a circular blob of snow on the wall. The force of the impact is greater than the force holding the meteor together and it explodes out generating a circle.",
"I'm taking a class that discusses this topic atm. When a meteor crashes into a worlds surface and impacts, it is destroyed and meteoric shockwaves resulting from the impact forms the circular shape. \n\nThis isn't always the case however, as Mars impact craters get their bottoms filled in by the dust storms, making them relatively flat bottomed craters rather than something you'd observe on the moon. \n\nIf you want to research astronomy a little more check out Jupiter and Saturn/moons they're super interesting, probably the coolest place in our solar system. ",
"On Joe Rogan's Podcast Episode 919 at approximately 1 hour and 54 minutes, Neil deGrasse Tyson explains this perfectly. ",
"Neil Degrasse Tyson just discussed this on a recent Joe Rohan podcast. At one time there were scientists that argued since all the craters were circular that these were calderas rather then meteors. As others have said scientists have since determined any impact causes an explosion causing the circular. \n\nI had to comment though to recommend the podcast on of the best ones I have listened to ever. "
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9vxv2r | how did google chrome become so popular? | Wikipedia says that Chrome has a 60% market share of web users. This is the top of all the browsers, and over 4x the number of users that Safari has, which is 2 on the list.
How did Chrome manage to do this? I know that it is the superior browser, especially compared to Internet Explorer. But internet explorer is shipped with Windows, and Safari is shipped with mac.
So why arent they the most popular? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9vxv2r/eli5_how_did_google_chrome_become_so_popular/ | {
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"* First Google became a very very popular search engine.\n* Google started promoting Chrome on their browser page.\n* Google also released Gmail which became very popular.\n* This built up brand trust which made it easier for people to try out Chrome\n* Once they tried it, many people found they had a much better experience than using Internet Explorer or Safari.",
"When chrome came out it was revolutionary, I was very young when it came out, but I remember the sheer uglyness and how terrible it was. By comparison Google Chrome with its clean omnibar was amazing. This comic shows all of the innovations that Google Chrome made: _URL_0_\nThe most impressive to me is that before chrome each tab was loaded in sequence. That means you couldn't load another tab until the tab you had open was done loading. ",
"Internet Explorer back then was absolutely horrible. It was really insecure and many websites didn't even work with it correctly so you pretty much had to use another browser. When Chrome came out it was much faster than Firefox and had many new features so a lot of people switched over.",
"I remember when it came out, I was big into Firefox and always had like a million add-ons and thought it was the shit. No fuckin way could anybody beat the customizability of FF. Then chrome came out and it was just like this big empty square, and I felt like [Chris Treager when he tries Ron's hamburger.](_URL_0_)",
"Because unlike Firefox it was clearer a lot faster at the time.\n\nIt was also heavily marketed and coming from a source with a solid reputation. Google's reputation of do no evil was stronger at that time. ",
"For me it was because a crashed tab in firefox could take down the whole process, and hence, all your tabs. The ability to recover the tabs of a crashed session helped, but the crashing was annoying. Chrome offered a browser where each tab was its own process, so when an individual tab crashed, only it was killed, not all the tabs. "
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3vzw47 | how can banksy create an entire themepark (dismaland) if nobody knows who he really is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vzw47/eli5_how_can_banksy_create_an_entire_themepark/ | {
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"Well there's public anonymity, like how the band the Gorillaz was just 4 animated characters for the longest time and no one knew who they were. For these people the lack of face, or better the lack of a human image makes their art all that much more important. Privately, clearly they can't walk in wearing masks and sign multi million dollar deals, there's non disclosure agreements, where exposing their identity could lead to serious legal ramifications. ",
"Banksy has an agent, and all communications with him go through that agent. The agent is the one who confirms if something is really done by Banksy and is generally accepted as the authority on his works in the art community.",
"One theory is that Banksy is a collective of well known artists working together globally. ",
"slightly off topic but Dismaland wasn't an ''entire theme park'', it was a small/medium sized art exhibit in Weston-Super-Mare. There was a small indoor display for paintings and sculptures, a bunch of neat outdoor exhibits like the police van in the lake, and the run-down disney castle (which was one room inside)\n\nI'm not trying to say it was bad, because it wasn't, but I just don't want people getting the wrong idea about what it actually was"
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5fkeei | our brains perform lots a complex math to perform tasks such as picking up a fork or jumping over a puddle. what does this mean? its not just see affordance, do action? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fkeei/eli5_our_brains_perform_lots_a_complex_math_to/ | {
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"Not sure what you're looking for by asking \"what does this mean\". \n\nA cornerstone of biology is that there is inherently no larger meaning - our brains evolved to do this computation because it provided an evolutionary advantage. \n\nMore importantly however, is to dispel the notion that you brain is \"performing complex math.\" That's not what it is doing. Mathematics, after all, is essentially a human language, a way of interpreting and representing universal truths and fundamental relationships inherent in nature. It is a *representation of a thing* but it is *not THE thing*.\n\nYour brain isn't doing math, but you *could mathematically represent the actions undertaken by the brain to pick up an object such as a fork*. \n\nThis would be a translation, however - your brain isn't utilizing the same mathematics that we would instill in a robot to complete the same action. \n\nThese are contextual computations - something the brain is very good at. It is also why, despite the fact that the average human's brain has more than enough *raw computational power* to do higher level mathematics with ease, most people cannot, even with a lot of practice, do very high level math problems in their head, unassisted. The ability of your brain to make contextual computations such as the timing between eye and hand to pick up a fork, judging spatial realities, coordinating muscles - is not the same as the abstract language of mathematics that humans have invented and are continually expanding upon. \n\n\nThis may seem trivial, but it actually is a fundamental difference. \n\nTake the difference between binary and programming languages. I could very easily give specific instructions to a computer - \"Display this message when opened, provide this link that goes here\". Even though a computer has enough *computational power* to understand these simple instructions, it cannot until I have sufficiently translated those instructions into 1s and 0s - into complex electrical instructions, mediated by layers of various level languages. \n\nYour brain is much the same way. Mathematics is like a high level programming language - it is sculpted around our consciousnesses. Your motor skills, however, are like binary. Capable of very complex feats, but fundamental to the nature of the medium; in this case, your body."
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||
3pxpbo | why is the news of china cutting domestic interest rates causing the u.s. stock markets to surge? | I understand that a portion of US companies' derive income, directly or indirectly, from China, but does that justify a 1% surge in US markets? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pxpbo/eli5_why_is_the_news_of_china_cutting_domestic/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwabad7"
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"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Mainly it's that people who were investing in China are seeing the lower interest rates as indicating lower returns on those investments. Those investors pull money out of Chinese investments and put it in US investments instead. That causes the US market to surge since there are many buyers (and prices are set by supply and demand)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
70ti3y | is there science behind why we think red is the opposite of blue? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70ti3y/eli5is_there_science_behind_why_we_think_red_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"dn5scmv",
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"text": [
"Red and blue are on opposite ends of the color spectrum.\n\nBlue is associated with cold (water, ice) while red is associated with heat (fire). \n\nBlue is associated with calm, while red is associated with danger.",
"We don't think red is the opposite of blue. We think green is the opposite of red. \n\nOpposing colors are as follows. \n\nRed:green. Orange:blue. Yellow:Purple. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
5nudba | how do adult movies film in public places like restaurants or laundromats, or outdoors in the park or the beach? | How is it that porno films can be shot in locations like restaurants or stores that appear to be open for the public? Are these places just rented out and filled with extras to give the appearance? What about in parks or parking lots? It is just filmed in such a way that they record on a handheld in a place far away, and get their thing done as quickly as possible?
I've even seen movies, usually filmed in foreign countries, where they're flat out going at it on public streets in front of pedestrians, are there just places with lax or nonexistent laws covering this sort of thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nudba/eli5_how_do_adult_movies_film_in_public_places/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcedoxe"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"They get permits for filming. Some of them are just warehouses and houses and other locations just made up to look like wherever the scene is supposed to be taking place, others - like the beach for example is taking place on a beach, just the movie makers have the permit to film there and it's cleared out. \n\nRemember Porn is just stereotyped to be some smut with just the stars and some creepy guy with a camera, but it's a actually a whole production with cameras, a Director, Writer, Producer, Sound Guy, Lighting and Wardrobe. There is even a catering part of it, laying a buffet of food for every day filming. \n\nIt isn't any different to production on TV & Movies save for the budget and content, everything else is the same; hell pornstars even have contracts and a union. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
9e5k5e | how comes that you can connect a smart bracelet and a pair of headphones by bluetooth to a phone but not two separate headphones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9e5k5e/eli5_how_comes_that_you_can_connect_a_smart/ | {
"a_id": [
"e5ma9m3"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"This is because the phones aren't designed to send audio to two different headsets. Just because it's technically possible doesn't mean the software has an option to let you do it.\n\nThe vast majority of phone users only ever want to to connect one set of headphones so the phone makers don't bother to add the option to allow connections to more than one audio device."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
393lf8 | why is apple making swift open source a big deal and what does that mean for everybody else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/393lf8/eli5_why_is_apple_making_swift_open_source_a_big/ | {
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"text": [
"It means we can create other compilers for swift (like GCC), and if Google wanted to, they could implement Swift into android.",
"\"Swift is a powerful and intuitive programming language for iOS, OS X, and watchOS. Writing Swift code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. \"\n\nNow anyone can use it. Very Google move from Apple.",
"Its a big deal due the fact that Apple has been notoriously stingy about the creation and distribution of content on their devices/platforms",
"Theoretically you could implement the server side for a mobile app in the same language as the mobile app."
]
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[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
20ww45 | in relation to the article about the girl saving her classmate from cutting his wrists with a razor (provided), can someone explain the logic behind schools "zero-tolerance" and what the schools rational might be? | _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20ww45/eli5_in_relation_to_the_article_about_the_girl/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Proponents of zero tolerance like that it is absolute, and allows no leeway for educators to make judgements about a given scenario. They believe a teacher's primary duty is to educate, not be a judge. They also like that it's \"easy\" to implement -- it requires no thought, logic, reason, exploration of truth, or anything else that might be seen as \"subjective\" or unrelated to teaching.\n\nOpponents of zero tolerance hate that it is absolute, because it allows no leeway for educators for make judgements about a given scenario. You get the above results many times.\n\nDo you want your educators being robot cops or judges? I want them to be both, and if, for some reason, I don't believe in their judgement, I will move my child or do everything I can to have the judge removed.\n\nThe school's rationale is simple: 'zero tolerance' says no one can have a knife or cutting weapon in the classroom. \n\nI think it's a lazy way to be, and excuses educators from practicing logic, deduction, and reason, which is actually IMO *the best* thing they could teach my child.\n\n",
"Zero-tolerance is based on the broken windows theory, which basically is a \"slippery slope\" argument with a tangible posited cause. The idea is that given a specific infraction, by punishing even the most minor offense of infraction you deter greater ones. Allowing leeway or an exception to the rule sets a dangerous precedent - if Johnny is allowed to keep his pocket knife in his back pocket, why can't Jimmy? Why can't Todd bring his butterfly knife, it's only a little bigger! Etcetera... eventually the school is inches away from a stabbing incident, where one kid decides to pull out that knife he was allowed to bring to school and actually use it.\n\nThe main issue with this IMO is that it only works on highly social members of the population, who will see the response to an infraction and collectively adjust their own behaviors accordingly. For the aggressive thug kids who draw a lot of attention this works, but for that crazy autistic kid in the corner zero tolerance is irrelevant - he doesn't care what the other guys got punished for, and no one cares what he's doing. He's going to bring his parents' shotgun to school and kill a dozen teachers + kids regardless. So Zero tolerance alone is kinda like trying to cover up all the holes in Whac-a-Mole."
]
} | [] | [
"http://wavy.com/2014/03/19/student-suspended-for-taking-razor-from-self-harming-classmate/"
] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
9nk8r4 | what happens to light particles after they are observed? | For example, you see the light of a star trillions of miles away. Those particles travel all the way across an unimaginable expanse only to be seen by you. What becomes of those particles after you observe them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9nk8r4/eli5_what_happens_to_light_particles_after_they/ | {
"a_id": [
"e7mz7tj"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"In order to observe the photons, they have to be absorbed by your eyes (or by some other detector like a camera sensor). So nothing happens after because they no longer exist."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
6phpsp | why do files when you change their format gets either corrupted or oftentimes changes into a different and oftentimes readable file format. | had a file downloaded and it was in an unknown file format.
and out of sheer curiosity changed its format by doing
(ex: .dat to .txt) then got a warning saying that doing so will render the file corrupted or damaged
i did it on 1 file and it did get corrupted
and the 2nd one got rendered and its contents changed into
partial readable format an example would be
" & ^%$* & ^*^*Tips(*( & ^* & ^(%*"
why is that ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6phpsp/eli5why_do_files_when_you_change_their_format/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkpdju8",
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"text": [
"It's not so much that *changing the format* corrupts it (because the data remains unchanged). All changing the extension does is change what program your computer is going to open the file with. If you switch something to .txt, it's going to try and open it in Notepad, which can only read plain-text files. \n\nNow if the data within the file is stored in plain-text, Notepad will probably be able to read it. But if it's not, it'll will become gibberish like you saw. ",
"By changing the extension, you made the computer think it was a different kind of file and should be opened/read in a certain way that turned out to be wrong.\n\nLike if you took a bottle of hot sauce and changed the label to \"eye drops\". "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
1zfjol | how do magnetic cassettes audio tapes have two sides? | Cassette tapes back in the day used to have two sides, Side A and Side B , you would need to flip the cassette in order to listen to the other side. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zfjol/eli5_how_do_magnetic_cassettes_audio_tapes_have/ | {
"a_id": [
"cft6lw6",
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"score": [
3,
4
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"text": [
"Yes, the tracks were on separate halves of the tape. You either flipped the tape over manually or the cassette player could make the tape go in both direction *and* had a more advanced tape head (the thing that translated the magnetic signals into electrical ones) that could read in both directions (some what more expensive and could affect sound quality a bit).\n\n\nUnless they went the \"we don't care what it costs, we want autoreverse with the best possible sound\" which Nakamichi did with its [mechanical autoreverse ](_URL_0_) in the very expensive Dragon cassette deck.",
"The tape is made up of 4 tracks: Two going one direction and two going the other. When played on \"side 1\" the two tracks going left to right are read representing left and right speakers. If you pull out the cassette and flip it over, you now have two different tracks going left to right and playing \"side 2\". "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRSDp1JI5BQ"
],
[]
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|
4u1aed | how do waves pass through each other and how doe waves store and transfer energy? | picture this, 2 people standing 6-10m apart holding a slinky between each other. Both jolt their hand and hold it steady (node) creates a constructive wave in the middle and then just passes through each other.
My Physics teacher has been trying to figure out how it works that they pass through each other as am I? He's been searching for years and hasn't found anything he says.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining this correctly, we only just started studying sound and different waves and I don't completely understand it myself.
But I asked what he meant exactly and he said something along the line of how waves store and transfer the energy (maybe specifically when colliding and creating a constructive wave?)
I tried to use the search function but didn't know how to word it, my 1st question here! :D
ELI5 for me and if you could a more complex and thorough explanation I could send to him! Thanks in advanced :) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4u1aed/eli5_how_do_waves_pass_through_each_other_and_how/ | {
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"d5m23vx",
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"Although a wave seems to be a biggish thing, it can be explained just by the smaller movement of the medium it travels through. A wave may appear to move from one end to the other, but the material transferring the wave doesn't move (overall).\n\nInstead, the phenomenon of a wave is the result of compression or expansion of a material at some location that spreads to the rest of the material at a non-instantaneous speed. If you look at the particles in the medium, they may be bunched up a lot at one end, and thus pushes into the adjacent particles that are not as bunched up, in a spring-like fashion. The wave can go on all the way down the medium, but the particles of the medium only have to move a fraction of the distance.\n\nWhat actually propagates in a wave is the squash-stretch force between the particles trying to even out to the rest of the material, and not the particles themselves. That is why waves can pass through each other: it's not actually matter that's passing though each other, but the forces between them.",
"Let's break down your question in parts:\n\n1) How do waves store energy?\n\nLet's restrict ourself to *mechanical* waves, since that seems to be the scope of your question. A very simple way of imagining a sound wave is a *regular pattern of pressure variations*. Pressure is ultimately just a way of representing energy density. This might look like a complicated concept, but think about it. If you have a box full of compressed air, and a box at atmospheric pressure, one of them can be used to inflate a balloon or propel a small air-rocket, while the other one cannot. This is because higher pressure means a *greater capacity for mechanical work*. So what is happening is that when you clap your hands, or tug on the spring, you transfer some energy to it, stored in the form of a pressure variation. If you wait long enough, friction and simple contact provide a way to transfer this energy to the rest of the environment, bringing the spring to a halt, and back to equilibrium with its neighbouring space. \n\n2) How can waves \"pass through\" each other?\n\nAgain let's focus on mechanical waves. Imagine having a small object tied to a table with a spring. Now I strike the object, pushing it towards the anchor point. The spring compresses, then relaxes, and the object oscillates passing through the center at regular intervals. Now, I strike it in the perpendicular direction. To imagine what kind of motion the object goes through, you can just separate the movement in one direction from the movement to the other. It would be the same thing If I struck it two times in the same direction: you could simply study the motion due to the different strikes separately, and then simply *sum* the two contributions together. This is possible beacuse the two motions are not coupled. They don't influence one another. This is true (to first approximation) also for the kind of motion that the constituents of a spring. So the various collective movements that make up a wave don't really \"see\" each other, and they simply sum their contributions to make up the total movement. I strongly advise you read about the [*superposition principle*](_URL_0_), since it's basically what we are talking about here.\n\nThere are some approximations here, but I hope it clears something up for you. \n\nE: grammar"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superposition_principle"
]
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|
nel6i | why is it such a bad thing to be a liberal politician in america? why is the word liberal used like an insult? | It wasn't always like this, right? Kennedy once said
> What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label “Liberal?” If by “Liberal” they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of “Liberal.” But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
Where did that fervor go? Why are we the least progressive industrialized country despite the fact that our constitution is a libertarian manifesto? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nel6i/why_is_it_such_a_bad_thing_to_be_a_liberal/ | {
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"There are [ALOT](_URL_0_) of stupid voters in America. And I don't mean \"kinda stupid\", I mean \"so stupid it makes you want to stab yourself in the head to make even the second-hand pain of their stupidity stop.\"\n\nExhibit A: George W Bush was elected a second time, about 18 months *after* it became screamingly obvious to everyone with an IQ higher than room temperature that there were no WMDs or terrorists in Iraq. That the people who did 9/11 (that would be Al Qaida) were in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.\n\nThe voting public didn't care. They elected him a second time anyway. Even though it had been obvious for *a year and a half* that he had either lied to everyone about Iraq flat-out, or that he was so stupid that he believed all the lies himself.\n\nI'm an American. I don't criticize my own country lightly. But this is the truth. 51% of the American population is just plain stupid as hell.\n\nAnd that's why \"liberal\" is a dirty word in US politics. Because half the voters here are dumber than a pile of dogshit.",
"Over the past 30 years or so, the narrative has changed in the US. This is largely due to conservatives either becoming or hiring people who are good at shaping the way we look at things - they are much better at it than the people on the other side of the political spectrum. They changed the tactics they used in order to win more people to their point of view. They more frequently make appeals to emotions than logic.\n\nHave you ever read Julius Caesar by Shakespeare (yeah, I know this is getting out of the EL5 territory, but it's the best example I can think of)? In it, after Caesar is murdered, Brutus and Antony give speeches trying to win over the crowd. Brutus's speech is a calm, rational explanation of why he and the conspirators decided to kill Caesar. Antony, on the other hand, gives an impassioned speech that riles up the crowd by appealing to their emotions. \n\nIn the US, the conservatives are doing what Antony did, while the liberals are doing what Brutus did. \n\nIt probably also helps that the Democratic party considers themselves a 'big tent' party. By this, they mean they're a party that has lots of diverse members that have different goals and concerns. There is more diversity in terms of race, religion, and a wider spectrum of political beliefs, but they've banded together because their goals may often go hand-in-hand. \n\nIn the Republican party, there is less diversity and far more cohesion. Not just demographically (age, race, income, etc), but in political opinions. This makes it a lot easier to shape a narrative because you have fewer groups within the main group that have dissenting opinions. \n\n\nIn addition, the right has a large number of mouthpieces in the form of pundits that repeat many of their ideas. People like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity. These guys are on radio or TV for several hours a day, several days a week, helping to get out their political opinions to a good portion of the population. Because almost all of them agree on the same points, it's easy for someone to say 'well, all of these guys who talk about politics for a living agree, so there must be something to what they're saying'. There really is nobody on the left that serves as a mouthpiece like these guys on the right.\n\n\nSo, one of the things that the people on the right have done is to try and give negative associations to the word 'liberal', since that is how their political opponents are often labeled. By attatching negative connotations to the word, they are hoping to convince people that anyone who self-identifies as a liberal is bad. The idea is to tell people who are less informed about politics is that a liberal is someone who will make you pay more taxes, go easy on crime, and loves drugs, abortions, and giving lazy people money by letting them draw unemployment or welfare. \n\nConservatives have been very successful at shaping this message so that now very few people want to be labeled as a 'liberal politician'.",
"There are [ALOT](_URL_0_) of stupid voters in America. And I don't mean \"kinda stupid\", I mean \"so stupid it makes you want to stab yourself in the head to make even the second-hand pain of their stupidity stop.\"\n\nExhibit A: George W Bush was elected a second time, about 18 months *after* it became screamingly obvious to everyone with an IQ higher than room temperature that there were no WMDs or terrorists in Iraq. That the people who did 9/11 (that would be Al Qaida) were in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.\n\nThe voting public didn't care. They elected him a second time anyway. Even though it had been obvious for *a year and a half* that he had either lied to everyone about Iraq flat-out, or that he was so stupid that he believed all the lies himself.\n\nI'm an American. I don't criticize my own country lightly. But this is the truth. 51% of the American population is just plain stupid as hell.\n\nAnd that's why \"liberal\" is a dirty word in US politics. Because half the voters here are dumber than a pile of dogshit.",
"Over the past 30 years or so, the narrative has changed in the US. This is largely due to conservatives either becoming or hiring people who are good at shaping the way we look at things - they are much better at it than the people on the other side of the political spectrum. They changed the tactics they used in order to win more people to their point of view. They more frequently make appeals to emotions than logic.\n\nHave you ever read Julius Caesar by Shakespeare (yeah, I know this is getting out of the EL5 territory, but it's the best example I can think of)? In it, after Caesar is murdered, Brutus and Antony give speeches trying to win over the crowd. Brutus's speech is a calm, rational explanation of why he and the conspirators decided to kill Caesar. Antony, on the other hand, gives an impassioned speech that riles up the crowd by appealing to their emotions. \n\nIn the US, the conservatives are doing what Antony did, while the liberals are doing what Brutus did. \n\nIt probably also helps that the Democratic party considers themselves a 'big tent' party. By this, they mean they're a party that has lots of diverse members that have different goals and concerns. There is more diversity in terms of race, religion, and a wider spectrum of political beliefs, but they've banded together because their goals may often go hand-in-hand. \n\nIn the Republican party, there is less diversity and far more cohesion. Not just demographically (age, race, income, etc), but in political opinions. This makes it a lot easier to shape a narrative because you have fewer groups within the main group that have dissenting opinions. \n\n\nIn addition, the right has a large number of mouthpieces in the form of pundits that repeat many of their ideas. People like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity. These guys are on radio or TV for several hours a day, several days a week, helping to get out their political opinions to a good portion of the population. Because almost all of them agree on the same points, it's easy for someone to say 'well, all of these guys who talk about politics for a living agree, so there must be something to what they're saying'. There really is nobody on the left that serves as a mouthpiece like these guys on the right.\n\n\nSo, one of the things that the people on the right have done is to try and give negative associations to the word 'liberal', since that is how their political opponents are often labeled. By attatching negative connotations to the word, they are hoping to convince people that anyone who self-identifies as a liberal is bad. The idea is to tell people who are less informed about politics is that a liberal is someone who will make you pay more taxes, go easy on crime, and loves drugs, abortions, and giving lazy people money by letting them draw unemployment or welfare. \n\nConservatives have been very successful at shaping this message so that now very few people want to be labeled as a 'liberal politician'."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html"
],
[],
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"http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html"
],
[]
] |
|
4uwujc | how is zircon used to date rocks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4uwujc/eli5_how_is_zircon_used_to_date_rocks/ | {
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"Zircon naturally concentrates Uranium in its crystal lattice. Uranium is one of numerous elements which has unstable isotopes. The rate of decay of these isotopes can be used to find out how old something is; while uranium is trapped int he lattice, the daughter isotopes - the things uranium decays to - are not. That means that any of those elements found in the crystal later on are there due to radioactive decay, so you can look at the amount of daughter isotope and calculate the amount of parent that was originally there. If you know the rate that decay happens, then you know the age of the rock.\n\nSo if you separate the zircons out of a rock you can find the age that those zircon crystals are - how long ago they formed.\n\nThe only complication here is that zircon is quite a resilient mineral, and it is only formed in igneous rocks. However, if those rocks are eroded then those zircon crystals can end up in later sedimentary rocks. So if you date those zircons you will not get the age of the sedimentary rock, but the older igneous rock the zircon formed in. These \"detrital\" zircons can be really useful in finding out where sediment has come from to form a particular sedimentary basin."
]
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[]
] |
||
3v79em | how does filtering water through rocks and sand work. | It seems like it would do a terrible job at filtering contaminants and bacteria, but [this](_URL_0_) says it will work, and I have heard that this is used in water treatment plants. How does this work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v79em/eli5_how_does_filtering_water_through_rocks_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxl8ado"
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"score": [
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"What people are forgetting to mention is a simple fact: liquids take on any shape of their container. This means that although the sand may be compact, the water will slowly \"seep\" through the cracks of the sand and down due to gravity. The sand particles are stuck and can't move through each other. The larger contaminants (like other dirt, plant matter etc) get \"filtered\" by these sands and rocks. As the water flows down it will meet back up at the bottom and down into whatever you are filtering it into.\n\nThis is for LARGER containments, not necessarily things like bacteria, viruses, or microscopic elements and or toxins. Its important to either boil the water properly, add a chemical or use another intervention step for clean drinkable water. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://i.imgur.com/0Fd9AdU.png"
] | [
[]
] |
|
1iupez | how the royal family works - who becomes what (king, queen, prince, etc) when people die? | My friends an I are arguing and can't find the information to help us understand. We're from NY and very confused.
Help us British redditors, you are our only hope. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1iupez/eli5_how_the_royal_family_works_who_becomes_what/ | {
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"You're question is incredibly vague :L But I'll try to answer, based on the assumptions that:\n\n- You mean the British Royal family\n- You just want an overview of the laws of succession\n\n**The Current Order of Succession is:**\n\n- Queen Elizabeth II\n- Prince Charles (Elizabeth's eldest child)\n- Prince William (Charles' eldest child)\n- Prince X (William's eldest child)\n- Prince Harry (Charles' second child)\n\nWhen the ruling King/Queen dies, the throne passes to their eldest child. It used to be that it would always pass to a son before a daughter (So if a King had a 20 year old daughter and a 1 year old son, the throne would go to the son first). This was recently changed, due to society becoming more equal than when the laws were first written.\nAfter them, the throne goes to their oldest child etc. If they have no children, it goes to their eldest sibling, then the sibling's children.\n\nThe title of Prince/Princess goes to the children of the King/Queen, and any children in the MALE line. So the children of a Prince are Prince/Princesses, but the children of a Princess aren't. This may change due to the new laws.\n\nPrinces prefer to use other titles if they have them. The reason that Prince William is the Duke of Cambridge is because he was awarded that title. An awarded title is more impressive than one you automatically get. The Queen's husband is called Prince Phillip, because although women get their husband's titles, men don't get their wife's (Similar to surname). Phillip is already a Prince, as he's a member of a different Royal Family (Prince of Greece and Denmark).\n\nIf you have any more specific question's, I'd be happy to answer!",
"It can be slightly different depending on the monarchy, but [here is a video](_URL_0_) that does a pretty good job of explaining how it works for the British monarchy.",
"Here are the pre-2013 rules for the British Royal Family. Going forward, gender will no longer matter, but only for new heirs. \n\n* Sons before daughters\n* Oldest before youngest\n* If you die before you inherit, your descendants move up a spot\n* If there are no descendants, go up a generation, and repeat\n\nSo after Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, by virtue of being the oldest son, was heir apparent. Before he had children, his brothers Prince Andrew and Prince Edward were next in line, despite Princess Anne being older.\n\nBut once Prince Charles had Princes William and Harry, they became next in line after Charles, and even if Charles dies before Elizabeth, they remain ahead of everyone else. Similarly, the new Prince will remain ahead of Harry no matter what. That's why wars of succession got so bloody, you have to kill off a lot of people if you aren't directly in line.\n\nIf all of Elizabeth's descendants somehow died before she did, we'd go back up to King George, down to is only other child, Princess Margaret, who is deceased, and to her oldest son, Viscount Linley. After her descendants were exhausted, you'd go back up to Elizabeth's grandfather (also King George), and back down through her uncles, Prince Henry and Prince George, and her aunt, Princess Mary."
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5g04ic | what is the poverty line and how is it established? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g04ic/eli5_what_is_the_poverty_line_and_how_is_it/ | {
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"The Poverty Line is a politically established \"minimum wealth to live\" designated from the standard livings of a country and it's citizens.\n\nAt least in the USA, this is based of Census data taken every 10 years and is used to guage and evaluate the baseline minimum required financial income to support an individual, a married couple, or a married couple with children.\n\nThe Poverty line attempts to assist in establishing how much financial assistance, Medical assistance, income assistance, and other social assistances needed to live a productive or healthy life.\n\nNot saying wether it works right or not, simply this is what it is supposed to be."
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9zqxio | what causes produce to be recalled on such a large scale, like with this recent mass romaine lettuce ecoli scare? why are many different producers being recalled and not just one? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9zqxio/eli5_what_causes_produce_to_be_recalled_on_such_a/ | {
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"In cases like this the best solution is “better safe than sorry.” The source of contamination is unknown, so it's best and safest simply to recall the affected product regardless of source.",
"Because the vast majority (60-90%) of produce in the US is supplied by just 4 mega-companies. All the lettuce is bought from Farmers & stockpiled in a warehouse before distributing to grocery stores.\n\nIf contamination is detected, they will have to find out which shipment it comes from, which warehouse it came from, and then recall all produce sent out from that warehouse. This is to prevent cross-contamination which can spread the bacteria to other shipments too."
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bn7a4o | milk curdles when it comes into contact with strong acids, so does it curdle in your stomach? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bn7a4o/eli5_milk_curdles_when_it_comes_into_contact_with/ | {
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"simple answer: yes it does. \nI remember as a kid the guys at school would drink milk and then a glass of orange juice making the milk curdle and them throw up so there clearly is more to the story but since our stomachs contain strong acid it is 100% guaranteed that milk curdles down there.",
"Ever seen a baby throw up milk? (They do that occasionally). It comes out all curdled",
"Yes it does.\n\nIn fact, that is how cheese was first invented. Way, way back in time our ancestors used sheep or goat stomachs as a bladder to carry liquids in while they traveled (like a waterskin). Sometimes they would put milk in there and the rennet, which is used to make cheese and present in sheep/goat stomachs, would curdle the milk. Cheese is basically curdled milk so they stumbled on how to make cheese.\n\nOf course we have refined the process a lot since then."
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5xxotz | why has the united states not added any new states into the union since the 1950s, especially since there have been successful campaigns for various territories to acquire statehood? | I remember just in the last few years reading that Puerto Rico had voted to join the union, but nothing ever came of it. Why?
Additionally, why is there so little interest in adding more states to the Union? It seems like we were all about acquiring territories and increasing the size and reach of the United States. What changed?
Or did we just say, "Ah, 50 is a nice even number, let's stop there?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xxotz/eli5_why_has_the_united_states_not_added_any_new/ | {
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"So far none of the US territories have voted in favor of statehood. PR has voted 4 (soon to be 5) times on the issue.\n\nIt will also be trouble getting it past a Republican Congress to admit a heavily Democrat territory like PR into the union.",
"Because no territory or independent nation has petitioned Congress to become a State. Congress does not just make a place a State, those that live there have to formally request to become a State and then meet the Criteria Congress sets at that time to become one. The normal criteria used has been things like: Requiring 75% of the population want to join, having a democratically elected government, having balanced budgets, etc. ",
"The only place that wants to be a state is DC. It's too small, just a city, full of federal government, just too small, ultra-liberal, just a city, and arguably it was better off voting for senators from Maryland.",
" > especially since there have been successful campaigns for various territories to acquire statehood? \n\nUm, no. The Puerto Rico vote was a farce. \n\nHere is how it worked. PR is roughly evenly split between people who want to be a country, people who want to be a state, and people who want to be a territory.\n\nSo they had this gimmicky two-part vote. The first question asked if you wanted PR to remain a territory. The second asked if you preferred to be a state or country. Since more people wanted it to not a territory, and *slight* more people wanted state than country, it made it look like state won, despite not having anything near a majority."
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6i1jev | how does blood pressure work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i1jev/eli5_how_does_blood_pressure_work/ | {
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"Imagine your arteries and veins like a lot of interconnected rubber hoses. But for this example, let's pretend we are talking about one rubber tube. They can expand and contract as needed. You attach a water hose (the heart) to a rubber tube (the artery) that water (Blood) can flow through. If the water is able to flow through the tube easily and there is nothing blocking it, there will be very little pressure exerted on the inside of the tube. But if you partially block the water exit, then there will be more pressure that builds up and is exerted on the tube. If you completely block the tube, there is a lot more pressure exerted on the tube. \n\nYour body is able to change the diameter of the arteries so it can maintain a steady blood pressure since the larger the diameter, the lower the pressure exerted on the tube.",
"Blood pressure is how hard the blood pushes against the walls of the arteries as it circulates through the body. It is affected by how hard the heart is pumping and by how flexible and dilated the arteries are. It can also be affected by how much blood you have, which can be a big deal if you are very dehydrated or bleedimg heavily. You blood pressure has a pulse (and ebb and flow) because of the beat of the heart.\n\nAssuming a normal heart rhythm, blood pressure has two numbers, the systolic (top number) and diastolic (bottom number). This is the pressure at max pulse, and then at rest. It is usually measured with a cuff around your arm. First the cuff squeezes tight enough to completely cut off your circulation. It slowly deflates until the first little bits of blood and squeeze through. You can either hear this as noise with a stethoscope, or sense it with machine. The pressure at that moment is called the systolic, or max pressure. As the cuff continues to deflate, the sounds /turbulence start to get less and less until the blood is flowing freely again. The pressure at that moment is called the diastolic, or minimum pressure."
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r1olu | byford dolphin accident | Can't make sense of it, yet intrigued. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/r1olu/eli5_byford_dolphin_accident/ | {
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"When you go deep underwater complicated shit happens to your body because of the weight (pressure) of the water above you. When you come back up the changes reverse in a way that can hurt or kill you. The deeper you go and the longer you stay under the more problems it causes. You can avoid the affects by coming up very slowly, giving your body time to deal with it safely. Or you can enter a pressurized chamber that simulates this effect, letting you chill out in a room for a few hours instead of underwater. The room is called a decompression chamber, or sometimes a diving bell.\n\nThe pressure in the diving bell is extremely high. Picture an aerosol can. You can release the pressure inside safely through the valve at the top, but if you poke a hole in it _everything inside comes out through that hole basically instantly_. It's pretty much an explosion.\n\nSo in the Byford Dolphin accident, divers were chilling out in a decompression chamber at a very high pressure, like they do. The point was to slowly, over a period of hours, reduce the pressure safely through a little valve. Instead, someone accidentally opened the hatch on the door, creating what is essentially a directed explosion forcing the divers out through a small hole in a fraction of a second."
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lkrc1 | marriages and civil unions | *
Is there any legal difference between a marriage and a civil union?
* Is a marriage a specific type of civil union?
* Can anyone get a civil union in any state?
* I'm interested in the legal definition of marriage completely ignoring any religious definitions of the word, unless it's unavoidable (such as the state only respects a marriage that is carried out by a church-person). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lkrc1/eli5_marriages_and_civil_unions/ | {
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"* In the U.S., there's a big legal difference between a marriage and a civil union, because the federal government doesn't recognize civil unions, so you don't get a lot of the big advantages of marriage, like being able to file a joint tax return, or Social Security survivors benefits if one of you dies. Also, just because you have a civil union in one state doesn't mean any other state has to recognize it, so it doesn't have much usefulness if you travel or move.\n\n* A civil union isn't really a marriage in any real sense, or vice versa. It's a similar idea of course, but the details are a lot different, and they're defined differently by the law.\n\n* Not all states have civil unions. Right now, 15 states and Washington, D.C. have some form of civil unions, but they differ on what exactly their right and responsibilities are. Some are as close to a marriage as they can get without federal recognition, and others are much more limited in what benefits they provide.",
"* In the U.S., there's a big legal difference between a marriage and a civil union, because the federal government doesn't recognize civil unions, so you don't get a lot of the big advantages of marriage, like being able to file a joint tax return, or Social Security survivors benefits if one of you dies. Also, just because you have a civil union in one state doesn't mean any other state has to recognize it, so it doesn't have much usefulness if you travel or move.\n\n* A civil union isn't really a marriage in any real sense, or vice versa. It's a similar idea of course, but the details are a lot different, and they're defined differently by the law.\n\n* Not all states have civil unions. Right now, 15 states and Washington, D.C. have some form of civil unions, but they differ on what exactly their right and responsibilities are. Some are as close to a marriage as they can get without federal recognition, and others are much more limited in what benefits they provide."
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7zboc9 | how do you know that the amount of gasoline displayed by the pump is actually the amount you are receiving and you’re not getting ripped off? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zboc9/eli5_how_do_you_know_that_the_amount_of_gasoline/ | {
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"it is heavily regulated and tested, you'll see a sticker talking about weights and measures certification. Its tested regularly, and if it were tampered with, they would face steep fines.",
"Check the pump for a recent inspection sticker. They are pretty tightly regulated and required to be tested once in a while. That said, it's actually fairly common for the numbers to be off significantly. Sometimes this is intentional, sometimes not. If you think you're being shortchanged, you can complain to whatever department is in charge of your state's weight and measures. If you check the sticker at the pump, you'll probably find the number to call.",
"How do you know for sure? You don't. But you can be reasonably confident for 2 reasons:\n\n1. Pumps are periodically tested. The testing agency puts a sticker on the pump that shows when they checked.\n\n2. Most people wait until their tank is mostly empty before they fill up. You know how many gallons your tank will hold, so if the pump charges you for more than your tank will hold, you know you are getting ripped off.",
"Most state's Weights & Measures department regularly inspect pumps for accuracy as well as inspecting safety of the pump and fuel standards.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nMost states have a number that you can call if you are concerned about the accuracy of the pump.",
"Do you not know how much milage your car gets? Keep track of gallons in/ gallons used.",
"The pumps are highly regulated and checked often. You can see the stickers on the side of the pump telling you when it was last inspected. If the pumps get tampered with they face extremely high fines and may even be arrested. "
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62lgd1 | why is having a credit card (and taking micro loans for everyday purchases) at all a good idea? | I understand large purchases often require loans, but the age-old advice to get a credit card for everyday purchases seems like an unnecessary way to create interest payments for yourself. Why must I be penalized if I only spend only available bank funds and correctly file taxes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62lgd1/eli5_why_is_having_a_credit_card_and_taking_micro/ | {
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"If you pay off your card in full every month you won't pay any interest. In fact, depending on your card you'll likely get cash back or rewards and save money.\n\nUsing a credit card shows crediting companies that you have the ability to borrow and pay back funds within your means. This helps your credit so when you go to make a larger purchase and take out a large loan for say a house or car you'll get a better interest rate and save money.\n\nYou also gain the protection to dispute charges after the fact and have your credit card company become an arbitrator. For example, if you pay an up front deposit with a credit card for a service and then the service falls short or does not come through you can often get your money back with a phone call rather than taking the person to small claims court.",
"My friend Bob asks to borrow 5 pounds from me. I worry that he might not pay it back, but it's only 5 pounds, so I lend it to him. He pays me back next month. This repeats a few times, he's always borrowing 5 or 10 pounds and always paying it back. Then one day he says he really needs to fix his car and can he borrow 200 pounds. Now that's quite a lot of money but hey, he's always been good at paying back the small amounts so I lend him the big amount.\n\nMy other friend Liam asks to borrow 200 pounds from me to fix *his* car, but I've never lent him anything before. I've no idea if he'll actually pay me back, so I tell him to ask his mum instead.\n\nThen a few months later Bob asks to borrow a thousand pounds. I don't *have* a thousand pounds spare so I can't help him. But hey, he paid back the 200, he always pays back the 5's, so I can tell Bob's other friends that and maybe one of them will lend him the thousand.\n\nAnd that's the basic idea of \"building a credit history\". Bob has a good credit history. Maybe I've got another mate Thomas who borrows and doesn't pay back, he's got a bad credit history. Liam has no credit history at all and that's almost as bad as a bad credit history.",
"If you pay off you credit card balance in full at the end of the month, then you don't accrue any interest on what you've charged. It's just a convenience to pay one bill rather than having money constantly going out of your checking account, and the credit card companies basically float you a free loan for 6-8 weeks. Something you buy today might be included on a statement ending a couple weeks from now, and then you have 3-4 weeks from receipt of that statement before that's due. Interest free. Maybe you have $50 in your checking account today, but get paid on the 1st... not an issue to buy $100 of groceries because by the time the bill is due you'll have more money in your account. Helps even out cash flow.\n\nAdditionally, having credit and using it responsibly helps build your credit score, which will make it easier to get loans and lower interest rates when you really do need a loan -- for a car, house, etc.\n\nFinally, you mention being penalized for filling taxes correctly? Using a credit card or not has NOTHING to do with taxes. Interest on credit cards isn't deductible like mortgage or student loan interest."
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48bf1x | how do muscle relaxers work? | I get how pain killers and NSAIDs work, but now do muscle relaxers work differently?
Please don't answer "they relax muscles, not reduce inflammation." | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48bf1x/eli5_how_do_muscle_relaxers_work/ | {
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"Basically, they either bind receptors for acetylcholine (the neurotransmitter that conducts the signals for your muscles to contract from the motor neuron) and make acetylcholine less able to trigger the receptor or directly block the receptors. ",
"Some are GABA reuptake inhibitors. GABA stands for Gamma-Aminobutyric-Acid, which is an *inhibitory* neurotransmitter. If the body stops the breakdown and reabsorption of the neurotransmitter then it will accumulate. Once this has happened the muscle stops contracting as much. This prevents spasm and acts as a muscle relaxer. This is difficult for me to explain as there is a lot of pharmacology and physiology/biochemistry involved but I hope this helps."
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2isoo9 | is bomb diffusion really as simple as just cutting wires, as hollywood depicts? | Also, why does cutting the wrong wire lead to an explosion? And why would a diffusion be made so accessible by the manufacturer of the bomb? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2isoo9/eli5_is_bomb_diffusion_really_as_simple_as_just/ | {
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"It depends on the bomb. Generally speaking it's preferable to transport the bomb away and detonate it safely.\n\nSome bombs have just a battery rigged to the blast caps. Removing the blast caps, the battery or cutting the wire connecting them renders the bomb safe. Clever bombmakers could make a dead man's switch which triggers a set of blast caps if a part of the mechanism stops receiving electricity from a battery.",
"In real life, bomb disposal is **nothing** like it is in the movies. [Cracked](_URL_0_) has a pretty good article explaining how movies get it wrong. The go to method for EoD units is to just blow up the bomb safely and then put the pieces back together later in order to study it.\n\nAs for why cutting the wrong wire can detonated it, it's very easy to make a circuit that when current is running through it, it suppresses current through another circuit. Cut the first circuit and suddenly you have current running through the second one and ka-boom. There's really no way to tell exactly how a circuit in a bomb works without tampering with it, which could be deadly.\n\nBomb makers purposefully make their bombs confusing/hard to diffuse, which is why EoD teams don't bother with diffusing them.",
"Hollywood rarely lets reality get in the way of a good film. Most bombs are designed to be difficult to defuse. This is because an unexploded bomb can cause disruption, and it ties up the enemies resources.",
"Depends entirely on who makes it. A very simplistic device designed to just blow up at a set time, assumed to be placed where nobody would find it, not containing any security measures would be nothing more than a timer/trigger device wired to some blasting caps set into an explosive. It could be very easily defused by cutting the blasting cap wires, pulling the caps out of the explosive or any other method that deactivates the device. \n \nSomething more complicated would be used if the person making it expects a lot of attention, expects the device to be found. Ways to harden it against messing around would be employed. Tougher casings, multiple casings, extra wiring designed to trigger it, motion and tilt sensors, tamper switches on access panels, etc. In reality, it can be made nearly impossible to perform a hands on defusing. \n \nIn movies, it is designed to heighten tension. There will always be a way to stop that timer at the last possible second. This is common in movies. \n \nIn reality, unless the device is remarkably well encased, they bomb squad would just use a disruptor. Literally a tube of water with an explosive. This is brought into close proximity to the device and exploded, the effect being like a large waterjet cutter, the water being forced to dump the energy from the shockwave directly into the device, breaking the internal circuitry. It is very effective."
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2l87zq | reddit gift exchange? | How does this work? I am afraid to sign up because who knows what kind of weirdos are out there. Has anyone ever done this? And could you tell me about your experience? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l87zq/eli5_reddit_gift_exchange/ | {
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"Mate yea I'm wondering the exact thing. Don't want to be giving out personal info to randoms so they can send me a bag of dicks or something. I'm interested in doing it, but hella risky lol",
"I have done a few through my regular reddit and I can only say positive things from it. My boyfriend told me about it once and the first one that I participated in was the Makeup Exchange. I received a few very high-end products. And when I did the Arbitrary Day exchange this past summer, I received a hand-made picture of The Beatles someone had made for my dorm. It's beautiful and I loved the experience. I suggest it to anyone! ",
"I signed up... I hope this goes well! Haha"
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1su7ip | [nsfw] why are the breasts and the butt now sexualized body parts of women, when their biological purpose is not sex related? | *No misogynistic comments, please.*
It's clear why the vagina is sexualized, but why the breasts and the butt? If it's just because of the round, protruding shape, then why aren't pot-belly stomachs regarded as highly as the former?
Legitimately interested; inform me Reddit! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1su7ip/eli5_nsfw_why_are_the_breasts_and_the_butt_now/ | {
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"Breasts and the butt show fitness for raising and bearing healthy offspring, not just the act of sex. You need to look at the whole picture, not just the fun part.",
"The shape of the breasts and buttocks in women are considered secondary sex characteristics. This means that they are not directly related to reproduction, but are used as an indicator of sexual maturity, viability, health, etc.\n\nA man looking at a woman cannot know directly if she is fertile and will make a satisfactory mother, but it happens that women with large breasts are, on average, better at providing children with nourishment, and women with particular fat distributions are likely to be of prime reproductive age (fat distribution changes with age).\n\nAs a result, brains find these things desirable. And culture responds to this desirability by relating it back directly to sex.",
"The large tail feathers of a peacock aren't related to sex and yet peahens go crazy over them.\n\n",
"I've learnt that its linked to evolutionary theory. Since women with big breasts and butts show fertility and advantages in taking care of children, we've evolved to be more attractive to those traits. Basically, women with big butts and breasts more often produced healthy offspring, these offspring would survive better than some others. Therefore, the same behaviour would be passed on to the offspring. Because there is an advantage to having large breasts and butts, we have adapted to be more attracted to those traits, because those will help offspring to survive. "
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2falat | why doesn't a government address poverty in their own country before aiding those in poor areas of the world? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2falat/eli5_why_doesnt_a_government_address_poverty_in/ | {
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"Poor in the US means only having a good meal every 3rd day.\n\nPoor in Africa means having a good meal NEVER.\n\nThe US spends a great deal of money on addressing poverty within its borders. The problem is that the solutions are not a function of money. By comparison helping people in Africa is much easier. A few billion in food and money does a lot of good (in theory at least).",
"Very little is done overseas by the U.S. government to address poverty. Much is done to address famine and some of the other affects of extreme poverty. In the U.S. there are very few people who are going hungry, at least if you use the scale of hunger that one would use to talk about hunger on a global scale. \n",
"The US (and other developed nations) don't do much for overseas poverty. [Last year](_URL_1_) the US spent $23 billion on economic foreign aid and an additional $14 billion on military aid.\n\nThat may seem like a lot of money. But in comparison the Feds and States [combine for about $830 billion](_URL_0_) in domestic anti poverty aid (or nearly 40 times as much).\n\nAnd a good deal of the foreign aid goes to countries specifically as an alternate form of military support. The US spent a ton of \"economic aid\" in Afghanistan for narcotics control and policing. Some border control and immigration also comes out of this $23 billion. So even a fair amount of the economic aid money is actually not going to aid.\n\nIn all the US spends less than 1% of the budget on foreign economic aid. In return we get a more stable world. This helps us get richer as we have stable trade partners. And it reduces the need for military expenses as fewer Talibans appear in wealthy stable nations."
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3kienx | sexism and sexual objectification | So I've been talking to my friends about Metal Gear Solid V lately, and one of them brought up the idea of Quiet (scantily clad female character) as sexist. When I asked why, they responded with "Because her attire just encourages the objectification of women."
I tried not to step on any more landmines as my friend left the area, but I still don't really understand.
I get the basic idea of sexism and sexual objectification, which is just gender-based prejudice and dehumanization respectively (is that right?), but I'm having a hard time bridging the gap between a sexual design and objectification.
Why is it considered sexist towards women bad to portray females in a sexual manner?
Side Notes: The other threads I could find that were generally about this subject only really explained why sexual objectification is bad towards an individual. I can see why treating someone as if their sexiness were the most important thing would be bad towards that person.
What I'm really trying to grasp here is the idea of why it's bad towards all women, and why it's bad if the objectified entity isn't real. In other words, how does a particular instance of sexualization harm a whole gender? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kienx/eli5_sexism_and_sexual_objectification/ | {
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"This is a very touchy (as you put it, full of landmines) subject and even groups of people who share that belief are rife with disagreement. However, from my understanding basically what your friend was getting at is that he/she thinks MGSV (never played it) isn't a game ...geared... towards providing sexual content. As such, the presence of an disproportionately sexualized female character (as opposed to an equal amount of sexualized characters from both genders) indicates that the creators were either:\n\n* Sexist themselves\n* Did it for the money\n\nAnd, judging from what you told us, your friend (as do many others) find this extremely objectionable. \n\n > Why is it considered sexist towards women bad to portray females in a sexual manner?\n\nFrom my understanding it isn't about portraying *women* that way it's about the fact that women receive a **disproportionate amount of sexualization** and that is, by definition, sexist. Objectification has to do with the perception that sexualized female characters are often used as mere plot devices and have no actual 'character content' and are thus downgraded to the level of 'object'\n\nNote: This was not meant as an opinionated post. I was merely describing to what I think OP's friends were alluding to.",
"Video games are pretty notorious for showing a...less than complex view of women.\n\nI have no knowledge of the MGS games, but given knowledge of Hideo Kojima and video games in general, I'm pretty sure I could guess how her character is portrayed.\n\nBasically, treating women solely as sexual objects in a narrative reinforces the idea that women are:\n\n* supposed to be hyper sexualized\n\n* not supposed to do much else\n\nThis is detrimental to women as a whole because it pretty much says that women only exist so that people can look at/have sex with them. If it was one female character written this way, it wouldn't be a big deal. It becomes a bigger problem when this way of portraying women is pervasive and dominant, which it certainly is in video games and is to a lesser extent in many other art forms. ",
"It's not about the singular instances, it is all about how often it happens. It's like the question, which grain of sand turns a pile into a hill, there is no one thing to get all the blame. \n\nI can't really say much on if this exact situation is objectifying, because I have been avoiding spoilers, but I can say that spotting objectification is more then just pointing out skimpy clothing. How others in context of the story reacts to it and how the character treats it is just as important. It wouldn't surprise me if quiet is objectifying, this is kojima where talking about here, they don't have the best record. But if your looking for a counter argument it will be in how the rest of her qualities play out. Does she fit the kind of person to wear that? is she confident about it, or is it never brought up? how do other characters react to it?"
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cisma2 | what's foreign direct investment? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cisma2/eli5_whats_foreign_direct_investment/ | {
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"If a company or individual sets up a company or purchases assets or a significant share of an existing company in a foreign country, that is considered FDI. The assets purchased are located and in use in that foreign country.\n\nDay to day or small trades in shares of a foreign company does not constitute FDI. These typically only reflect in changing in equity ownership (no controlling interest) and does not inject new capital into the firm.\n\nBuying assets and exporting them to another country for use or sale (say capital equipment or products like phones, cars etc) does not constitute FDI. It is considered international trade. \n\nForeign currency trading or speculation is not considered FDI.\n\nFDI is an important statistic because it implies a long term commitment to operate in the country. These investments are less subject to capital flight risk unlike, for example, trading in company shares/stocks or foreign currency purchases. If a country attracts a lot of FDI, it is a signal that foreign investors have confidence in the economy and, to a certain extent, the governance of that country. Many factors go into building foreign investor confidence - rule of law, manageable corruption, a good track record of fiscal and monetary policy management, stable government, ease of capital inflow/outflow, fewer rules discriminating against foreign ownership etc etc. In more recent times, issues like human rights, environmental policy, labor laws also play an increasing role in the attractiveness of a country for FDI."
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61fdyq | how come helium leaves the planet but hydrogen and oxygen do not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61fdyq/eli5how_come_helium_leaves_the_planet_but/ | {
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"You're wrong. The effect you're looking for is called \"atmospheric escape\" and the lighter the gas, the more likely is it to escape. Hydrogen and helium are the lightest. Oxygen weights 16 times more than hydrogen. The current escape rate is 3 kg of H and 50 g of He per second."
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1uvj8o | why do i keep getting random urges to "stretch" my neck? | When I say stretch, I don't mean pulling my neck to make it longer. I meant more like a very exaggerated form of frowning with the mouth, but my neck muscles contract with a lot of force, you can say it's like a foot cramp but it's voluntary. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uvj8o/eli5_why_do_i_keep_getting_random_urges_to/ | {
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"If it happens quite often. As in multiple times a day every day as apposed to purely random it might be a form of motor tourette. Or it might be something completely different. \n\nThis was just my first reaction after doing much research on the forms of tourette syndrome."
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doz4rj | where does your body get the ammonia and nitrogen that is found in urine? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/doz4rj/eli5_where_does_your_body_get_the_ammonia_and/ | {
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"Breakdown products of proteins mostly. Proteins are made from amino acids, molecules containing a nitrogen-containing amine group."
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453rvr | why arent all instruments written in concert pitch? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/453rvr/eli5_why_arent_all_instruments_written_in_concert/ | {
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"It's counter intuitive, because you'd think everything would be easier that way, but the current way is actually easier on instrumentalists.\n\nTake the trumpet for example. The most common trumpet is pitched in Bb. It has a nice, open, brassy sound. But the C trumpet is a bit brighter, and is often used in orchestral music. So a well-rounded trumpet player would have to learn to play the instrument twice.\n\nWe avoid that by writing the music differently. So a trumpet player sees the note F, on the bottom space of the staff. If he's playing a C trumpet (concert pitch), he holds down the first valve and plays an F. If he's playing a Bb trumpet, he holds down the first valve and plays a concert Eb, which he calls an F. Either way, he uses the same fingering and similar embouchre. Same with middle C - one line below the staff. On both trumpets, you'd see the note and play an open fingering - on a C, it's a C, on a Bb, it's a Bb.\n\nSo because of that, the trumpet player only has to learn the instrument once. Even if he's never seen a C trumpet before, he can pick one up, read the music (which is in C - concert pitch), and play it perfectly... it'll just sound a whole step higher than if he'd played his Bb trumpet.",
"Take a trombone. It's a Bb instrument and is often written in concert pitch. Now some composer wrote a song in B. That's rather annoying for a trombone. Low B is in 7th position, the farthest slide position. So the composer decides he'll make a trombone in B, not Bb. You'll play out completely identically to a trombone except all notes come out half a step higher. The easiest way for the player to simply pick up and play the piece would be to pretend he or she isplaying a Bb trombone, so the music is adjusted for him or her and is no longer in concert pitch.",
"Part of it is practicality and part of it is tradition.\n\nSome of the practical reasons:\n\n* While you may be able to play something on an instrument in one tuning, it's not always easy to do so. Instrument with other tunings can potentially make things much easier for the musician to actually play.\n* Some instrument families do this to standardize the fingerings -- think the saxophone family, for example.\n* Similar to the first point, some instruments are in ranges where it only makes sense for them to be non-concert pitch. String (double) bass, for example, is not a concert pitch instrument, because it largely sounds below the bass clef staff. So we write it as a transposing instrument one octave higher than it sounds because it's so much easier to read and write without excessive ledger lines.\n* Timbre -- instruments in different tunings are different in size and construction, which will affect the color and quality of the sound. However slight this change might be, it's still a consideration to be made.\n\nFor tradition:\n\n* We have a centuries of works that are written for instruments in all sorts of tuning. Sometimes works do get re-written and transposed to instruments in other keys, but that's also a lot of work.\n* Many musicians love trying to re-create \"authenticity\" -- there are ensembles that will perform Baroque-era music on period instruments, for example. For these types of people, if the piece calls for a Trumpet in D, then the part will be played on a D trumpet, no questions asked.",
"I'm a woodwind player, primarily saxophone. But I can pick up just about any woodwind and expect to push down with the first 3 fingers of my left hand and get a written G. There are a few exceptions, but those give a C instead. Similarly, the first 3 fingers on both hands is almost always a D, or occasionally a G. That makes it fairly effortless to switch from Tenor to Baritone sax and back, or double on flute or clarinet. ",
"People seem to be missing the point here. The ELI5 is that by notating them in different keys they keep the majority of the notes in the middle of the staff so it's easier to read. If an alto saxophone player read music in C the majority of the notes would be on ledger lines, or outside of the staff.",
"It makes the music easier to read. If you didn't transpose the F horn part by a fifth, there would be ledger lines everywhere. Only tuba players are proficient in reading music with multiple ledger lines. ",
"Ugh, this thread hurts my head and I have a master's degree in music performance and play 4 instruments. ELI5, indeed!"
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7kq3h8 | when you scream during a rollercoaster why does the fear go away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kq3h8/eli5_when_you_scream_during_a_rollercoaster_why/ | {
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"I think Walt Whitman said it best, *I scream my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world*. It's a release of energy, and any release drains the tension. ",
"This is not necessarily so. \n\nWhile screaming can be a reaction to fear (or rather, to *surprise*), it is also a reaction to *excitement*. A roller coaster might not make you scream out of fear, but that adrenaline rush very well might. \n\nSo, basically, the fear doesn't go away because you're screaming. You're screaming because the adrenaline is strong enough to make the fear go away. "
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1vfk3i | how come if i try and sleep under the covers i get too hot and oxygen starved and have to come out after a short period of time, but my dog can sleep under the covers all night long? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vfk3i/eli5_how_come_if_i_try_and_sleep_under_the_covers/ | {
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"Your dog's ancestors slept in a den or burrow, he is adapted to the stifling feeling and it may even bring him comfort. \n\nThis is also why dogs eat their own poo... if they are hiding in their den or rearing young and can't leave, it keeps the den clean and prevents smells that attract predators.",
"If you and your dog are both basically average size and weight, you probably weigh least twice as much. You both breathe and consume oxygen at pretty similar rates per pound, so your dog needs much less air than you do. \n\nBreathing under the blanket increases the CO2 concentration and decreases the oxygen concentration. Air will diffuse through the blanket and around it, bringing in some new oxygen and getting rid of some CO2. This exchange of air is fast enough to give your dog enough air, because he needs much less air, but not fast enough for you. \n\nI don't know as well why dogs might tolerate heat better. \n\nFirst, smaller animals have much more surface area per unit of weight than larger ones. Surface area helps animals exchange heat with their environment, especially when the environment is colder than their internal temperature. That same air diffusion which is easier for your dog to breathe because he's less massive probably also cools your dog more easily for the same reason. He can warm up the air a bit, and the warm air circulates away from him while somewhat cooler air diffuses in. You have too much heat to shed for the slow rate of air exchange to keep up.\n\nYour dog does have a significantly higher body temperature than you; you range from about 98.5 to 99.5 degrees. Your dog goes from about 99.5 to 102.5 degrees. It's not a large absolute difference, but for warm-blooded animals that's a pretty large relative difference. Having a much hotter core temperature all the time, the dog might be less bothered by accumulation of heat, *especially* if your relatively colder body is under the blanket with him soaking up some of the excess while your head is above the covers helping to eliminate some of that heat with your own respiration and radiation.",
"As a dog owner, I've found my dog usually finds a crack to ever so slightly peek her nose out of. "
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1kiv4y | why aren't movies sold as usbs? (why are blu-rays still relevant?) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kiv4y/eli5_why_arent_movies_sold_as_usbs_why_are/ | {
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"The cost of making a USB vs. a disk is massive. If you mean just buying and downloading HD movies onto a USB that's a different story. The implementation and policing of piracy for these policies woulds be massive.",
"a commercial film released on BluRay uses a 50GB disc, which is not a price-effective size for flash memory.\n\nthe other issue is that USB ports on most TVs are used only for firmware/software updates, not for content.",
"I think the average person wouldn't know what to do with a USB; disks are familiar and understood.",
"Optical discs are easier and cheaper to manufacture.\n\nYou create a glass master, from there you get a die which you put into your vacuum molder.\nFrom nothing, to a working disc with a screen print on it takes 10 seconds. +5 seconds for every additional layer (dual layer discs).\n\nDiscs can also be tested photographically.\n\n\nTo create USB drives, you need to make silicon wafers from silicon crystals. The waver is treated with hydrogen peroxide and photoresist multiple times. Then its off to photolithography and acid baths (numerous sessions, since these your makeing a reverse 3d image), and then cutting and testing. Insofar, your completely in the dark until this stage. At this stage you can test, which means 1/2 to 1/3 of your chips have to be recycled because they don't work. The working ones are graded by speed and density and then packaged, assembled onto a board and tested again. Another 25% go to recycling. \nFrom start to finish, it takes about a month to create a thumb drive.\n\n1 month vs 10-15 seconds...",
"Relative price... a DVD/Blueray costs almost nothing compared to a usb.",
"Flash drives involve a printed circuit board, active electronic components, and packaging.\n\nMass produced optical disks (DVD, CD, Blu-Ray) are produced by stamping the disk with a metal master pattern (to produce the pits you would make with your laser burner in your computer). This is extremely fast and *extremely* cheap.",
"No one has mentioned it yet so I'll add this.\r\rIn addition to impracticality and cost effectiveness, blu ray players are also dedicated HD video devices that can play a movie at a high bit rate, or higher quality. This goes beyond typical resolution specs(720p, 1080p, etc.) and more so into the ability of computers and tvs to process video and audio at such a high quality.\r\rSo an HD movie downloaded may be 1080p, the same as a blu ray, but the \"bit rate\" or amount of information of the picture and audio played per timecode, will be much less, so it can be processed on older or non blu ray devices, and thus the quality suffers.\r\rNetflix is now offering Super HD or something like that, which requires a higher connection speed, to play movies in a high bit rate 1080p quality, with great audio as well.\r\rBlu Ray will soon expand into the 4K resolution territory and the hardware needs to display this video only gets more intense. ",
"USB and flash drives are two entirely different things a USB can't store data USB stands for Universal Serial Bus ",
"They sit pretty on a shelf? That's why I buy blurays... I then pirate the movie onto my iTunes ",
"Actually they did. It was called click music and it was based on Micro-SD chips and sold with an adapter. Rewritable and everything. I never did get the rationale for not deploying them. Maybe someone not as tired as I am can answer.",
"Because \"USB\" is an interface while blu-rays are storage media. Why on earth anyone would want to buy a blu-rays is beyond me. Why can't we just pay for the movie and download it? Like Spotify, you can listen to the song, and then if you like it you can buy it and download at any time. Anything you can see and hear will always be simple to copy, the encryption does absolutley nothing to prevent copyright infringement.",
"As someone who works in entertainment, no one here has gotten the real answer yet. The average consumer still likes owning disks. They are substantial and real. The sit on a shelf. They play in the disc player that connects to a TV with one chord. Anything digital in general is not only scary to the average consumer, but it feels like they don't own it. It isn't part of the collection. People like collections. And companies like making things that the average consumer will buy!",
"Cost of making a 50GB USB drive, plus there is no effective DRM for files on USB drives. \n\nIf the distribution of movies via the internet never became a thing and USB costs became much lower, it may have been a thing. I doubt there will ever be another physical format for distributing movies.\n\nSelling content via the internet is the dream of most content providers. People pay to effectively rent content and don't get to keep it, share it or resell it; unlike bluray.",
"Backwards compatibility is a major factor as well. BD can play DVD and CD. Most people don't want to have to buy their entire library all over yet again.",
"Is this a thing that people want? I'm publishing an indie game soon, and if this is a thing, I'll offer to mail USBs with the game to people.",
"A [Flash drive](_URL_0_): circuit board with flash memory chips (i.e. lots of metal and plastic, some rare-earth metals as well); long production chain (from mine/oil well to factories creating the various components to factories putting it all together).\n\nA [cd/dvd/blu-ray](_URL_1_): Quite a delicate process to produce an \"original\" glass copy of the data on a disc, but after that the data (i.e. \"patterns\" being interpreted as a digital code by the computer reading the disk) more or less moulded into a piece of plastic and then coated in metal. \n\nSuffice it to say that the difference in production time, complexity and cost is relatively huge. ",
"64GB USB flash drive - $40\n50GB blank BD-R - $5\n\nAlso you can press BD's in higher quantity more quickly than you can write USBs. ",
"The real reason? Because people that still buy DVDs (like my parents) have no clue what a USB is. ",
"I kinda want to go back to game cartridges. Those never broke or got scratched. ",
"Don't worry, I just ordered a laptop with a Blu-Ray player. This ensures that the technology will be obsolete in short order. ",
"USB movies will never be a thing. Streaming is the next big thing. It just hasn't finished taking over yet.",
"I go with \"no one can sell you an expansive usb player\" ",
"Sure, costs, end user familiarity place a huge role. But ultimately, what media forms are used are defined by Hollywood. Everybody else, end consumers, consumer electronic companies, etc., they all have to kiss up to Hollywood. Hollywood's biggest concern is extracting as much money as possible, so they are thinking about content protection technologies, piracy, and the overall business model.\n\nBlu-ray has a content protection technology called AACS. AACS includes many features to control binding the content to the disc. It also supports other business opportunities, such as to sell supplemental downloaded cotent. Hollywood likes that.\n\nContent protection technologies like AACS, DTCP, Playready, etc., have licensing rules that manufacturers are required to obey. These rules, among other things, control what are allowed outputs for further redistribution of the content. They list specific media types and content protection technologies for which, under specific conditions, the content can be copied to, moved to, stored on, or whatever. Hollywood will only consider adding new options of they are backed by big pockets. They want to be able to sue the holy hell out of somebody if the system is compromised.\n\nTo get a new media form added, you will need:\n\n1. An applicable content protection technology that Hollywood deems acceptable.\n2. Somebody with a very big wallet who they can sue.\n"
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aq4ufw | how come straws have stripes on them? | So particularly McDonald’s straws (as I have one here with my right now and can’t say for other companies) have a red and yellow stripe on the going from the top to the bottom? My best guess is for manufacturing but idk why you would need to know which side is which for a straw unlike a bottle with a label or something. And how come other company’s like tim hortons have red straws without the stripes (the red is probably because that is the company colour) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aq4ufw/eli5_how_come_straws_have_stripes_on_them/ | {
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"Straws are made by pushing hot plastic throw a hole with a pin in it. To make the hole. Very similar to how noodles are made. Here is where they add dyes for style. It can really be what ever you want. They are just plastics.",
"Due to how straws are manufactured it is very easy to make stripes in the plastic. So if you want any color variation you go with stripes along the straw. Printing a label or something on the straws would be an extra step in the manufacturing process and therefore cost extra money. For bottles they do need to print labels but individual straws does not need any labels. So manufacturers add stripes to their straws to make it a bit more attractive to customers then just a single colored straw. As you mention the stripes could be colored to give a brand identity. But single color straws are still cheaper so some companies do not bother buying straws with stripes.",
"Yellow and red are McD colors. It keeps you aware of their brand. \n\nIf you want to know why restaurants purchase various colored straws you'd have to ask the person who buys the straws."
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6thefb | why isn't all money in coin-form? don't coins last longer and aren't they much harder to counterfeit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6thefb/eli5_why_isnt_all_money_in_coinform_dont_coins/ | {
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"coins are heavy and are more expensive to distribute and store. they probably cost more to make.",
"Yes... but aren't they also a lot heavier, bulkier, and harder to transport?\n\nAlso, part of their difficulty in counterfeiting is from the expense of doing so. You may say to my above question that we could make it less bulky by making $5, $10, $20, and $100 coins. But for $100 a piece, a criminal might be more inclined to find a machine that can press coinage and make fakes. For $1 max, it's not worth it.",
"Coins are not as convenient to carry around as bank notes. Right now I have about 20 notes of various denominations in my wallet, but whenever I get even a few coins I don't know what to do with them. I try to get rid of them as fast as I can! \n\nThe durability is not an issue since new notes are created and old ones retired routinely. And a good thing too, as they don't last very long (_URL_1_) \n\nNote that it costs the mint about 8 cents to make a quarter, while the fed say's it is about 12 cents for a 20 dollar bill, so cost probably not the driver. (Source: US Mint 2016 annual report, and this [page from the fed.](_URL_0_) )\n\n"
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53mdgi | how can a website i've never visited put a cookie on my computer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53mdgi/eli5how_can_a_website_ive_never_visited_put_a/ | {
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"It is likely through advertisements. A website can not send you a cookie unless you visit it. However visiting a website also might include visiting website that have content embedded in it. A good example is the facebook like button. Almost every news article will include a snippet that tells the browser to go to facebook to get a like button and show it on the site. Facebook can then add or retrieve your cookies for their site, track what sites you visit and connect it with your facebook profile. When they know what you like and what you view they can make a fairly good guess of what you are thinking as humans are predictable. The idea is to show you advertisement for something you want to spend money on but can equally well be used to show you content that will alter your thought process in a predictable way."
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1nsq5q | why do retail stores and companies start advertising holiday decorations months before the holiday actually arrives? | I have always wondered this. I know a lot of people have noticed how stores like Walmart and Target start putting up Christmas decorations at least two to three months before December actually comes. Or, as another example, stores begin advertising back-to-school supplies two months before school actually starts again.
So why is this? Why do stores/companies advertise specific holiday items before the holiday arrives? Is it used to boost sales or something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nsq5q/eli5_why_do_retail_stores_and_companies_start/ | {
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"It's a psychological cue, to trigger the customer's mind into Christmas or Holiday buying mode (the most lucrative and busy times in retail). Doing this as early as possible ensures they maximise the length of this period.",
"Former big-box store employee here, I can speak to the reasons at the store level. It's just to keep from having bare shelves in the seasonal section of the store.\n\nIn my store, the Christmas stuff went up November 1st to fill the empty space left by the Halloween stuff. Department stores put out the Christmas stuff so early because their transition is from back-to-school to Christmas.",
"Because people will buy it.\n\nIf Christmas stuff wouldn't sell in October, stores would fill their shelves with something selling better - but it actually does!\n\nIt may sound stupid, but it really only is an example of supply and demand. \n\nSource: I worked in retail."
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e4kd2b | how does helium change a person's voice when inhaled | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e4kd2b/eli5_how_does_helium_change_a_persons_voice_when/ | {
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"Helium is less dense than oxygen, so when its being passed through your vocal cords, the air around them isnt as \"thick\" so your vocal cords can vibrate faster, which in turn raises your voice because theyre resonating at a higher frequency",
"Helium is around 6 times lighter than air, and that means sound moves faster (and sounds higher)",
"It's a common misconception that helium makes your voice higher. Helium does change your voice, but it does not change the pitch of your voice. What we perceive as a \"higher\" voice is actually an auditory illusion. How helium changes your voice is much more subtle.\n\nSo, what's actually going on?\n\nThe pitch of your voice is determined by how fast your vocal cords open and close. The gas that's moving through your vocal cords does not affect them very much. So, if your vocal cords open and close 500 times a second under normal conditions, they will do the same thing when inhaling helium.\n\nNow, if you were to put a microphone down your throat and record the raw sound your vocal cords make, you would hear a buzz, similar to the sound when you stick out your tongue and blow. If that's so, then why do people's voices sound so nice in comparison? This is due to the resonance of the vocal tract. But what does that mean?\n\nYour \"vocal tract\" is all the air inside your head above your vocal cords. That's your throat, nose and mouth. Before the gross buzzing sound from your vocal cords leaves your mouth, it has to pass through your vocal tract. When it passes through your vocal tract, it bounces around a bunch. It bounces off the walls of the vocal tract and runs back into itself a bunch. By bouncing around and running into itself, the sound changes. The term we use to describe how the sound changes when it does this is called \"resonance\". So, resonance in the vocal tract changes the sound, and turns it into the nice sounds.\n\nSo, where does helium come in? Well, because helium is lighter than air, that means that sound travels faster in helium than it does in air. So, if your vocal tract is full of helium, the faster speed of sound is going to change how the sound bounces around, and that's going to change how it sounds when it finally comes out of your mouth. It ends up making you sound like a chipmunk.",
"sound is made by your voice box causing the air to bounce around. because helium is really really small, when your voice box tries to bounce it, it goes really really fast. when fast vibrations reach your ear holes, it sounds like a higher pitch.",
"There are a couple good answers in here, but they kind of miss the \"like Im 5\" part, so Ill give this a try.\n\nSound waves are basically just vibrations in air. You can imagine this as being kind of like ripples on the surface of water. The faster those \"ripples\" move, the higher it sounds to us, and the slower they are, the lower they sound.\n\nHelium is six times less dense than normal air, so the vibrations can move through it with less resistance. You can imagine this as the difference between a wave going across a pool of honey, vs that same wave going across a pool of water. The water is less dense than the honey, so the water travels faster. And helium is less dense than the normal air we breathe, so the sound waves travel faster. This results in the sound created sounding higher to us.\n\nOn a related note, there are other gasses, such as Sulfur Haxefluoride, which are *more* dense than normal air, so they [make your voice sound much deeper.](_URL_0_)"
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3c9jqb | why does reddit say that d.a.r.e. is so ineffective? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c9jqb/eli5_why_does_reddit_say_that_dare_is_so/ | {
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"For me personally it was an exposure to drugs at an early age when I was very innocent so I didn't follow. For some of my more adventurous friends it made them more curious to try the drugs they heard older siblings/neighbors/tv shows talk about. It's like telling teens to abstain from sex because it leads to teen pregnancy and STDs but omitting information about condoms and birth control etc. The ones that want to have sex are going to have sex, just saying no doesn't do any good."
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3gdhan | when russia tries to push buttons, why do we let them do it? | For example, when they send planes into a country's territory, why not shoot it out of the fucking sky? I can understand small countries not doing it, but the UK or the US? Or members of NATO? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gdhan/eli5when_russia_tries_to_push_buttons_why_do_we/ | {
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"They have never actually flown into U.S./U.K. territory, they've only flown close to it. Shooting them down would be an act of aggression on our part.",
"Do you want to start a war? Because that's how you start a war.\n\nGo home Dick Cheney.",
"Two reasons. \n\n- Because the U.S has been guilty of doing this near Russian borders also. \n\n- They are in international waters, meaning that the U.S/U.K has no rights to shoot them down, and by shooting it down is an act of aggression i.e giving Russia a legitimate reason to declare war.\n",
"Your solution to Russia trying to push buttons is to get your buttons pushed?"
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1dy0qc | why is fox news the only network covering the benghazi hearings live? | Is it really as big of a deal as they're making it out to be? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dy0qc/eli5_why_is_fox_news_the_only_network_covering/ | {
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"They are running it because Hillary may run for POTUS next time around.",
"Every news network has to cover stories that it thinks are important. If other news networks aren't covering this live it's because the people who make that decision don't think their viewers would want to watch it (and therefore they'd have less of an audience, and it would hurt advertising income in a general sense, which as a business they want to avoid). Fox obviously reached a different conclusion, either because they have a different understanding of their viewers, or because they have viewers with different interests, likely both. There are many times when Fox doesn't cover stories other news networks do, and vice versa. They have a different audience. It's like asking why doesn't E! cover the financial market, because the people who watch E! don't want to see that.\n\nI imagine if those news stations were seeing a flood of people go elsewhere to see these hearings because they cared about them, then they would start showing them live as well.",
"Fox has decided that the Benghazi attacks are a good examples of the failures of the Obama administration. In their narrative of Obama is bad, the attacks provide a concrete example of Obama failing to protect americans. Because of their presentation of the story, their viewers have decided that is an example of Obama's failures, and an example of him being weak. Furthermore, the information in the stories changed, so they are looking for fire to attack Obama or Hilary. The big thing that Fox leaves out is the republicans in the house cut funding that protected Embassies, and that may have caused that attack.",
"It's not as big a deal as they're making it out to be, but it is important. Fox being the GOP point of view is obviously running around trumpeting it like Watergate which it isn't even close to being. Of course the other networks are pretending it never happened, which they shouldn't be doing either. \n\nIt was a failure on the Obama administration's part and we should be trying to learn from our mistakes and hold people accountable rather than brush it under the rug. But it's not like it was something illegal or a conspiracy on the administration's part like Fox would have you think.\n\nedit: Sorry reddit. What I meant to say was \"Fox is evil and just wants to bash Obama despite him being the greatest thing to ever happen to America! Everything was the GOP's fault!\"",
"I watched a fair amount of it on CSPAN on my laptop.",
"Fox news gears it's content towards conservatives. One conservative issue is disapproval of the way the Obama admin handled the Benghazi attacks. First they claimed it the attacks were riots over an anti-islam youtube video. It took two weeks before they publicly confirmed they were terrorist attacks (although the day of, Obama did refer to them as \"acts of terror\").\n\nSo by giving more attention to the hearings, and the Benghazi issue as a whole, they're making the point that they think Obama handled things poorly.",
"Because it is a right wing nontroversy",
"ITT: The hivemind showing their lack of bias.",
"I honestly have no idea why the mainstream media wouldn't be covering it. It got pretty big traction over here on the BBC, and we lean far to the left of America. \n\nIt's a little troubling to see that the most blatantly conservative news channel is covering a legitimate story that other channels just ignore. It gives credibility to the claim that mainstream media has a liberal bias.",
"According to Fox News, [Benghazi is equal to Watergate](_URL_0_). The implication is that if there is evidence that the President knew beforehand of the attacks and at his order, did not supply appropriate defense, then he is liable for an impeachment or to have him step down and resign his position. Fox News has a [conservative slant](_URL_2_) and this could lead to gains in upcoming elections in 2014 and especially 2016.\n\nAs to why no other station is currently covering the Benghazi hearings, I can only speculate that it is because this, at least, the second set of hearings on Benghazi. After the first set of hearings, [former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took responsibility](_URL_1_) for the Benghazi attack. At this point, if it is not possible to pin a cover up on President Obama, then it has implications for a Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential nomination.\n\nAs /u/Mason11987 mentioned:\n > Every news network has to cover stories that it thinks are important.\n\nTherefore, one can surmise that Fox News thinks that the outcomes of the hearings are important either in faultfinding or in influencing the future, while other stations do not.",
"partisanship. the hearings in congress now are basically for show. its an opportunity for republicans in congress to criticize the Obama administration and score political points. these hearings aren't news at this point. the event is over and dealt with. whats going on now is just political gamesmanship.\n\nfox is covering it because they cover things that make partisan republicans happy. ",
"Because the Obama administration is relatively scandal-free compared to his four most immediate predecessors (Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr. And Reagan), and Republicans are grasping at every little thing they possibly can to paint Hillary and Obama as dishonest. (Hillary is the likely Democratic nominee for Prez is 2016.)",
"As someone who legitimately just wanted a non biased answer to this question, I was disappointed with the amount of name calling and narrow-mindedness in this thread.",
"I applaud your desire to to understand this, but coming to reddit to ask this was already your first mistake. Ive read some of the answers and its classic reddit republican/conservative bashing. You probably wont get too many different answers because the hivemind will downvote them.\n\nAs for your question, Ill do the best to keep it ELI5 as I can. Here is the main accusation from the GOP. The attack on Benghazi could have been prevented but it wasnt, when there was military help willingly offered it was rejected, when Hillary testified before congress (the accusation is) she lied, survivors of the attack have been told to keep quiet and not talk to the media, intelligence officers were told not to mention that they had reported that an attack was imminent. These are some of the accusations that are being investigated. FOX news is playing this up because the mainstream media has been incredibly lacking on covering this and many conservatives have argued that if this had been a Republican president they would have investigated and covered it a lot more vigorously. ",
"Because it's a nonsense witch hunt. ",
"Scroll to the very bottom of the page for actual answers, OP",
"Partisan bullshit.\n\nThis stuff is a distraction by using the left vs right to keep Americans marginalized and fighting each other.\n\nMainstream media is owned by a handful of multinational corporations. They aren't left or right. They are about money and power.\n\nPartisan politics are for the masses. Divide and rule. They force the 2 party false dichotomy to make you guys mad at ech other while they keep doing their own thing which mostly involves taking your money or stripping civil liberties bit by bit.\n\nFOX is not right wing. They pander to right wing viewers, call themselves right wingers, but then their entertainment side runs shows like Simpsons, Family Guy, american Dad, Glee, which are filled with pro left idealisms.\n\nThe other media outlets are not left wing. They're straight up capitalist wolves in sheeps clothing who use liberalized ideology and agism/racism/sexism to make people mad at mostly 'old white men'.\n\nAll of them are liars.\n\nReal news in the US is almostdead. Aside from some stuff like Democracy Now & NPR, there isn't much in the way of independent journalism, and there's no truly unbiased outlets left.\n\nIn the past, traditional journalism wasn't nearly as editorialized, sensationalized, biased, or monopolized.\n\nThis isn't about the left or the right. Some objective scrutiny shows that both sides are using bias to either ignore or report on this nonsense topic.\n\nI'd love to see this site kickstart an independent news network that is politically neutral and just reports facts as they happen. Nuts to these guys, they couldn't tell the truth if they tried.",
"If only Republican's cared as much about every dead soldier as they do about Benghazi. ",
"Because the hearings are a result of the political machinations of the Republican Party and FOX news loyally serves the interests of the Republican Party. ",
"I saw a bit about it on CNN earlier today, and I'm fairly sure Rachel Maddow had a segment on it last night, so they're certainly not the only ones covering it.\n\nFox of course is more interested in flogging it because as always they are fairly desperate to cast the current administration in a negative light, and this story provides a decent angle for them to do so.",
"Fox tried to use it as an excuse to not vote for Obama, it didn't work but now they will use the soundbites as fodder for future elections.",
"I'm not sure why they're the only ones with full press coverage but its not unusual for one news source to cover one event over the other. Eventually all news sources will cover the story once it gets closer to a conviction.\n\nRight now, there are other hot stories that are breaking by the minute, mainly the Arias trial and the Cleveland kidnaps.\n\nTl;Dr give it time.",
"Seems like we would need pre-cogs and Tom Cruise in a pre-crime unit to have stopped Benghazi. But whatever. ",
"I don't think so, personally. I'm not concerned with what the administration called the attack, and I bought the movie-induced riot theory since there were shitty-movie-inspired riots all over the muslim world.",
"Benghazi is important to conservatives because that embassy had specifically requested backup and was denied. Then after it happened the administration tried to say it was over a youtube video and not a terrorist attack. Then they admitted it was a terror attack. Honestly if they had just said from the beginning that it was an act of terror and that it sucked I don't think republicans would have made nearly as much fuss. Now they see an opportunity to call everyone associated with it a liar and weak on terrorism.\n\nAs a conservative, I think they are blowing it up a little more than it needs to be, but on the flip side, the administration should have handled it better. That being said, most administrations make mistakes like that. Poor communication and assumptions.",
"I had to look at the URL to make sure I wasn't in /r/politics. Way to go, guys. *This is why we can't have nice things.*",
"It's partly an attempt to drag HClinton thru the mud",
"No. Fake outrage. No credible sources. Witch hunt.",
"ITT: No one explaining things like they were talking to a five year old.",
"**I saw this live on cnn and cspan**",
"its really not that big of a deal and w. bush had 60 americans die in US embassies during his presidency.... yet there was no huge cry from the right.... its just some racist tea party nonsense.\nHAIL SATAN!",
"Why is Fox news trying to focus on the benghazi attacks? Because it takes attention, in theory, of gun rights, marriage rights, social security/welfare, women's rights, etc etc... If they can try to get their audience pissed off enough about one thing, they can slip in their rhetoric as they need, and gloss over any backlash against their political leanings. ",
"It was horrible incident but the thing with cable news network like Fox News or Msn is they are tools for ideology. There number one job is to make the other side look bad at any cost. The people that run these networks know if they repeat a lie like \"Obama is completely at fault for Benghazi\" people start to believe it is true.\n\nWant my advice? Don't watch cable news. It turns viewers into sheep. Watch the nightly news, read a paper and if you still have questions go online and do a little research. It is worth the time. ",
"Wasn't there a video of FOX admitting they \"overdid\" the coverage of Benghazi back in either December or January? Also, wasn't there recently an instance where a prominent FOX news anchor called out their biased coverage of the hearings, citing that the network commonly went to commercial during the time democrats spoke on the issue? I'm not pro-Obama or pro-Hilary by any means, but there's an obviously biased agenda going on here. There's no doubt that something went wrong in Libya and that the government reacted poorly, but this witch hunt is a little too reminiscent of the way Kenneth Starr went after Bill Clinton in the late 90s. It makes it a little hard to stomach. If FOX is legitimately trying to expose a cover-up or corruption, it seems like they're hurting their cause by going about it the wrong way. ",
"They literally have nothing else that suits their agenda. The entire thing is a waste of tax payers dollars. It is a media circus to entertain the right-wing while they await the next fabrication. Nothing will come of the hearings but some people will feel better about themselves as they cherry pick enough information to justify their beliefs. \n\nThere will always be intelligence failures. It is impossible to always know the unknown. ",
"One media outlet is running with the story because it appears that Hilary Clinton, the President, among others lied about their knowledge to save Americans under attack at the embassy and they are trying to cover up what they knew and what they did about it. \nWhat does all of this mean? It shows the American citizen the colossal lies and incompetence of the current Administration. It's what all the other media outlets would have done with a certain former President.",
"They are on a witch hunt.",
"Maybe. If nothing else, it'll be a campaign commercial for whoever runs against Hillary in 2016.",
"Heard of C-Span? They are covering it.",
"Here is a list of video links collected from comments that redditors have made in response to this submission:\n\n|Source Comment|Score|Video Link|\n|:-------|:-------|:-------|\n|[Vaginuh](_URL_13_)|4|[The US government spends $70.000 in ads in Pakistan to counter anti-Islam video](_URL_1_)|\n|[heyiambob](_URL_5_)|1|[IQ2: WHEN IT COMES TO POLITICS, THE INTERNET IS CLOSING OUR MINDS](_URL_12_)|\n|[faking_my_death](_URL_0_)|1|[Red Eye Recorded Dec 21, 2012, FNCHDCF](_URL_7_)|\n|[Tigerantilles](_URL_10_)|1|[President Clinton orders attack on Iraq](_URL_2_)|\n|[infant-](_URL_9_)|0|[Monckton proposes mining industry news ventures in Australia](_URL_11_)|\n|[SantosLHalper](_URL_8_)|-1|[\"Innocence of Muslims\" Movie - Sam Bacile Controversial video causing Egypt riots, killings](_URL_6_)|\n\n* [VideoLinkBot FAQ](_URL_4_)\n* [Feedback](_URL_14_)\n* [Playlist of videos in this comment](_URL_3_)"
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15ykme | whats the difference between olive oil, extra virgin and virgin olive oil | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15ykme/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_olive_oil_extra/ | {
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"Extra-virgin: only cold pressed olive oil, low acidity, strong flavor, considered to be superior in taste, used for dressing salads mostly, not really suitable for cooking due to it's low smoking point (the oil burns before it gets hot enough to cook the food)\n\n\nVirgin: second-grade extra-virgin, still flavorfoul, slightly more acidic\n\nPure olive oil: blend of refined and virgin oil, less flavor, good for sautéing\n\nPomace olive oil: refined oil, which means that they pound the remaining oil out of what remains after pressing out \"virgin\" oil. The cheapest, almost no flavor, higher smoking point. \n\n\nPersonal note: buy decent extra virgin and if you like the taste (some don't) use it cold, as dressing, alternative for butter on sandwiches etc.\nBuy virgin or pure olive oil for light cooking like sautéing.\nNo kind of olive oil should be used for frying. It's a waste of good olives and just burns away, there are much better alternatives like sunflower or peanut oil."
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5e6uer | what is the psychology behind people who enjoy being degraded, put down, etc. during sex? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5e6uer/eli5_what_is_the_psychology_behind_people_who/ | {
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"There's a lot going on here, there's no one (or even one proven) theory behind it.\n\nPart is that most of society grew up with some degree of \"shame\" around their sexuality -whether due to religious or other reasons. When you first start to experiment sexually you'll feel both shame and pleasure, eventually connecting the two, creating a fetish.\n\nPart is that shame and humiliation are physically exciting. You get an andrenaline rush, your heart beats faster, your skin grows hotter - in turn sexual sensation becomes more intense and more pleasurable (a similar reason to why pain is also a popular addition to sex.) \n\nPart is that it's a release on tension - we all live in fear of being shamed and rejected, so optioning to face that fear in a controlled environment can really help us relieve tension. The relief of experiencing your fear but surviving it can heighten senses again causing pleasure to be more pleasurable.\n\nIt's very normal to enjoy this so of play, it's basically built into our physiology!\n\n",
"Nobody really knows for sure - possibly because there isn't a single standard 'psychology'. My favored theory is that degradation & humiliation etc. provide a kind of psychological relief to the recipient. Life can be terrifying and, by a perverse (literally) kind of animal logic, abuse and humiliation can make a subject feel 'safe' from the world at large.\n\n\nYou can think of it like this: \"if they are tougher than me, then *they* can worry about leading us through the scary world, I only have to worry about making them happy.\"\n\n\nWithout the comforts of blind submission to Mother Church or Father Sovereign many modern people feel lost and afraid, and so are very stressed. They find relief from such stress by sexualizing their 'taboo' desire for submission (as manifested through sexualized degradation and humiliation).\n\n[You can go a step further and consider that those who *don't* sexualize it (or find an alternative vent) may eventually desire genuine fascism...]",
"Submissive or masochistic people like to surrender control to another person during role play. By allowing the other person to take control the submissive person gains a sort of feeling of freedom. Sexual role play can be a safe environment where people trust each other and they can explore fantasies and situations that give them a thrill. Kind of like how a roller coaster can be scary to ride, but the exhilaration of it is thrilling. \n\nSubmissive people discuss the scenario with their partner first and express a list of things they would like done to them or things they wish to do, and once the role play begins they can pretend to surrender control and do these things without feeling judged because they can pretend it's the other person's will.\n\nThe people I know who do these things are pretty normal and it's usually just wish fulfillment. Not all submissive people are submissive outside of role play and not all dominant people are dominant outside of role play. A persons personality doesn't always fit in ways you would expect with a persons fantasies or sexual desires. \n\nI used to look down on men who wanted to dominate women because I thought they got off on hitting and humiliating people like some macho power trip. Later i learned that the people they were punishing actually asked for it and some people act like the bad guy in order to fulfill the wishes of their partner, not because of any real desire to inflict emotional or physical pain. \n\n"
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aaqhvc | why can seeing a drop of blood or a needle make me pass out, but seeing something that could actually kill me like a lion or a knife can’t? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aaqhvc/eli5_why_can_seeing_a_drop_of_blood_or_a_needle/ | {
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"The short answer is that we don't actually know for sure. What we do know is that some triggers such as seeing blood or a needle can cause your blood pressure to drop. This is called vasovagal syncope and it's why you pass out.\n\nBut, seeing something that truly scares you such as a lion or a knife will cause adrenaline to be dumped into your bloodstream which causes your blood pressure to spike, not drop.\n\nBut, there's not a clear explanation for why some things trigger a vasovagal response and why some trigger an adrenaline response.",
"I can offer anecdotal experience but nothing legitimate.\n\nI think it has to do with ‘injury’ vs ‘threat’.\nI can handle other people’s blood. I can handle my own blood.\n\nI have been completely fine after accidentally slicing the tip of my finger off and spent several minutes calmly looking for something to dress the injury, but, as soon as I considered that I had caused permanent damage it was not long before I passed out.\n\nSo for me at least, there is some kind of distinction made between ‘just blood’ and ‘injury’.\n\nMaybe it’s similar for others too?",
"Different survival tactics. If you injure yourself, a drop in blood pressure means less blood loss (more time for clotting to occur before you've lost too much blood). If the blood pressure drops too much you pass out but that can also stop you from making your injury worse. If you're actively in danger, you get an adrenaline spike so you can react to the danger (e.g run away or fight the lion)."
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3adruu | why are homosexual people more prone to stds? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3adruu/eli5why_are_homosexual_people_more_prone_to_stds/ | {
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"Most sexually transmitted diseases are caused by bacteria or viruses, but some are caused by organisms that are classified as completely different lifeforms. Trichomoniasis, for example, is caused by a protozoan organism; protozoa occupy their own kingdom, separate from plants, animals, and bacteria. Intestinal parasites are often protozoan organisms, but can also include parasitic worms (which are members of the animal kingdom). They are spread through contact with fecal matter — and as such, they can be transmitted sexually as well as nonsexually. Intestinal parasites are usually transmitted by fecal contamination of food or water, and are most common in areas with insufficient sewage treatment and untreated water in the wilderness. Some pathogens, however, have low infectious doses, making their sexual transmission more likely. Oral contact with the anus, also called anilingus or rimming, is the primary means of the sexual transmission of these pathogens. Putting fingers or hands in your mouth after they have had contact with the anus is also risky. Other modes of transmission include oral sex, as genitals can be contaminated with feces, as well as sharing sex toys and other equipment. For these reasons, it is very important to use dental dams or latex gloves during contact with the anus; to clean the anus before engaging in rimming; to clean or use condoms on shared sex toys; and to use condoms or dental dams during oral sex.\n\nEDIT: Downvotes for science.",
"People are saying here that they are not, but statistically they are. The reason, as far as I can tell is promiscuity. I lived with a gay man for about ten years and he and his friends are among the most promiscuous people I've ever met. There is also some aspect of the gay culture, at least where I live, that doesn't ostracize HIV positive individuals in the same way that other sub-cultures might. My roommate, who was not HIV positive, had at least two sexual partners that were. And during one of those relationships he was also sustaining a relationship with another HIV negative person. \n \nEdit: Because I'm getting downvoted here for saying something that people may not like, I will provide a link to the CDC: \n \n[Here](_URL_1_) is a link to the CDC website. \n \n > However, among men who have sex with men (MSM), there are higher rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) \n \n \n(Edit 2: If you look at my post history you will see that I am an evolutionary biologist who studies sexual interactions. I am very familiar with the scientific literature about same-sex sexual behavior and frequently answer questions about the biological nature of homosexuality. [Here's](_URL_0_) an example.)\n ",
"HIV is transmitted much, much more readily via anal sex than by penis-in-vagina sex, so the male homosexual community was/is especially susceptible to transmission of that virus. Lesbians aren't exposed to the increased risk the way gay men are, so HIV was/is not an epidemic for their community."
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1u76ts | why do dogs receive and comply with commands, such as sit, stay, paw etc., but other animals, such as cats, aren't taught or don't respond to those same commands? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u76ts/eli5_why_do_dogs_receive_and_comply_with_commands/ | {
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"Dogs have been used by humans for almost as long as we have been homosapiens, some apes have even been shown to use modern day dogs. We have bread them to be compliant and obey orders.",
"Dogs have been systematically bred for obedience for thousands of years. They've been bred for accomplishing specific work tasks that go against their instincts.\n\nCats, on the other hand, are \"domesticated\" but haven't experienced anywhere near the same amount of selective pressure. The only real \"work\" task they're used for is killing vermin, which they already instinctively do anyway.\n\nBasically, cats aren't as domesticated, and are far closer to their original wild state than dogs are. You can see this by looking at their wild cousins that have been tamed. Tamed wild cats like servals, ocelots, etc behave pretty much like domestic cats, while tamed wolves and foxes behave much differently than domestic dogs.",
"Cats also domesticated themselves. They moved into human spaces (think food stores) to prey on pests. We realized they were useful and let them stay.",
"I have a cat that can sit and shake..on command even",
"Cats can be trained go respond to commands too. My cat sits and will come to me when called. Check YouTube for cats doing tricks.",
"Just for reference, you absolutely *can* train cats to do stuff like that. You just can't use the same methods as you do with dogs. Same with many other animals, though sometimes the training methods are extremely inhumane (dancing bears and circus animals in general). "
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cqudpj | if websites store passwords as an unreversable hash, wouldn't that mean multiple passwords can unlock your account? | If I understand correctly, lots of websites convert your password to a hash and then check login attempts against that hash. Hashes are held in high regard because they are unreversable, but it seems to me that the only way this is true is if there are multiple values that the input could be, which would mean multiple passwords would calculate the same hash. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cqudpj/eli5_if_websites_store_passwords_as_an/ | {
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" > but it seems to me that the only way this is true is if there are multiple values that the input could be, which would mean multiple passwords would calculate the same hash.\n\nWhy? It's theoretically possible and referred to as a hash collision, but for any modern encryption the risks are basically zero for purposes of \"someone enters the wrong password and gets in\". \n\nIf your password is cakeisgreat123, and your password hash is ca9f22184dbb7b1898058acf52cf3b2b00e1331acedb8c30a9e641f7a011a969, the chances of say, dkf295isgreat also resulting in ca9f22184dbb7b1898058acf52cf3b2b00e1331acedb8c30a9e641f7a011a969 is essentially zero.\n\nIf you want an example of what \"essentially zero\" is, [here's an amusing example](_URL_0_):\n\n > what is the probability that a rogue asteroid crashes on Earth within the next second, obliterating civilization-as-we-know-it, and killing off a few billion people? It can be argued that any unlucky event with a probability lower than that is not actually very important.\n\n > If we have a \"perfect\" hash function with output size n, and we have p messages to hash (individual message length is not important), then probability of collision is about p2/2n+1 (this is an approximation which is valid for \"small\" p, i.e. substantially smaller than 2n/2). For instance, with SHA-256 (n=256) and one billion messages (p=109) then the probability is about 4.3*10-60.\n\n > A mass-murderer space rock happens about once every 30 million years on average. This leads to a probability of such an event occurring in the next second to about 10-15. That's 45 orders of magnitude more probable than the SHA-256 collision. Briefly stated, if you find SHA-256 collisions scary then your priorities are wrong.",
"Yes, in fact there are an infinite number of passwords that would match your hash. The thing is, hashes have been well tested and there are no short strings of characters (like a password) that match the hashes of other short strings of characters. So for example, there might be a string of letters and numbers 1 billion characters long that has the same hash as your password, but no one is ever going to discover that.\n\nYou should spend your time worrying about stuff that is more likely to happen like winning the Powerball 5 times in a row while getting struck by lightning on your birthday."
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4c0bim | why do singers sound in tune when played at high volumes through a phone speaker or with headphones but out of tune when played at a low volume through phone speakers? | This bothers me so much. And I can't seem to find an answer. Help! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c0bim/eli5_why_do_singers_sound_in_tune_when_played_at/ | {
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"When you play audio, the speakers are vibrating up and down. Loudness is made by how much the speakers are moving up and down, so if it's louder, the speakers require more power. Assuming you're not using an 'audiophile phone', with a higher quality amp, and not using audiophile grade headphones, your phone probably can't provide enough power to the speakers, or the speakers can't take enough power. This can 'overload' the speakers and cause distortion. This can also break the speakers if you do it a lot.",
"I'm a bit of an audiophile. What you are describing is frequency response.\n\nI'd have to get a bit into music theory to describe that. When you're hearing a pitch like say High \"C\" from an analog instrument like a human voice, you're actually hearing several pitches that come together to make the pitch you hear as dominant. It's a combination of pitches and the one you \"hear\" is the dominant one. If you turn down the decibel level, volume level, certain frequencies are easier to hear and are more dominant, the proper one's can get drowned out.\n\nOn a bad set of speakers with bad frequency response, like a phone, they can bring out other pitches a little bit more at lower volumes, that's what you're hearing.\n\nThis is exactly why professional studios use good \"monitors\" and don't typically mix with headphones. The monitors are designed to give a flat response at all volume levels and their mixing room also adds to that.\n\nWhen they adjust the EQ, they need to hear it as flat as can be so that they don't push the wrong ones up and the recording sounds bad on stereo systems.\n\nAlso as a side note, higher volumes are more distorted and when things distort you don't pick up on the imperfections as much."
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3wka8t | climate change - if co2 levels were dramatically higher in history, why are we concerned with rising levels now? | 97% of scientists agree that climate change is driven mostly by rising C02 levels from human activity.
_URL_0_
When that many scientists publish peer-reviewed research, all supporting the same thing - humans are responsible for global warming / climate change - I tend to take their word for it. But I honestly don't really understand it.
CO2 levels hundreds of millions of years ago were over 4000 ppm, whereas now they are ~400 ppm. The output of the sun increases as it ages, so it would have been heating Earth less. Is that where the tolerance for high CO2 comes from?
Help me understand. I see on social media far too many climate change deniers, and I think to myself that they're ignorant idiots. Then I realized that I really don't understand what actually is causing climate change, and that I'm just as ignorant.
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wka8t/eli5_climate_change_if_co2_levels_were/ | {
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"Short answer: it's all about people. A hundred million (or even hundred thousand) years ago, it wouldn't matter if the sea level rose and most of Bangladesh was underwater. (That's not an exaggeration - it's a very low-lying country.) Today, if that happens, hundreds of millions of people lose their homes or lives, and that's just one example. ",
"Because during those times there were often things we'd prefer not to deal with - for example, occasional massive clouds of toxic gas that would rise from the ocean and drift along the shoreline, killing everything that breathed it.",
"Like stated earlier, a large increase in CO2 is not good for life on this planet. The levels have been greater throughout Earth's history, but the results of what happens at those high levels are bad. If you do a little research on the five mass extinctions Earth has had, you come to realize that most of the theories and widely accepted causes were due to first and foremost the rise in levels of CO2 .(other theories coexist like meteor impacts, but only for one or two of the extinctions). \n\nNow the natural process of CO2 on Earth is that the carbon gets buried underground or under the seas and is later brought up through Earth's natural processes, the largest being volcanism or simply volcanoes, which add CO2 to the atmosphere. However, humans now are burning fossil fuels that came from buried organic matter and we are redistributing all of that CO2 back into the atmosphere at a extremely high rate compared to Earth's natural processes. \nThere are multiple negative affects of high CO2 in our atmosphere. First of all it is a greenhouse gas which traps infrared radiation from the sun which in turn heats up the planet. This heating of the planet can cause polar ice caps to melt which would then raise sea levels threatening life on land. The \"global warming\" effects are usually not noticed as the average temperature only increases slightly, but that increase can also lead to more severe weather. For example really strong hurricanes and thunderstorms or just storms in general. Another negative affect is ocean anoxia. Ocean anoxia basically means the ocean has less oxygen and will become more acidic as CO2 from the air gets dissolved into the ocean water. This would lead to a dramatic change in life all around the planet especially in the ocean.\n\nAll in all, people need to realize that the mass extinctions on this planet did not take place over one day or even a hundred years. Mass extinctions can take place over a thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. Humans have already started the sixth mass extinction on this planet due to deforestation, overfishing, habitat destruction, etc.. I even read somewhere that the rate that we are killing off species is 10 times higher than any of the past extinctions. So really, the affects of the CO2 will probably not be apparent any time soon, but if we do not pay attention to what we are doing to this planet now, it may be too late later to change it.",
"Because CO2 levels hundreds of millions of years ago would have killed off human civilization, had it existed to be destroyed. We'd rather not have that happen. Make no mistake: nothing that we can do is going to permanently screw up the earth's biosphere. At worst, it'll take maybe a hundred million years to recover. The problem is that we're perfectly capable of temporarily screwing it up to the point that we can't live in it any more. ",
"The last time that CO2 levels were over 400ppm was several million years ago. Humans did not exist then. We are adapted for current climate conditions. \n\nOur civilization will be adversely effected by climate change. Most obviously by sea level changes.\n\nThe rate of change is unprecedented, which causes problems for all plants and animals. The current rate of extinction is unprecedented, as far as we can tell. Including after meteor strikes and the like. This causes issues for ecosystems, on which we are dependent.\n\nThe planetary weather system - and it's worth considering how thin the atmosphere and such is - reaches equilibrium positions. There are positive feedback systems that shift things above or below tilting points, and don't settle until a certain value.\n\nThe climate we are in now isn't that common over the Earth's history. Much more common is a much higher temperature, which we are likely to drop back into. This will cause problems for us.",
"Earth has been hit by massive asteroids in the past, ones that killed three‐quarters of all species on the planet.\n\nYet given the chance today, we would take aggressive action to prevent such an asteroid from striking again. Natural or not, it would be disastrous for humanity.\n\nGlobal climate change is a preventable catastrophe. We should take action now to save ourselves a lot of pain later.",
"The concern is CO2 levels as a direct driver of current climate change. Levels brought about by human industry. Now, irrespective of CO2 levels, the climate has been through WILD changes in the past while humans existed on the planet. Mostly going in and out of the glacial ice age. We survived through those fairly dramatic changes with much less of a technological advantage.\n\nPeople think that the ultimate result of a rise in CO2 is going to be an uncontrollable heating of the planet. I will say that I think this is possible, but I think it may also be possible that the planet will swing back the other way...that is back into a glacial ice age period. Nobody really knows for sure 100% what the ultimate outcome of the current manmade emissions will be. There are too many factors and feedback loops(from isoprene in the atmosphere to geological polar shift caused by glacial melting) on this planet to be taken into account for any one model to be accurate.\n\nWhat is certain is that at some point in the future, whether caused by man or by nature, the climate will be changing to either a very hot or very cold state. Sooner or later we will need to adapt to the extreme state of the climate here. We have had it lucky in this temporary ~10,000 year interglacial period of prosperity.\n\nThe focus on CO2 is not really going to solve any problems any more than the focus on gun control or drug wars solve those problems. Partly because the cleanup is also profit-driven(how can we clean the atmosphere and still make money), and partly because that is \"missing the forest for the trees\" so to speak. It's not like 150 years ago we took a look at the air and said \"wow, that looks pretty clean there...let's go ahead and build all these factories and dump some heavy particulate matter out all over the place ASAP.\"\n\nNo, technological advance is driven by profit. What is profitable becomes researched and used, and the side effects are largely ignored depending on how much profit is involved. The profit in developing an industrialized infrastructure is immense...trillions of dollars of boom and expansion...but the environment becomes crippled as a result. We didn't intentionally dump CO2 into the atmosphere just to do it...it was a natural and acceptable result of the pursuit of technological advance driven by profit.\n\nProfit driving technological advance will always lead to self destruction eventually. Even without considering CO2, you have all these stories about cities worth of children in the USA with lead poisoning, or the supreme court overturning environmental/mercury regulations because it negatively affects the profit of corporations: _URL_0_\n\nSo if we want to solve these problems, we shouldn't focus on the symptom(CO2 emissions). We should rather focus on the sickness, which is our insatiable hunger for profit. Technology as well as everything else needs to be driven by a more meaningful ideal than wealth and profit. Otherwise we will continue to end up in the same situation over and over again."
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f56u0x | why are stable orbits not considered to be perpetual motion machines? | If a satellite is brought into a stable orbit around another body, it should keep orbiting, right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f56u0x/eli5_why_are_stable_orbits_not_considered_to_be/ | {
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"It's not perpetual. A \"stable\" orbit will still lose some energy and the satellite will eventually be flung off into space or come crashing down. For example, the moon seems stable and over human terms it is, but it's still getting further away by about an inch a year. \n\nA perpetual motion machine means that it's creating usable energy from nothing. This violates basic physics. The energy has to come from *somewhere*.",
"Sure. If you are asking about perfect “high school physics” examples.\n\nIn reality no such drag-less 2-body system exists.\n\nEnergy is lost to tidal effects, drag and collisions with small objects. Orbits are distorted by other bodies exerting influence on the 2-body system.\n\nIf you try to extract energy from this “perpetual motion machine”, you will further degrade its orbit.",
"It's just a rotating system with a huge store of kinetic energy, like a big flywheel. The common definition of a perpetual motion machine is one that energy can be extracted from without using up an energy reservoir, however large, that eventually runs out. Even a body as large as a planet loses energy eventually. Collisions with occasional dust and gas, tidal forces that squeeze and stretch the body such as those that have already slowed the rotation of the moon so one side faces us and is infinitesimally doing the same to the Earth.",
"Well, first, there's no such thing as a perfectly stable orbit. *All* orbits decay eventually, even if it takes billions or trillions of years.\n\nThe second is that a 2 body system isn't doing any work. A perpetual motion machine is one that can *do work* indefinitely without an energy source or without depleting an energy source, but a planet orbiting a star isn't doing any work, If you tried to extract that energy to do work, you'd be reducing the specific orbital energy of the system. Reduce that energy enough and your orbit decays and your bodies collide. There's no free lunch (or energy) in physics."
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2htcte | in scientific theory, why do we need to hypothesize? why can't we just go "let's try this and see what happens!" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2htcte/eli5_in_scientific_theory_why_do_we_need_to/ | {
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"In reality there is no difference between hypothesizing and what you have described. In modern science you only publish hypotheses that turn out to be correct, and so you essentially play around, do this or that, whatever your intuition or other studies suggest might be a useful thing to do until you find something interesting at which point you stop, pretend you didn't know what would happen, write down your hypothesis and publish the results you found.",
"The point of the hypothesis is to narrow down what it is exactly you're testing. Otherwise various other factors can come in and interfere with the results of your experiment.\n\nUsually it will start open ended - apply an unusual effect and see what happens. But then you need to isolate the result and make sure that nothing else could have caused what you're seeing. Then you have positively identified the cause and effect.",
"Trying/looking at something can certainly be the first step. But then you say \"I think this happened because ...\" and that's the hypothesis. Then you need to go do *another* test, to see if that hypothesis is actually true or not. This helps keep you from just thinking up plausible-sounding but incorrect explanations and believing them. \n\nHaving a nice, specific hypothesis also makes it easier to design tests that properly test it. ",
"Funding plays a role too. \"I'm gonna do random shit until stuff happens. Give me money.\" would be a hard sell for grant applications.",
" > Why can't we just go \"Let's try this and see what happens!\"\n\nThere is nothing wrong with that, and scientifically speaking, that's what we would call an observation. The problem is, that is all you know, you do X, then Y happens. Hypotheses help you narrow down the reason why an observation happened.",
"Usually \"just seeing what happens\" is how you get the idea for a hypothesis. After that, the scientific method lets you narrow down explanations for what you observed. This is the key difference between today's scientists and the \"scientists\", more accurately philosophers, of the ancient age, who spent most of their time doing \"science\" simply talking and thinking about how things MIGHT work.\n\nFor example, let's say you come across a big bell. You whack it to see what happens. It rings like a...well, like a bell.\n\n\"I think that noise happened because I hit it\"\n\nThat's your observation, and now also your hypothesis. You could leave it at that - after you all, you hit the bell once, it rang, surely that's proof? But that's not how you develop a scientific theory.\n\nSomething else could have caused the bell to ring. Maybe it was a coincidence that it just happened to ring as you hit it. So you hit it again, and it rings. Hypothesis confirmed, it rings when you hit it.\n\nBut why does it ring?\n\n\"I think it rings because...\"\n\nAnd so on. "
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7cobrx | why does the salt in mcdonald's salt packets taste different from the salt they're prepared with? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7cobrx/eli5_why_does_the_salt_in_mcdonalds_salt_packets/ | {
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"text": [
"What is \"they\" in this sentence?",
"It's all just salt. The difference is the size of the grains. The salt that is used when making french fries has super-fine crystals - it's almost a powder while the salt in the packets is more like a traditional table salt. \n\nThe size of the salt crystals greatly influences how it impacts your taste buds."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
Subsets and Splits