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1rhx5s | north america | There's an African Union and a European Union. Is there a North American Union? Why doesn't the US feel the same type of kinship to Central America as (I imagine) other countries feel about he rest of their continent. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rhx5s/eli5_north_america/ | {
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"There is [NAFTA](_URL_0_), and [CAFTA](_URL_1_).\n\nWe like the free trade aspects that the EU has, but we don't want to give up any sovereignty or decision making authority the way that the EU countries have.",
"When the USA was first founded, it wasn't too much different than the EU. It was originally conceived of as a small federal government in a country made up of 13 strong, separate states.",
"Population Density! Europe has about twice as many people as the US, but in an area only slightly larger (about 400,000 square km). Combined Canada, US, and Mexico have twice the geographic area as Europe and 270 million less people. This gives the political relations and necessities of the countries in North America a different dynamic than in Europe or Africa. Although having spent time in Europe, I would be hard pressed to say that they have a lot more \"kinship\" with their fellow countries than the US. In my experience Europeans feel about their national identities about the way American's feel about their state identity... taking pride in their own parochial in-group, but still with a sense of binding European-ness. ***Say that last word out loud a few times!***",
"Independent monetary system. We as Americans do not want our wealth directly tied to Mexico's economy. Look how well that worked out for Greece."
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bl4npg | can someone explain to me difference between rings in chemistry, or at least explain benzene rings? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bl4npg/eli5_can_someone_explain_to_me_difference_between/ | {
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"Carbon atoms can make as many as 4 bonds each. One configuration attaches a hydrogen to one of the four bonds. If you take 6 of these carbons and hook A to B to C to D to E to F to A you construct a round structure. These 6 bonds use 12 of the possible connections. If you double the A to B, C to D, and E to F bonds; you use up 6 more. Remembering the 6 used with the hydrogens, this uses all 24 possibilities for 6 carbons. This molecule is named benzine."
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5taf12 | what's the difference between "doing your taxes" and "getting your tax return"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5taf12/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_doing_your/ | {
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"Properly, the tax return is the form you fill out and send to the government. Your refund is the check you get back if you paid too much during the year.\n\nMany people incorrectly refer to their refund as their return and mix up the terms."
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8phmk8 | how can a tv remote sit around all day not wasting it’s batteries and immediately be picked up and used (without having to be turned on), while something like a game controller must be turned on first before use, and if you left it on all day it would drain the batteries even while not in use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8phmk8/eli5_how_can_a_tv_remote_sit_around_all_day_not/ | {
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"a tv remote is a usually one way communication and uses IR. the remote emits a signal when a button is pushed and the tv receives it. it's like using smoke signals. \n\na game controller communicates through bluetooth which is active two way communication. just by keeping it on and idle, it'll consume power. and controllers can also do other things, such as transmit audio, rumble, etc. ",
"A TV remote is typically made in such a way that every button is an \"on\" button for the remote itself. Meaning it uses absolutely no power when you're not pressing any buttons. So the reason is the same as for a flashlight -- when not in use it doesn't do anything.",
"A basic tv remote just blasts an ir signals into the ether depending on which circuit is completed, it’s the TVs job to receive the signal. Your game controller has to send AND receive a constant stream of very complex signals, when you aren’t using it and it’s left on it still has to sit there and constantly check if anything has changed which drains its battery. ",
"Energy cannot be lost, only transformed, so the remote will not use any energy, because it has nothing to convert it to. \n\nGame controllers are actively broadcasting EM radiation as part of their communication protocols. Actively converting chemical energy into light outside our visual spectrum.\n\nThe reason you don't have to link your remote is because it just runs on a insecure channel. _Any_ TV can be controlled by _any_ controller operating on the right channel. But for gaming, you need multiple controllers. To streamline this process, you need to link them before use.",
"Remotes are pretty dumb and do very simple things, like shooting out the same signal every time you push the same button over IR.\n\nControllers actually have some smart bits in them, talk both ways, and are generally much more complex.",
"Many game controllers are two way devices. So assuming you could make one that worked exactly like a remote, it would still have to \"listen\" to see if the console is telling it to \"do\" something, example \"rumble\". For that reason there is always some battery usage. If you wanted to minimize it you could remove the rumble pack although with most today it is integrated.",
"Many answers here mention that remotes use IR, which is one-way, while controllers use bluetooth, which is two-way. This is close to being the answer, but I just wanted to add a bit extra. \n\nThe important thing to note is that bluetooth is connection-oriented. Devices establish explicit connections with each other, and then either device can talk to the other over the established connection. \n\nNow, because devices want to connect as soon as they can, they have to constantly be trying to connect, meaning at regular intervals they're sending out a signal just asking \"anyone else nearby speak bluetooth?\" This uses power. \n\nOf course, devices can get around this by either giving up and going to sleep after a while, which means the user will have to \"wake up\" the device before it tries connecting again. \n\nAnother reason controllers might draw more power is that electronics just always draw a little bit of power, even when they're completely off, and more complicated electronic with more components are going to draw more idle power. And since a controller is much more complex than a remote, it draws more idle power. On top of that, since the best way to prevent this idle power loss is to physically disconnect the battery, IR remotes can just use every single button as a physical disconnection, so the battery is only even connected to anything when a button is pressed. In a controller, a bunch of components need to be on continuously, even when no buttons are being pressed (like the bluetooth radio). So, to counteract the idle power draw, controllers come with on/off switches, which can be used to physically disconnect the battery from the electronics and saving power. ",
"Pressing a button completed the electronic circuit and uses electricity only when that circuit is active.\n\nOther devices (like controllers, phones, etc) may be \"active\" all the time, especially if they have a wireless connection.",
"I'll address it in two parts:\n1) TV remotes do drain batteries but do so at a very slow pace. The basic structure to TV remotes use an LED at the infrared frequency range that characteristically blocks most current from the battery until someone turns it \"on\". When you press a button it turns on for a short burst, then back off. You also have to program a remote when you start because the receiver at the TV only responds to a certain type of signal. \n\n2) The actual use of a game controller vs a TV controller are pretty different. A TV remote signal is very directional; if you don't point it at the correct spot you don't get the channel changed or the volume changed, etc., this wouldn't be convenient for a game controller. You also care about missed inputs, having a two way connection instead of a one way connection like a TV remote means you need constant talk between the game controller and system. This means quite literally in-between all of your inputs on your game controller the system and controller are both communicating with \"hey I'm here \" and \" do you still see me signals\" on top of other things. Newer features have reinforced the need for this type of partnership (things like rumble)\n\nreal ELI5:\nThey were built to do different things, a lot of what a game controller does requires input from you and the game system. Doing this requires energy for working in both directions. Talking both ways requires synchronization as well (in order to understand each other) so that's why they use power even when not being used to make sure they are still synced (most have power saving built in to disconnect after so much time of no use)\nThey could have made game controllers work the same way as remotes but you wouldn't have the benefits of the feautures like rumble etc.\n\nSorry for the long stuff, went on one of those onion peeling journies\n\nSource: PhD student in EE, specific in wireless",
"- A TV remote is basically a torch (press a button to shine the infra red light).\n\n- Your game controller is basically a two-way-radio (it's constantly sending and receiving UHF radio waves while it's turned on)",
"Every button in a remote is essentially a tiny switch. If you open up a remote, you'll see on the circuit board inside there are little black pads that line up with each button on the remote. When you push a button, you essentially complete the circuit for that individual button, which then sends the appropriate signal to the device (volume up, channel change, etc.). Then when you release the button, the circuit is broken, meaning no current flow, and no loss of battery life until another button is pressed. This wouldn't work with a gaming controller because as stated above, it is only one way communication, and a lot of the functions of a gaming wouldn't work with one way communication.",
"ELI5: The remote is doing nothing when you aren't pressing buttons. When a Bluetooth device is on, it turns on a radio to listen for Bluetooth signals, even if you aren't pressing buttons. This costs power.",
"TV remote buttons complete a circuit for the battery, and thus electric current is used. This is a tiny amount of power. If the remote isn't used, it's like the batteries aren't even in the remote. The IR light is a single light that sends bursts of light patterns.\n\nA controller using Bluetooth or other method of communication is always using a wireless connection to stay in contact to communicate actions done on the controller.\n\nThink of it this way: a remote is you and a friend sitting around where you can occasionally tell your friend something. A controller is where you two need to constantly ask your friend every 10 seconds if he is still listening. Which scenario will cause you to be more tired at the end of the day?",
"A remote only sends a signal when you press a button. A console is constantly pinging a controller, checking its current input state every fraction of a second. Also; remotes don't vibrate.",
" > (without having to be turned on)\n\nThis isn't exactly true. Whenever you hit a button on a remote, you're closing a very specific circuit. In other words, you're turning it on with every button press (and turning it off when you release the button).\n\nThe difference is that the components of a remote are very simple, and don't take long to boot up and perform their task, so the delay between pressing the button and performing a specific task (like \"send the signal to turn the TV on\") is very small.\n\nA game controller, on the other hand, is a slightly different beast. It's more like a computer (which is turned on with the main switch/button) that constantly monitors the button states and sends signals appropriately. It's built this way for several reasons:\n\n* ...to decrease the delay between a button press and an action.\n* ...to allow for button combinations (pressing the B and the A buttons at the same time) and other complex control scenarios.\n* ...to allow the console (or other controlled system) to discover the state of the controller without any input from you, the player, so it can do things like pause the game if the battery dies or turn on when you turn the controller on.",
"Others have given a pretty good explanation, so I’ll try to add something different; though this may not be ELI5\n\n- All devices have a leakage current, meaning small amounts of power is wasted in the circuit. Additionally many batteries cannot hold their charge forever.\n\n- The processors in many modern devices are actually on, but waiting for a command to do something. Most modern micro controllers (mini computers ) have different levels of power saving modes where each level puts the chip into a deeper sleep and saves more power.\n\n- Turning on a tv is flashing an infrared light in a certain sequence. When you press any button, an “interrupt” is triggered, similar to ringing a doorbell to wake you up. The device checks which button was pressed and sends out the corresponding code then immediately goes to sleep when you let go (all this happens in microseconds)\n\n- These codes are simple numbers, encoded in binary and converted to something similar to Morse code. The tv then has a similar process in reverse to decode it by converting light to electrical signals and those signals to a Morse code equivalent \n\nLastly a remote is “stateless” for the most part; it does what you tell it now. A game controller on the other hand has to establish a wireless connection and maintain that connection or the game system will display you lost connection. \n\nYou could definitely make a game system run on Infrared tv remote but here’s a few problems:\n- A simple remote is one way, how would it know to vibrate when you get hit?\n- security; there’s no way to establish a secure connection unless you use a predetermined code that the system knows. \n- multiplayer; if you all have the same remotes, the system needs a way to tell the difference. Maybe you could punch in a code that changes the commands for each remote temporarily, or maybe buy remote 1,2,3,4\n\nAs far as battery, every component loses power in different amounts. If there’s a voltage regulator, there’s an efficiency of let’s say 50-90% which is lost before the processor gets it. Each resistor burns up energy. Each chip has a minimal rated power consumption. These combined are the “quiescent” power draw usually in the micro or nano amps. Compared to your batteries which hold a few hundred MilliAmperes to a a few thousand like you phone ~3-4000 milliamperes ",
"Most of the popular answers here are wrong, those reasons are why the controller's battery doesn't last long while in active use, not the reason it has terrible standby power usage. \n\nThe real reason is because the people that made the game controller didn't prioritize low standby power usage. It's entirely possible for the engineers to make the game controller go into a low power mode if it's idle for say 5 minutes, but for whatever reason(cost or development time) they didn't bother. \n\nEven with a bluetooth receiver active(but not transmitting), two AA batteries can last a month or two in an idle/standby mode. Provided the developers care about standby time.",
"Think of a complete circle.\n\nNow think of one that is incomplete, or 95% drawn. You know it’s a circle, but it’s not connected. \n\nThis is how circuitry works.\n\nIf the circle is complete, batteries drain.\n\nIf the circle is not complete, nothing happens.\n\nMost TV remotes are simple and use an open circuit (incomplete circle). You are closing the circle when you press a button. The circle is only complete and only draining batteries during that button press. When you let up the circle opens and once more, the batteries go back to their non-functional, incomplete circle state.\n\nA game controller is more complicated. It works with an always-closed circle. The button that turns it off and on is not the same as a tv remote. The game controller always has a low level of power running through the system even when it’s off, hence the batteries drain.\n\nCircles.",
"None of these answers explain the why.\n\nIR is just light patterns generated by a circuit, the start up time for something like that is so short that most traditional IR remotes just design their circuits such that pressing any button also turns it on, and it turns off immediately when you stop pressing any buttons.\n\nBluetooth and/or wireless communication does not work as quickly to initialize and can't do this power saving trick.\n\nYou have to find a receiver, decide on a frequency (by scanning the supported frequencies for the one with the least amount of interference), an encryption key, exchange info about what features both sides support, and then you can send the command. If it took 5 seconds every time you pressed x you wouldn't like that system.",
"The easiest answer is that your TV remote is off at all times unless you're pushing a button. Your game controller is always on when you're using it, even if you're not pushing a button.\n\nThe TV remote sips juice, the controller gulps it.",
"ELI5 how do people not understand this concept?"
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49zeib | why do companies invest in tech startups that are losing millions and have seemingly no way of becoming profitable? | Companies losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year decide to take another round of investments and find hundreds of millions more that they can spend on expanding their userbase. I get that these companies are valued by the amount of individual users they attract, but why do people fund them to keep making losses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49zeib/eli5why_do_companies_invest_in_tech_startups_that/ | {
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"You've answered your own question; they're valued by userbase. Expanding userbase means people want to buy in.\n\nAs regards the reason for *why* they're valued by userbase, companies hope that at some point in the future, those users can be made profitable - maybe by selling advertising at them, selling their data to other people, making some of them pay for micro-transactions which translate to large revenue based off the large number of users.\n\nInvesting in something based on what you think it might be worth in the future rather than what it's worth now is a hallmark of speculative, or bubble behaviour, so it's legitimate to wonder how sensible it is. But they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, they hope that at some point, in some way, the userbase will make them money. So the userbase, its size and growth, are the key metric, rather than traditional ideas of profitability, income, etc.",
" > but why do people fund them to keep making losses?\n\nBecause QE pushed interest rates into negative territory and there is too much money sloshing around in the system with nowhere to park it and earn some decent interest. So they are engaging in speculative activity like this.\n\nThe other PoV is that there are some successful examples of this \"growth at the cost of short term profitability\" strategies. CNN is one example. Amazon is another. Amazon has yet to turn a profit."
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4dg5gp | can someone explain me why is so hard for us citizens to pay off their student loan? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dg5gp/eli5_can_someone_explain_me_why_is_so_hard_for_us/ | {
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"The problem is the *size* of the loans. Some universities have realized that they can raise tuition prices *very* high, and students will just borrow money and pay it anyway. But this has led to many students graduating with huge debts.\n\nSince most young adults do not have very high-paying jobs, it can take many years to pay off (for example) $100,000 plus interest.",
"Some people's student loans approach (or exceed) $100k. The average i believe is around $30k. This then goes up over time because of interest while you are paying it down. \n\nSome people get really great jobs out of college and have no trouble paying it off. Some people don't get good paying jobs. \n\nImagine how long it takes someone with a mediocre job and no student loans to build a nest egg of 100k in the bank. I know plenty of people that still live fairly paycheck to paycheck without a 10k rainy day fund. Also, imagine thise 5-10 years they do spend building up that 100k nest egg. And then at the end of that the money suddenly disappears (because they weren't saving, they were climbing out of debt )\n\nMany/most people are working and do pay off their loans. Some made a poor choice when they were 18 and will spend a decade or two trying to recover from it.",
"Everyone (including myself) will say the same thing: *children* have no clue what the actual value of money is, so when they're told to take out ridiculously high student loans, they simply say \"ok\". When it comes to pay back these student loans, which can be $100,000+, they finally realize it was the dumbest fu@$ing idea to get the loan in the first place and regret the decision like the US regretted going to war in Vietnam.\n\nOn top of that, you can't discharge student loans like you can for frivolous and unnecessary consumer spending. So, someone who decides to be completely irresponsible with their credit cards, car loan, mortgage(s), personal loans, lines of credit, etc.. can abuse those lines then just declare bankruptcy and have their debt completely (or mostly) wiped away. Doesn't work that way for student loan debt...",
"High availability of loans = > more people going to post secondary = > raises the cost (both because of market demand and capital expenditures to handle more students) = > loans become worth more than the degree you earn from it.\n\nFor instance, a \"humanities\" grad can expect to earn ~30-45K (tops) in Canada for the most part. If you spend 50K on getting the degree it means it'll take you a very long time to pay it off. Ignoring interest you can expect to maybe have a few hundred dollars in cash per month on a 45K/yr salary (unless you live with your parents) which means it'll take you 10+ years to pay off your student debt.\n\nBasically they're upside down on their loans. They bought something worth far less than what the loan is for.\n\nIt'd be like buying a house for 500K with a mortgage and then the value of the house drops to 250K overnight. The bank will call you on the mortgage and force you to pay off the difference (since you can't/shouldn't mortgage for more than the property is worth).\n\n",
"Capitalism, baby!\n\nOver the last 50 years or so, education has become big business, so the cost of tuition, books, etc has skyrocketed. meanwhile, the number of good-paying jobs has not really kept pace.\n\nIn addition to having to support more expensive administrators, universities have also come to pay more of the cost for having profit-making sports organizations on campus, with football coaches frequently being paid millions, even more than the head of the university, so you have to pay for THAT as well. The notion that sports are a cash cow for universities is mostly bullshit: very few turn a profit, and not that many even break even.\n\nThis is why the countries like Germany where they have instituted free university education will be kicking America's ass in the decades to come.\n",
"Several reasons:\n\n1) The people taking on the loans are often children: Most first-time college students who aren't already capable of paying their own way through college are 17-20 (older students often have saved money for college); and these students don't realize how much debt they are taking on, and the true value of the loans.\n\n2) The price of college has gone up an absurd amount in a short amount of time. In some cases, prices for a college degree have multiplied by 10-20 in a couple decades.\n\n3) At the same time, the value of a college education has dropped; mostly due to oversupply. 20 years ago, having a Liberal Arts degree meant that you had a broad base of education, and could reasonably learn most middle-class office jobs. Now, due to the increase in the number of people with degrees, many jobs want a degree in their field; and still have more applicants than jobs.\n\n4) Finally, there's no reason for loan companies to put any care into loan applications: Student loans are impossible to get rid of, except by paying. Bankruptcy is a harsh option; but it will wipe all your debts away... except student loans. This means that a lot of people get student loans, and end up dropping or failing out of college.\n\nThese reasons together mean that a single stupid decision made by a 18-year-old (go to college), based on misinformation (they are told, often by well-meaning people, that the only way they will make money/be happy as an adult is with a college degree), and never checked by a responsible adult (parents assume it's the same as when they were kids; loan officer is getting paid either way; so is the university) results in an adult that is making less than cost of living plus student loan interest, and can't afford anything to get ahead."
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3qvhnx | what exactly is so bad about windows 10 that people refuse to update? | With the recent talk on Microsoft's decision to push users to update their OS to Windows 10, a lot of people are against it. What exactly makes Windows 10 so frowned upon? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qvhnx/eli5_what_exactly_is_so_bad_about_windows_10_that/ | {
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"General rule of thumb, if it ain't broke, don't touch/fix it. \n\nThat goes for a lot of things. Why do I have to update when it's perfectly fine?",
"People hate change. It took forever to move people from Windows XP to Windows 7 and get them comfortable on it. Inbetween was the turd that was vista. Well, 7 to 10 had 8 in between (though, with a start menu app, 8 was no where near as crappy as vista), so it's the same cycle again.\n\n",
"I'm perfectly happy with Windows 7, and Windows 10 has known issues. I'll eventually migrate, but I'm going to let everyone else beta test it for me. Couldn't care less if it's free or not.",
"Several specific reasons; You can't refuse updates, you can't shut off telemetry data being sent back to MS, and Win 10 has some specific issues with some games that I play a lot and Ventrilo in particular.\n\nUnless or until all those things get fixed/patched, no Win 10 for me. 8.1 works perfectly fine, and will for a few years yet. \n\nBut, aside from all that, don't you think it's the tiniest bit suspicious that MS is spending so much time and energy to try and get you to take something that's free? Does that not make you the least bit skeptical as to their motives?",
"It'll break current programs in business. It might break some of your games.\n\nIt collects information about you to be sold. Facebook does this, but facebook is \"free\". You've actually paid to use an operating system. \n\nYou cannot turn updates off. Windows have a horrid history with updates, with some completely destroying your machine.\n\nThe downright back handed way it's being pushed onto users. It's expecting people to just click \"ok\" mindlessly. This is what spyware companies do, and they have the same goal. Collect your data. \n\nThe UI. You'll have people tell you that they like the new UI but, to myself, it's absolutely horrid. It takes 8 and makes it worse. \n\nNo real reason to upgrade. Everything works now. Win7 is still being supported. Everything already works on Win7. There's no real good feature that makes Win10 a must have. \n\nI think I've covered all the main reasons I can think off without going into too much depth.",
"I'm using XP. It does what I want. Who cares if it is \"unsupported\", in 15 years I have never needed their help.\n\nEverything works. I'm happy."
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1xs3q1 | why, when i'm wearing earplugs, do constant sounds like cars be blocked out, but i feel like i can hear my footsteps, breathing, conversations near me, etc.? | I often wear earplugs (the "putty" kind you fit to your ear and make an airtight seal with). Mostly for sleeping, but also for finals cramming and for when I (introvert) feel overwhelmed. Just reducing noise helps me get some perspective.
I was wearing them on the bus home today. I couldn't hear the engine or other cars much at all, but I could (feel/hear?) my heart, and footsteps. The senses feel intertwined when I wear them; I'm not sure if I hear myself because I'm moving so the sound is very close, or if I just THINK I hear it because I'm moving.
Annoyingly, things like cell phone conversations near me aren't blocked as well, especially at higher pitches. They definitely seem muffled, but I can usually catch every word, while I may not be able to hear a car.
Is there an explanation for this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xs3q1/eli5_why_when_im_wearing_earplugs_do_constant/ | {
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"With ear plugs you block out the sounds conducted through the air but it does not block the sound that is being conducted to your eardrums through the BONES of your skull.",
"For sound (soundwaves) to travel, all it needs is a medium. This medium can be any kind of substance; liquids, gas and solids (probably plasma aswell). So by plugging your ears you only prevent air from pushing against your eardrum. But when you walk, the vibration goes all the way from your feet to your ear and it makes it move which results in you hearing your footsteps.\n\nIf you like a demonstration, go to a swimming pool with a friend. Each be on a separate side. Now scream in the air first with your max capacity; you can hear eachother. Now do the same, but underwater (don't worry about the water, as long as you scream the flow of air will prevent water rushing down into your lungs). You will find that you were unable to hear eachother underwater. However, repeat the same at 1 meter difference, now you can hear him!\n\nThe same trick can be done using a solid like a railroad track. Remember the old trick to put your ear on the railroad to hear if a train is coming? This is possible because sound travels faster through metal than it does through air, as such, you can increase the distance you can hear a train from significantly.\n\nAnd of course the complete opposite of a medium is no medium at all; a perfect vacuum. In this scenario it is impossible to create soundwaves as there is no medium. So if you are wondering what kind of sound the enemy spaceship is making when you hear it from yours; there isn't one (although space is not by definition a perfect vacuum, but the vacuum is low enough that you can not create soundwaves).\n\n"
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5506dw | what's the difference between the us captialism and finland's socialism? | Please have it ELI5 not explain like Im an economics major or even taken an economics course. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5506dw/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_the_us/ | {
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"First of all, a clarification. Both are capitalist systems. Capitalism is defined by the private ownership of the means of production. That is, farming, industry, services (Your internet, transport, etc) and so on. Socialism on the other hand is the collectivization or ownership of those things by the state (State-run companies).\n\nOf course, there can be degrees. It is not THIS or THIS. There can be different %.\n\nSecond, apart from the previous point, you can have different taxation policies, union/syndicate policies, labor policies, tariffs/subsidies policies which can either incentivate, punish or protect/help certain sectors.\n\nNow, where is the big difference between the US and Finland system? Well, the \"safety net\". In Finland, thanks to the government, you can have the, if not one of the, best education in the world. You have access to a medical insurance. And the government protects or favours unions. If you want to fire someone, there is a lengthy process before you can fire that someone. And if it there is no reason whatsoever, he/she can sue you and win.\n\nOn the other hand, the US government has almost no say on those matters. Lately, it has tried to expand medical insurance with Obamacare. But a large part of the population still has to pay by itself. Remember Breaking Bad? Well, it all started because one dude couldn't afford his treatment. Also, as you can see by everyone's comments here on reddit, education -namely, higher education. That is, college- is private, so you have to pay it with your own means or get a loan (debt). Unions aren't that protected by government and companies can fire you without having to pay you anything.\n\nBut, don't think the US government has no interference on the economy. The US financial sector is the *most regulated* financial sector of the world! And it grants many subsidies and tax cuts to some companies that meet certain standards/criteria. For example, farmers, companies in areas with low economic activity, companies that sell or produce renewable energy sources/vehicles, etc etc.\n\nIf you have any other question, feel free to ask.",
"As the other commenter said, both Finland and US are capitalist countries. The economy of Finland also is based on privately owned companies providing services and products.\n\nHowever Finland has much more progressive taxation than the US has. The taxes then are used to fund substantial welfare services, whereas in the US comparable services are based on private services which people pay with insurances and such. In the US, people have more income after taxes, but out of that net income, people pay student loans, medical insurances and such. In Finland people have less income after taxes, but the medical and student payments go from the taxes.\n\nSo for example education is mostly free starting from kindergarten to a university degree. After you turn 17, the government gives money to students, covering their living expenses almost entirely, so students could focus on studying instead of working and studying at the same time. There are hardly any private schools in Finland, rather schools and higher education institutions are run by municipalities or are public institutions with legal autonomy.\n\nFinland also has substantial labor unions with great power. So while Finland does not have a minimum wage set in law, the representatives of employers and the unions negotiate wage levels which then the government agrees to enforce. If the negotiations go badly, the unions have the legal right for strikes, and as most of the people belong in unions, the strikes can have significant impact on the employers. Unions also offer substantial services to their members which sometimes can be surprising to employers from Anglophone countries. For example it is nothing unusual that after you are offered a job, you take your contract to your union lawyer to check that it is legal. My friend worked at a company started by Americans and they thought my friend was suing them already.\n\nThere's also substantial support for unemployed people. Finland even has so called *minimum income*, meaning that if a person has absolutely no other sources of income or wealth, the public sector will pay modest level of living expenses, which generally is something that you can survive, buy food, have a home, electricity, medicine and other minimum needs. This is also referred as wealth redistribution.\n\nIn recent years it has become increasingly more common to refer the Finnish, (or [Nordic model](_URL_0_)) as socialist, even though the model is a mixed economy based on free market capitalism. The socialism aspect comes from the interpretation that the education and health care being public are *socialized* health care and education. And that progressive taxation and wealth redistribution with minimum income and student payments are socializing the wealth of other people for the people.\n",
"To help clarify, in modern common language \"socialism\" means a capitalist country with lots of government programs, regulations and intervention in the economy. Its basically a matter of degrees of government intervention.\n\nSo the US is considered non-socialist because there is no paid family leave, no universal free public healthcare and a less regulated economy relative to other developed countries. Finland has all that stuff and among the best (top 3 minimum) school system in the world and its public, great free public university and a host of other government programs, so its called socialist. "
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52afdd | why do people find cockroaches disgusting, but not other insects (ex. butterflies)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52afdd/eli5_why_do_people_find_cockroaches_disgusting/ | {
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"Cockroaches (as well as rats, slugs etc.) are often associated with filthy conditions, dirt and infections. It's kind of a fear that prevents us from contacting with them so not to get sick.",
"butterflies are disgusting, just along with its other filth such as spiders, dragonfly, slime, worm, hornet and so on"
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1jqlho | why is it that tv shows which make profit require release forms, whereas news broadcasts do not; yet they also make profit? | It bothers me a little bit. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jqlho/eli5_why_is_it_that_tv_shows_which_make_profit/ | {
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"The two things you describe are Commercial and Editorial. \n\nCommercial works require a release from the person on the screen. These can be works of fiction. Their main goal is to provide entertainment in a fictional manner. \n\nEditorial works do not require a release and are generally for telling the \"facts\", like reporting the news. ",
"News broadcasts report the news, and are supposed to be objective in their reporting. They report a set of facts (who, what, when where, how), and typically do not have to seek permission to report those facts, since proper journalism is an important way to disseminate information to the public. It would be pretty difficult to report the news if all you could say was \"A certain movie celebrity, a male, about 35 years old, was arrested for murder.\" \n\nWhereas any other type of show is using names for entertainment reasons.",
"In Canada, whether for profit or not, a broadcaster must secure a consent if a person is the primary subject of a photo or video. If a person is merely an accessory to a picture (like a wide shot of a crowd) or is not identifiable (like shoulder down shots of fat people often used in news stories on obesity) consent is not generally required. \n\nThe reason for this is that in many jurisdictions there are laws that give people rights with regard to the use and distribution of their own images.\n\nThese laws (sometimes referred to as \"moral rights\" or \"image rights\") are similar to and often grouped with intellectual property rights such as copyright.\n\nAt its core, Copyright is a right to make copies of a particular work. You can understand Moral Rights as a concept that gives you a copyright on your own image.\n\nEDIT: to insert \"In Canada\""
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3f4y5x | if the big bang caused all matter to explode outward (and away from a center), then how did we end up with celestial bodies that crash into each other and move in all sorts of directions other than just "out and away"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f4y5x/eli5_if_the_big_bang_caused_all_matter_to_explode/ | {
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"The Big Bang was not an explosion away from a center. It was not an explosion at all. It was the expansion of space itself.\n\n[This page](_URL_0_) explains it very well so I won't reinvent the wheel.",
"Those objects began to collide with each other in the chaos that ensued after the big bang, as they collided they generated massive heat and fused into larger objects, eventually forming masses that had significant gravity. These forces began to counteract and disrupt the purely outward velocity and created the orbits, clouds and other formations that you are describing. However, ultimately these bodies are still as a whole moving \"out and away\".",
"I basically have 4 different answers here so far. Can someone make sense of this in a comprehensive manner? ",
"It seems that a fairly straight forward answer here is gravity. Matter started clumping together, eventually the gravitational pull of those clumps became stronger than the original force. They do not only move out and away because the gravity of large objects changes their direction. "
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7jj5dy | the alabama senate election | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7jj5dy/eli5_the_alabama_senate_election/ | {
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"Alabama has been a deeply red state (republican) for the last 25 years, and it showed no sign of changing.\n\nSo by all accounts, it looked like the election between Roy Moore(R) and Doug Jones(D) was all but a formality.\n\nUntil the news broke that Roy Moore had a unhealthy fascination with girls on the younger side. (Think 14-18) and was at one point banned from a local mall, that had warned the local security to keep Moore away from the cheerleaders. \n\nSince this happened during the height of the #MeToo movement, it got tons of attention in the media. and Doug Jones started surging in the polls. \n\nIn the end, it was close election, but Doug Jones (D) managed to squeeze out a win, in a state, that he has really no business winning, had any other republican candidate faced him he wouldn't have had a chance.",
"Jeff Sessions was a Senator representing Alabama. Mr. Sessions was appointed as Attorney General, so a special election was held to elect someone to replace him as Senator. Normally Senators hold office for six years, but since a Senator needed to be chosen outside of the normal schedule, a \"special\" election was held."
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420wv1 | why doesn't usa (and others) recognize north korea as a "nuclear power", even though we know they have nukes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/420wv1/eli5_why_doesnt_usa_and_others_recognize_north/ | {
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"We do recognize North Korea as a nuclear power in some capacities. For example on the DoS Factbook page (_URL_0_). \n\nHowever North Koreas actual nuclear capabilities are extremely limited and may not even have the technology to mount let alone operate their existing warheads. I'm sure that U.S. Intelligence knows exactly the scope of the threat, but NK is not in the same class as other weaponized states. ",
"There are two definitional issues here. \n\nOne is whether a state is acknowledged to be a \"legal\" nuclear power under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. Only five states (USA, Russia, UK, France, and China) have this status. It means there are no sanctions against them despite their having nuclear weapons, but also means they commit (in a vague way) to eventual disarmament. There are four states with nuclear weapons that are outside the treaty (India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea), though they are not all treated quite the same (India and Pakistan have more normalized relations with the US despite their nuclear arsenals, the US pretends it doesn't know if Israel has nuclear weapons, and North Korea is treated as a pariah). \n\nThe second way in which it comes up is the question of whether North Korea has a _credible_ nuclear strike capability against the United States (or others). The answer to this depends on what you define as credible, and who the \"others\" are. I don't think anybody doubts they could get a nuclear weapon to Seoul if they wanted to — it is very close. But could they hit the USA with a nuclear weapon? At the moment, the answer is \"probably not\" — their missile technology, while improving, is still not very reliable as far as we can tell. Until that becomes reliable, they do not have the ability to reliably threaten the USA with a nuclear attack, unless one imagines they would try to smuggle one into a port or something. They have nothing like a guaranteed response to a first-strike attack. \n\nDoes that matter? It depends on who you ask and why you are asking. If North Korea suddenly invaded the South, would we get into a war with them? Probably — and this is a difference between how we handle Russia or China invading nearby countries (in that case, we would certainly make a lot of noise, and maybe pursue proxy options, but we aren't too interested in putting troops face-to-face with another credible nuclear power). This difference is partially attributed to the fact that the North Korean arsenal is not much of a deterrent at this point — they can threaten our friends (the South Koreans), but not us, and we would probably be tempted to try and preemptively destroy their nuclear facilities as part of a general attack. \n\nWould this change if North Korea successfully developed ICBMs? Maybe — if they had enough of them. If they developed submarine-launched missiles (which they are working on but have not successfully launched), that would be a much more credible sort of strike capability. "
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6ggv3u | what about the architecture of a gpu makes it useful for executing ai processes? | I hope I've articulated this question correctly. I would like to understand why something originally intended for rendering images is apparently very useful for AI. FWIW I once read and found reasonably understandable a Schaum's Outline on CPU architecture, but have no similar basic grasp of GPU architecture. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ggv3u/eli5_what_about_the_architecture_of_a_gpu_makes/ | {
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"CPUs are designed to work on successive tasks, they have just a few identical cores that each perform a task. They're good for complicated mathematics with dependent answers\n\nGPUs are designed to work on parallel tasks that are generally simpler. They need to do the same math for each pixel and the result of one pixel doesn't depend on the next.\n\nA CPU would be very good at \n\nfor (i=1,i < 1000,i++)\nB[i]=A[i]+B[i-1]\n\nYou can't calculate B[2] without first having the answer for B[1], there's no way to calculate more than one value for B at a time\n\nA GPU would be very good at\nfor (i=1,i < 1000,i++)\nB[i]=13*A[i]\n\nIt would distribute the load across all of its cores and work towards solving all of the Bs at the same time. Your CPU only has a few cores so it'll work on solving B[1]-B[8] in one round, then solve B[9]-B[16] in the next and so on.\n\nAI processes are generally simple math but require lots and lots of rounds and data points. A GPU can calculate the updates for all the nodes at once so every couple clock cycles you launch into a new round, while a CPU can only calculate a couple nodes at once and must progress through them. It handles each math step faster, but can't do as many in parallel so it takes far longer"
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5dm3eo | how is it that music "debuts" on the top 100? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dm3eo/eli5_how_is_it_that_music_debuts_on_the_top_100/ | {
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"Music charts are made from sales in a given week. If you release an album on Tuesday, and it sells 0 for a few days then 30 million on Saturday, then it can debut at #1 on the top 100 chart that gets compiled on Monday morning. ",
"Most charts are compiled weekly (i.e. they are a chart of how many times a song were purchased in that week). So if a song is released and sells enough copies in that week, then it will be included in that week's chart."
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9esze0 | actual question from my 5 year old that i have no idea how to answer. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9esze0/eli5_actual_question_from_my_5_year_old_that_i/ | {
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" > it doesn’t sound upside down?\n\nSound is composed of compression waves, sort of like pushing and pulling on something. You can pinch her shirt and tug on it to demonstrate that there is no up/down orientation to that kind of movement.",
"Because an upside down sound sounds the same as a right side up one, so you can’t tell that it is upside down.",
"I would turn upside down and say “does upside-down sound any different?”"
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351ibv | why do bugs flying in cars, buses, or trains don't "get left behind?" is there physics behind it? | Im baffled if they keep constant speed with the speed of the train or bus because they can remain "stationary" when they are not physically attached to anything inside. What if there's a fly in an airplane? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/351ibv/eli5_why_do_bugs_flying_in_cars_buses_or_trains/ | {
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"The air in the plane isn't moving, it's trapped in place, so the fly stays still. The air has the same relative velocity as the vehicle, so the fly can move around freely in it.",
"It's because the air inside an enclosed car or airplane is moving at the same speed the vehicle is. So a fly inside a car seems to be moving in still air but to anyone looking at the car from the outside can confirm that the car, the air inside, and the fly are all moving forward.\n\n\nRoll down a window and you'll see something very different.",
"A nice addition to this answer/question might be this video from Smarter Every Day: _URL_0_\n\nNot entirely the question, but it touches the basics that also happens with the fly.",
"When sitting on a bus, throw something straight up. It will come right back down instead of flying away towards the back of the bus. Then try the same thing when in a convertible. Same principle :)",
"Well, look at it this way, if you jump, you don't slam into a west wall at around 465 m/s, even though you're not physically touching the earth. The fly is moving at the same speed as a car relative to Earth, so as long as it remains inside the car, it'll move with the same velocity.",
"Well, have you ever rode in a car yourself? Have you ever rode on a jet airbus? Were you pinned to your seat the entire time? Speed is relative, you can only feel the change in speed (acceleration/deceleration)."
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c91emy | whats the difference between "good fat" (like avocados) and "bad fat" (like oil?) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c91emy/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_good_fat_like/ | {
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"Well it comes down to high and low density Lipoproteins (HDL-cholesterol vs LDL-cholesterol). \n\nGood fat tend to be unsaturated which increase the levels of HDL in the blood\n\nWhile bad fat tends to be saturated which increases the levels of LDL in the blood \n\n & #x200B;\n\nHDL and LDL essentially have opposing effects. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nHDL's are good because it removes 'Fat' from the blood stream and stores in the liver where it remains 'harmless' \n\nOn the other hand LDL promotes 'Fat' remaining in the blood vessels and potentially attaching to the inner vessel walls, this in important because narrowing blood vessels reduces blood flow to organs, especially critical in the brain and heart. \n\nNow say you have high blood pressure and one of those fatty streaks breaks due to blood flowing at higher pressures. Suddenly a clot forms in an attempt to heal the area, but this same clot may occlude the whole vessel. Thus stopping blood flow to the area of the brain/ heart it supplies. i.e. a stroke or heart attack.",
"A lot of the \"good\" and \"bad\" about fats has to do with their omega 3 to omega 6 content! Part of the structure of any fat is a a big chain of carbon atoms holding hands. Each carbon atom has 4 hands to grab on to other atoms. So imagine a carbon atom in a chain - he has two hands taken up. One by the carbon to his left and the other by the carbon to his right! That means he has 2 hands left. Those hands can either grab up hydrogen atoms (this fat is now \"saturated\" or full with hydrogen) or they can double hold hands with the next door carbon neighbors. That's a double bond! A fat with a double bond is \"unsaturated\" with hydrogens, or not holding on to as many hydrogen atoms as they theoretically could.\n\nCool! So omega 3s and 6s are both polyunsaturated fats, meaning that they have multiple double handholds between some of the carbons in the chain. What makes them different is the location of one of the double bonds. Now, it doesn't seem like that much of a big deal where your carbon double handhold is in a chain, but a lot of research indicates that difference may impact your body's inflammation levels, risk for autoimmune diseases and cancer, cardiovascular disease etc. The idea is...there's a ideal ratio of the 6s to 3s of about 1:1, but in our Western diet that leans on highly processed vegetable oils we generally sit around 16:1. Whoa! So we have about 16x more omega 6s in our diet than omega 3s. This tilt of the scales towards the 6s can combine with genetic factors to increase inflammation levels in the body and make your body less efficient at fighting disease, keeping hormones balanced, yadda yadda.\n\nIf you want to shift your 6:3 ratio, avoid oils like sunflower, corn and soybean and instead love on some olive oil, avocados, cold water fish, and seeds and nuts! : )"
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8pejw6 | why are there such strict laws on what can/cannot be done with human remains? | I mean more so with like keeping with the wishes of the deceased within reason? Why must we only do burial or cremation? Are there countries that are making moves towards more open burial options like burial pods that grow into trees, burial on private land etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8pejw6/eli5_why_are_there_such_strict_laws_on_what/ | {
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"A lot of laws found their origin in moral codes.\n\nA lot of moral codes found their origins in religious societies, either from them developing them as a community, or having them as tenets of their faith.\n\nThis has a lot of intertia in a culture, and has carried through to modern day because a lot of people are religious. So you will find a lot of rules about the subject.\n\nEven without religion, the remains of someone are often a potent symbol to the survivors, so there is a lot of attention on how it's handled. When society has these considerations, morals evolve and these turn into laws. So even without religion, there would probably still be some rules about it.",
"In modernity most of the laws regarding handling of human remains have to do with preventing the spread of disease. Though there are a number that have their roots in religious practices as well. \n\nIn the US you are allowed to be buried in a number of ways. The normal casket, an old fashioned pine box, a cardboard coffin, in the tree pod thing, on private land (though have to mark the grave and notify people there is a grave if you sell), at sea, via cremation (including scattering the ashes so long as there is no health risk and you have permission of the property owner.), etc. You can also donate your body to science, which has in the past even included essentially being taxidermied and put up in a museum. "
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2w9kai | stages of mitosis | Can u please explain what happens in each phase? Thanks Alot | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2w9kai/eli5stages_of_mitosis/ | {
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"There are 5 stages of mitosis, which occurs only in somatic, non-sex cells. During this process the cell will clone into two exact daughter cells.\n\n**Prophase**: During prophase, the nucleolus of the cell disappears and the chromatin will condense into chromosomes, becoming visible. In animal cells, the centrioles will move to the polar opposites of the cell and begin to form mitotic spindles.\n\n**Metaphase**: The chromosomes position themselves along the metaphase plate, or the middle of the cell. The formed spindle fibers attach to each side of the chromosomes, preparing to pull them apart.\n\n**Anaphase**: During this stage the spindle fibers pull each chromosome apart into two sister chromatids, each one going to opposite sides of the cell. This ensures that the daughter cells will have the same genetic information as the parent cell. Also in anaphase, a cleavage furrow begins to form in animal cells, dividing the cell into two. Because there are rigid cell walls in plant cells, a cell plate forms instead, dividing the cell.\n\n**Telophase**: Telophase is the opposite of prophase. As the sister chromatids are pulled to each side of the cell, the nucleolus reappears along with other organelles. Spindle fibers disappear and the chromosomes are no longer visible. \n\n**Cytokinesis**: This is the division and final stage of mitosis, the cleavage furrow or cell plate finishes separating the cell and the two daughter cells are now completely formed. "
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4e59xh | why aren't a person's bottom teeth as protected during contact sports as their upper teeth are? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e59xh/eli5_why_arent_a_persons_bottom_teeth_as/ | {
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"Because your lower jaw can move slightly, greatly reducing the force of the impact.\n\nYour upper teeth are firmly fixed into something really solid and heavy.",
"Your jaw moves. Your upper teeth are connected to your head and impact can be much more traumatic.",
"Naturally (and generally), teeth in upperjaw house in a less dense bone, are part of being in a bigger \"bow\" than lower teeth (this is why the lower teeth are \"behind\" the upper teeth = > unlike a bulldog orso), and have different anatomy regarding their roots. \nThe lowerjaw can be seen as a \"loose\" hinge and can absorb shocks (but to a very limited extent! and other complications may occur on the joints). \n\n\na full mouthpiece/mouthguard is very helpful to keep your teeth (and lower jaw) in place while taking hits. The hits are absorbed in a more evenly distribution this way. \n\n\nAlso, the upperjaw is surrounded by the rest of your head (obviously), and is, for instance, \"protected\" by the lowerjaw, cheekbone, etc. \nThe lowerjaw gets a lot more hits being on \"the outter circle\" of a \"headshot target\" :P \n\n\nIt also really depends on the type of blow your skull receives: (small hockeypucks, bareknuckle, big boxinggloves, sport-gear/equipment etc). And of course, the anatomy/structure. \n",
"A mouth guard's main purpose is to protect the wearer from being knocked out, not to protect their teeth. Also, wearing a guard on both sets would make talking and breathing difficult. ",
"The mouthguard isn't to protect the teeth. Its to prevent concussions when the jaw snaps from a big hit."
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lgdsq | how does a website know what the current world population is? | So an interesting website was on my reddit front page [here](_URL_0_) which showed the current world population (increasing every second) and it said that the world population would reach 7 billion on 31st October.
My first thought was-isn't it already 7 billion?
And the second one was-how do they know the *current* world population? Do they use a statistical program to calculate the average births per second using national birth rates in different countries? Is the death rate factored in? If it is, why are the numbers only steadily increasing? Do they account for a child born in the middle of a isolated nation or a non-nation?
How can you be so precise? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lgdsq/eli5how_does_a_website_know_what_the_current/ | {
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"If you know the exact size of a population at any moment in time, and you know the exact birth and death rates of that population, and those birth and death rates remain exactly consistent, you can extrapolate the exact size of that population to good accuracy at any point in time, future or past.\n\nSince nobody knows the *exact* size of the world's population ever, and nobody knows the *exact* birth and death rates, and those rates don't remain *exactly* consistent anyway, you can't extrapolate the *exact* size of the population at any time … but you can make a good estimate if you have good estimates of the other things.\n\nIn point of fact, the margin of error on world population estimates is in the tens of millions. We can say with confidence that right now the world population is 6.9 billion people ± 0.1 billion people. Meaning it could be 6.8 billion, or it could be 7.0 billion … or it could be anywhere in between. But if you think about it, that's fine, because we don't ever *need* to know what the world population is down to the last individual person. It'd be interesting trivia if anybody ever had that piece of information, but it wouldn't mean anything. What's important to us is to know about *trends* in world population. How fast is the population of each country changing? Is it growing or shrinking? Within each country, how is the population changing? Are people migrating from rural to urban areas or vice versa? Are some people having more or fewer children on average than other people? And so on.\n\nThe \"here's the total number of people in the world\" part is just a fairly simplistic synthesis of all the demographic information that's *useful to us*. It's not, by itself, an important statistic.",
"If you know the exact size of a population at any moment in time, and you know the exact birth and death rates of that population, and those birth and death rates remain exactly consistent, you can extrapolate the exact size of that population to good accuracy at any point in time, future or past.\n\nSince nobody knows the *exact* size of the world's population ever, and nobody knows the *exact* birth and death rates, and those rates don't remain *exactly* consistent anyway, you can't extrapolate the *exact* size of the population at any time … but you can make a good estimate if you have good estimates of the other things.\n\nIn point of fact, the margin of error on world population estimates is in the tens of millions. We can say with confidence that right now the world population is 6.9 billion people ± 0.1 billion people. Meaning it could be 6.8 billion, or it could be 7.0 billion … or it could be anywhere in between. But if you think about it, that's fine, because we don't ever *need* to know what the world population is down to the last individual person. It'd be interesting trivia if anybody ever had that piece of information, but it wouldn't mean anything. What's important to us is to know about *trends* in world population. How fast is the population of each country changing? Is it growing or shrinking? Within each country, how is the population changing? Are people migrating from rural to urban areas or vice versa? Are some people having more or fewer children on average than other people? And so on.\n\nThe \"here's the total number of people in the world\" part is just a fairly simplistic synthesis of all the demographic information that's *useful to us*. It's not, by itself, an important statistic."
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8zof11 | why is it so easy to distinguish a video from a photo even when the video is a still image of a still object? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8zof11/eli5_why_is_it_so_easy_to_distinguish_a_video/ | {
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"Your brain is really good in picking up on the most subtle motions. The reason for this is simple: Back when we were still living in caves it was incredibly important to notice something like this because it might be a predator creeping up to you.",
"Because a video is **not** a still image of a still object.\n\nMost videos have some blur, which is fine when they are running at full speed because it helps preserve the illusion of motion. Blur is essentially the mixture of images over a short period of time, so you really aren't looking at a still image."
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3tx6bc | why does milk chocolate melt in the matter of seconds while being held yet take forever to solidify in room temperature? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tx6bc/eli5why_does_milk_chocolate_melt_in_the_matter_of/ | {
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"Chocolate gets its structure and texture from crystals of cocoa fat. Those crystals melt at around 92°F, or 33C. And once they're melted, they take a long time to grow back from zero.\n\nAnd, as you know if you've melted and re-cast chocolate, the crystals that grow in molten chocolate, if you're not very careful, are different from the kind you find in well-made bars. There are several- six, in fact- different kinds of cocoa-fat crystals, and #5 is the kind you want (because it has a good texture and doesn't melt below about 90°F). But #s 1-4 grow much faster in melted chocolate, so chocolate that's melted and then re-hardened is usually in much worse shape afterward."
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blg3hh | how does steroid cream for skin conditions work? and how is it different from the steroids people take to gain muscle? | Also why does steroid cream damage the skin? I use the cream for eczema but am told not to use too much of it or for too long. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/blg3hh/eli5_how_does_steroid_cream_for_skin_conditions/ | {
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"Steroids regulate your body systems. There are steroids that work in your musculoskeletal system that essentially turn on a signal that says \"grow.\" These are called anabolic steroids (anabolic roughly translates to \"build up\"). On the other hand, steroids used to treat skin conditions are known as corticosteroids. These steroids regulate, among other things, your immune system. Eczema is basically a reaction where your immune system goes a little bit haywire and attacks your own skin. By applying a steroid cream or ointment, you can signal to your immune system that this area isn't a threat and to stop attacking it (essentially an \"off\" button). The problem is that these steroids can also block new skin creation if you use it for too long. That means extended use can lead to skin thinning which has its own issues.",
"As a side question, why do steroid creams require a prescription? I have really bad eczema and require steroid cream a few times a year. The tube costs $150 not including the trip to the doctor."
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6zmm8l | why is it a bad idea to make hate speech /political incorrectness illegal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zmm8l/eli5why_is_it_a_bad_idea_to_make_hate_speech/ | {
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" > I can't quite articulate why *and I'd like to read the opinions of others*. \n\nBecause you wouldn't have the opinions of others if you ban free speech. Some things aren't nice to say/hear, but education is the key. \n\n\n\n"
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2kgtg5 | why does western society seem to hold drunk people as responsible for everything that they do while intoxicated, except for having sex? | If I got in a car accident while drunk and told the officer that I'm not responsible because I can't give my consent to drive whole drunk, he would laugh at me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kgtg5/eli5_why_does_western_society_seem_to_hold_drunk/ | {
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"Sorry, I'm not seeing your comparison here with sex/drunk driving? Please explain....",
"Because the crime is decided in relation to the victim. If they are sexed upon while drunk, they are the victim. If they crash a car, others involved in the wreck and the owners of damaged property are the victims. Plus, the drunken sex laws are designed to prevent people from being taken advantage of (people encouraging heavy drunkenness so the victim is more willing or even comatose). This is nice in theory, but imo is too broadly applied and ends up sweeping up cases where it doesnt *really* apply, such as where someone regrets sex afterwards but there was no \"foul play\". ",
"Driving and sexual consent are completely separate issues. Laws stating that extremely drunk people are unable to consent are a means of preventing people from being taken advantage of by those who seek to exploit their mental and physical impairment.\n\nWe have a responsibility to refrain from making criminal decisions while drinking (or prevent ourselves from becoming so drunk that we can no longer control whether we behave criminally). We are responsible for our own actions, but not for the actions of others, such as a relatively sober person who decides to engage in sexual activities with someone who can't meaningfully consent. An intoxicated person who is exploited for sex by a sober person has not committed a crime. The sober person has.\n\nSex, incidentally, is not the only exception. Generally, a person who is too intoxicated to think clearly cannot sign a contract, because mentally impaired individuals cannot give meaningful consent. The agreement would be considered invalid. This rule exists so that the counterparty cannot exploit an intoxicated person.",
"Drunk people are responsible for their behavior while drunk (assuming they got themselves drunk and weren't drugged by someone else). However, drunk people cannot consent. This means to sex as well as other things like contracts. You could not enter into a legally binding agreement for a mortgage while drunk, for instance.\n\nWe make this distinction because we think that you should be able to get drunk if you act responsibly, but we acknowledge that people can take advantage of you while drunk (usually to have sex with you, but somewhere there's probably an unethical banker hiding in a nightclub waiting to lure a drunk person into signing a loan agreement that is unfavorable to them). If you get in fights or drive while drunk we blame you for not knowing your limits and say you shouldn't drink, but if the problems arise from other people doing things to you while drunk then we don't blame you.",
"The only answer relevant here is that drunken consent to sex is NOT considered consent, legally. \n\nMyth: If the assailant, victim, or both are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the victim is free to consent to sex and the assailant therefore cannot be charged with rape.\nFact: When intoxicated, an individual cannot legally consent to sexual activity. Forcing sex on someone who is too drunk to give consent is still Criminal Sexual Conduct in the Third Degree. Rape is a serious offense, and people who commit crimes while under the influence of alcohol or drugs are not considered free from guilt.\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"Why do you not understand that a responsibility to not commit crimes and the ability to consent are two entirely different things with different standards? And rightly so. Children can't legally consent to sex, but they can be charged with a crime.",
"It's usually a matter of degree, OP. There's considerable difference between having sex while you are high (technically \"drunk\") and someone having sex with you when you are passed-out drunk, which is usually the case when charges are brought atainst the perpetrators.",
"I think the thing people are getting wrapped around the axle on is the degree of drunkenness. \n\nWe can all agree that a girl who is passed out due to alcohol is off limits. \n\nWhat I, and others don't agree with is the idea that a drop of alcohol protects a girl from responsibility.\n\nRegret != rape\n\nDoing dumb things != rape ",
"I think you are conflating Western law with western culture. Just to give a recent example, you would find a lot of people that would blame Hannah Graham for being out late, alone, and drunk. The legal issue here is that she is too dead to take that blame. Hence, you get laws.",
"People on here need to realize that you aren't compairing rape to drunk driving. You are trying to establish when one is responsible for one's actions while drunk. Being held accountable sometimes and being a victim other times. This is with the assumption that you have, under your own power, intoxicated yourself and have freely chosen to do some action. Let's say I am simply walking down the street attempting to go home from the bar by my own power, public intoxication is illegal and I would be charged as such let's say the next morning I think \"I didn't want to do that, that was stupid and I wouldn't have made that decision sober\". I am still held responsible for this action and decision made while intoxicated. If i were to consent to sex i wake you the next morning and think \"I didn't want to do that and I wouldn't have made that decision sober\" then I am a victim of rape and not held accountable of my actions and decisions made while drunk. this is regardless of the perpetrator/sexual partner and their state of mind/level of or lack of intoxication. They have a whole different level of responsibility and consequences of their actions. This is about MY responsibility and accountability. Is it accountablity or victim blame to hold this person to the same level of responsibility as the public intoxication offender?",
"As IANAL -- [this may help explain it](_URL_0_) in ELI5 terms.\n\nYou cannot consent to anything done while drunk (say, having sex), but if you perform a (potentially) illegal action on another while *you* are drunk, you are considered culpable for your action, just as if you were sober.",
"They don't hold people responsible for everything but sex; consent in general isn't considered valid if it happens under the influence of drugs or alcohol.",
"I think most people don't enjoy the thought of being fucked while they're passed out. if you're blacked out all night, then you don't know when you passed out. If you got fucked somewhere in that window of time, then you could have been passed out. This is generally a shitty feeling. Because its \"getting fucked\" and not having sex, most of society feels this shitty feeling only applies to women, as men are the one doing the fucking, hence why men are more likely to be persecuted for sex while blacked out than women. Since the human body metabolizes alcohol differently, anyone can claim to be blacked out when they're simply drunk, hence why its controversial issue. ",
"Drunk driving laws aren't about consent. It's about not being able to drive safely due to increased reaction time, etc... \n \nDrunk people can consent to sex as well. Being drunk is not the same as being too drunk to consent. \n \nHow anybody could even begin to think this is a clever analogy is beyond me. ",
"I hate how most of the lucid answers (and there are plenty of muddled ones) use a qualifier in their statements, without standardizing that qualifier. Ess.: \"If you are **too** drunk; Someone not lucid **enough** to consent; Whichever one is **more** drunk, etc. \nWho is to judge that? You? No human is qualified to make that call about another human being on gut instinct alone, not the perspective sex partner, not a judge, and certainly not people in the comments section. \n - \nYou need hard and fast standards by which to judge. Something like 'If you can remember your consent it was valid' or 'Any consent able to be clearly given is valid' or 'Physical participation denotes consent, physical deterrent nullifies and draws the line'. You need clear boundaries if you want to protect anyone; Unclear ones lead to miscarriages of justice on both sides. \n \nAs for those people insisting that sex with anyone having consumed alcohol should be forbidden, they apparently have either been insulated from, or refuse to learn anything from, exposure to our social structure at large. \nWe're an inhibited people, without various substances many people would find socialization difficult. Under the influence they may make mistakes and regret their actions later; But this is true of any venturous action, influenced or not. The idea is that it is better to have done badly, than stayed within the safety of inaction.",
"In fact, \"western society\" does not accept intoxication as a reasonable defense in cases of sexual assault.\n",
"In most (if not all) states, there is no \"too drunk to consent\" standard.\n\nIf you are physically incapable of action - passed out or so inebriated you cannot function at all - it can be rape. If someone slips you an intoxicant without your knowledge for the purposes of lowering your inhibitions, they can be prosecuted for rape.\n\nBut the differing standard you're noting doesn't exist under the law - if you're able to drive drunk, you're able to consent to sex.\n\nNote that institutions - such as colleges - often have their own informal rules that can be enforced because they have considerably more power than the students they're judging and it's unlikely those students will retain lawyers to fight such charges so as to avoid publicity.",
"You are fundamentally incorrect about law in western society. Intoxication can be a legal defense if the intoxication fully eliminates the mental state required for an act to be criminal. Normally, you are never drunk enough to fully eliminate your mental culpability, but it is possible.",
"Have you ever been drunk? If you have, you'll notice that you're still the same person. You can decide to lift your arm, and do so, whereas it will not rise by itself. No amount of drinking will make you do something that you didn't want to do. It may cloud your judgement in a way that doing something seems like a good idea when you're drunk, but not so much when you look back at it in hindsight. But the point remains that every thing you do while drunk, you do because you have decided to do. If you act like an asshat, that's not the alcohol magically taking control over your brain and body, that's all you. At worst, alcohol made you not want to think about the consequences of behaving like an asshat.\n \nIf it's your first time drinking, I think it can be excused since we've all been there. If it's not, I think it's reasonable to assume that you made a conscious decision to drink over your limit (perhaps with the exception of if somebody secretly mixed vodka into your drink, even though you should easily be able to taste it).\n \nRegarding sex, and there are probably cultural and legal differences here, I think it's the same thing. Assuming you're not literally passed out or otherwise unable to communicate, if you indicate consent to sex then it's all fair game. Nothing in alcohol has the potential to change your opinion from a definite 'no' to a 'yes'. Some girls act promiscuously while drunk, and that's 100% because they choose to - it could just be that while sober they're too afraid of getting a bad reputation, and a reason why they might regret it in the morning and say \"it was just the alcohol and I was taken advantage of\" as an excuse and a way to pass the blame to somebody else, absolving her from her promiscuity. If she worries that alcohol turns her into somebody who can't control herself, she needs to learn to not drink that much.\n \nSource: Been massively drinking for 10+ years.",
"Yes, the cop would laugh at you, because you consented to driving and took responsibility when you got behind the wheel of the car. Though, if you had a drunk passenger that consented to getting into your car while you were drunk, and they were harmed by your drunk driving, you'd still be responsible for them. \n\nUnfortunately, sex is less black and white of a situation, but I'd think the same broad rule figuratively applies. If someone is shit-faced drunk and complies, but then later realizes or feels they were harmed, the person who was driving the situation will be accountable.",
"Two different kinds of \"held responsible.\" One is more like getting into a fight, the other is like signing a cell phone contract. I cannot sign a cellphone contract while drunk. I am not considered capable of giving informed consent, which is necessary to make such a contract legal. All this means is that I cannot give consent, but I'm not doing anything wrong.\n\nHowever, I can get into a fight while drunk, and still be responsible for it. I am acting in a way which is criminally irresponsible. I am ACTIVELY commiting a crime. \n\nSo the question hinges not on responsibility, but on the difference between civil and criminal law. If, for instance, I was coerced while drunk into selling a kidney for a burrito and another bottle of Jack, the person who coerced me would be liable for civil damages, since there is no way I could have legally agreed to that while I was drunk, and criminal charges, because there was no legal agreement, making their actions assault. ",
"So another guy that doesn't get the rape consent thing right? \n\nIt's about who is the victim, not about who is drunk. \n\nIf you are drunk and do something bad to someone, you are no less responsible. \n\nIf you are drunk and someone does something bad to you, you are no less of a victim. \n\nI hope that helped.",
"It essentially comes down to giving/receiving consent and the fact that you're talking about compulsory rules and voluntary actions.\n\nYou're required to follow laws at all times and you are essentially consenting to that by default. Some mental incapacities may affect how you are charged, but you're almost never excused from it completely.\n\nIn things like sex or contracts, the legal requirement is to **receive** consent, not give it. Being intoxicated means you are not of the proper mental capacity to consent to those things. Being intoxicated does not excuse you from requiring consent from the other person. So, your title is technically incorrect. If you have sex with someone without their consent, you will be held responsible, even if you're drunk. Whether you're drunk or not, you are required to receive consent from someone in a proper mental state.\n\nPerhaps this is a bit of a simplification, but it essentially covers the main point. You are still held responsible because the legal responsibility is on the person receiving consent."
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4sy29q | how do planes fly straight with one engine down? | I understand that planes can still fly even with only one engine left functioning. However, I can't wrap my head around how they can still fly straight. Wouldn't the greater thrust on one side send it twirling in circles? Do you need to perform specific manoeuvres to keep it flying straight, say, increase drag on the side where the engine is still on? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sy29q/eli5how_do_planes_fly_straight_with_one_engine/ | {
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"I'm a flying instructor, and I've spent many years teaching pilots how to do exactly this.\n\nWhen we talk about a plane turning, we need to be clear on the difference between \"roll\" - when the angle of the wings relative to the horizon changes - and \"yaw\" - when the nose of the plane moves to the left or the right, but it doesn't roll.\n\nThe main effect of an engine failure is yaw. And it just so happens that we have a set of controls which can directly control the yaw - the rudders.\n\n**So the short version is that we use rudders to prevent exactly what you're describing.**\n\nThe long answer needs to add two extra bits of information: what happens immediately when we have an engine failure, and what happens when we continue to fly the aircraft.\n\nImmediately, if we do nothing, the aircraft will yaw - then, this yaw will cause roll. The roll actually causes more yaw, which causes more roll, and we end up in what is technically known as a \"spiral dive\". Because of this, fast reactions are vital - especially if the engine failure happens close to the ground, shortly after take-off, when speeds are low. We achieve this by practicing over and over. It's generally said that an engine failure in a multi-engine aircraft is actually *more* dangerous than an engine failure in a single-engine aircraft, up until the point where you've got the aircraft back under control (and then, of course, it's much safer because you can usually carry on flying).\n\nAs for what happens after that, the aircraft mostly flies normally, but a bit slower and we might have to make sure the fuel gets to the correct engine if we're going any kind of distance. But we need to be aware that every change of power or speed will need the rudder to be altered - and again, this takes practice. A change of power is obvious - increase the power, and we get more yaw from the one good engine, so we need more rudder. But speed is less obvious. The slower we go, the less effective all of the controls become, including the rudder - and that means that the slower we go, the more rudder we will require. Eventually, we get so slow that even the full amount of rudder isn't enough to keep the aircraft under control - and this is something all multi-engine pilots will be very aware of, and will avoid at all costs."
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2pjgus | what is the major hurdle in creating a life form? or is it already bean done? | been*
Today I read about the chances of life in Mars. From what I understood, Mars had almost all the right things and environment for the creation of life forms. So my question is, are our scientists capable of creating life from these things, if not, what are the main hurdles? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pjgus/eli5_what_is_the_major_hurdle_in_creating_a_life/ | {
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"Do you mean what is the difficulty in producing life from inorganic components? There's more or less a missing gap in our current understanding of biogenesis. We know that amino acids, the building blocks of biological life as we know it, will form spontaneous fairly readily if all the elemental components are present in the correct environment. Then, we know that nucleic acids ostensibly existed at one point after those amino acids formed and began reproducing, mutating, and then reproducing in newer, different, eventually insanely complex ways i.e. you and everything else living and quasi-living on the planet. \n\nBetween amino acids and nucleic acids we don't really know what happened. I'm sure a biochemist could explain it better but we know that certain heavier compounds might be used as intermediaries and that there may have been phases to the evolution of complex nucleic acids like DNA (stuff like RNA) but it's a really foggy area. The final answer may be that you just need a lot of time and a lot of variable conditions and a lot of luck, things that are difficult to produce in the necessary amounts in laboratory conditions to really be certain. \n\n**tl;dr** We know how the process -might- start, and we obviously know the eventual results, but there's a key missing gap where something stupidly complicated (or not) happens (or not) and we don't understand the deets yet."
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1bpcq2 | fast inverse square root | what the fuck | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bpcq2/eli5_fast_inverse_square_root/ | {
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"You have a number X and for whatever reason you want to calculate x^−½ . Sometimes however you want to make that calculation very fast. So instead of computing it normally, you can compute an approximation - something very close to the actual number, but not exactly. This allows you to compute it faster.\n\nIt is done by using a simple algorithm you can find [here](_URL_0_). If you don't understand what a certain part of the algorithm does, ask."
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30uz26 | why are humans prone to eye problems that require glasses or contacts? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30uz26/eli5_why_are_humans_prone_to_eye_problems_that/ | {
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"Most eye problems are fairly minor and only cause us trouble because we do unnatural things like try to read text. Serious eye problems are really rare. A little blurryness and you can still see tigers. "
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2rtd3j | how the us was able to sustain 3 massive wars within 20 years (wwii, korea, 'nam), but 13 years in iraq and afghanistan was a strain on the economy | World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam were all fought within a relatively short period. Korea only 6 years after the end of WWII, Vietnam about ten years after Korea. These were large scale conflicts involving large numbers of personnel and equipment.
How was America able to sustain all this warfare, while the low intensity conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan considered such a massive drain on the economy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rtd3j/eli5_how_the_us_was_able_to_sustain_3_massive/ | {
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"A huge percentage of the US manufacturing base was retooled to produce weapons and supplies for the war effort in the 40s. It placed a significant strain on the economy, a lot of products were unavailable for the average consumer during the war.\n\nWars were also simply a lot cheaper back then. Waves of infantry charging up a beach and getting gunned down are a lot less expensive than waves of cruise missiles. Carpet bombing Berlin is cheaper than special forces raids on select targets. The modern US military spends a lot of money it doesn't \"need\" to in order to prevent casualties on both sides.\n\nEven including the 2008 housing crash, the US economy has done fairly well since 2001, certainly better than many other western nations.",
"WWII was a strain, but the rest of the developed world suffered even more, and the US thrived in the lack of competition while the UK and France were still rationing.\n\nKorea was basically an extension of WWII, and really didn't cost that much.\n\nVietnam was a huge strain on the economy, and arguably the economic malaise of the 1970s and early 1980s was more severe that the recession of the late 2000s.",
"Iraq and Afghanistan wars were not considered a drain on the economy. The recession in 2008 was caused by housing prices crashing and banks making stupid decisions.",
"A couple of reasons. First, WWII was also a profitable war, as US Banks loaned lots of money to England mostly but other countries as well. The lend/lease act sold and rented US goods and military equipment to almost everyone, including russia, they got 25% of the food in 42 from the US. The USA also taxed rich people at a rate of 90%, which I think we should look at doing again, simply because there were many industrialist, who became very wealthy, even when being taxed at that rate. Another thing about WWII, we were basically the only industrial country not crippled in one way or other, or just bombed to oblivion. So we have a significant trade surplus for many years after WWII. \n\nThe Korean War, only 325,000 US soldiers served in that war, so from our stand point, not very big. Plus, we had a surplus of leftover weapons from WWII, which we used and supplied to South Korea. Also like Lithuim said, carpet bombing with dumb bombs not even close to as expensive as any smart weaponry. \n\nVietnam, that was jungle warfare for the most part, the most expensive part of that, as cost per unit lost/produced, were the heuys. only the cities had tanks, the aircraft loses were low. \n\nBut there is one other thing you need to consider, for those wars, the majority of the money spent when to US companies, and except for WWII, the wars increased out budgets, but the US had already started spending a lot of money on defense, after russia detonated their nuclear bomb. So army and air force equipment were already being produced to supply them. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nJust look at that chart and you will see, it was when Reagan started with the whole trickle down economics, that the debt started to skyrocket, and the only president since to try correct it was Clinton. that is why I freakin hate, and I mean hate any and all republicans because they have their side convinced that their policies are going to reduce the debt, when in fact they will only make them worse."
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am4fly | how do we not taste the extortionate amount of salt in processed foods? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/am4fly/eli5_how_do_we_not_taste_the_extortionate_amount/ | {
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"You do, that's why they are so tempting for people.\n\nIf you're wondering why they are not too salty to even enjoy, that's because the saltiness is often balanced with sugar and or fat to make it even more palatable. ",
"You get used to the taste. Follow a low salt diet for a few weeks and then eat some canned food. You'll taste the difference immediately. ",
"You get used to a higher level of salt, and it tastes normal. Food without excessive amounts of salt tastes bland. You can reset your taste to less salty food, but it takes time and effort. I speak from personal experience. But I still love salt and pepper potato chips. ",
"It's mixed with spices, sugars, and fats, to the point where it only tastes a little too salty. ",
"\"gimme all your money or I'll tell everyone about that time you dumped three packets of me in your coffee thinking I was sugar!\"\n\n & #x200B;\n\nExtortionate salt."
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527v9l | why do the japanese use so many english words and phrases in common speech? | I don't speak any Japanese and very rarely watch subbed anime, but recently I saw "Good Morning Call" on Netflix and I got curious...
Why do the Japanese use so many English expression while speaking normally? For example "Happy birthday", "Thank you" and "Merry Christmas" instead of the Japanese equivalents. (Yeah I know that Christmas is not an eastern holiday, but they gotta have a word for "happy", right?)
So what's the deal with that? Does it derive from Commodore Perry and the English influence Japan received during the 20th century? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/527v9l/eli5_why_do_the_japanese_use_so_many_english/ | {
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"Before WW2, Japan was very closed off to the rest of the world. After WW2, their government was dismantled and they were forced to become a modern \"Western\" nation in a lot of ways. This was partially driven by a large occupying force of American soldiers. After the official occupation was over, the US military has had a large presence in Japan and continues to do so today.\n\nThis resulted in the Japanese being exposed to a whole bunch of American culture & the English language. ",
"English is a very common language these days: it's a lingua franca, meaning it's a language used when people with different native tongues want to communicate. Additionally, American culture in particular is very popular all over the world, particularly music.\n\nIt's very common for words and phrases from one language to be borrowed by other languages for all sorts of reasons. English has borrowed, for example, \"namaste\" (Hindi), \"über\" (German), \"ciao\" (Italian), \"manga\" (Japanese) and many others.\n\nConversely, many other cultures have borrowed English words and expressions, often because English is heard so much and it's considered \"cool\". Germans, for example, will litter their speech with English expressions like \"sorry\", \"Party\", \"fuck\" (as a swear word), \"last but not least\", \"happy birthday\" and countless others.\n\nThe Japanese are, basically, no exception.",
"Almost all languages have loan words from other languages. I mean, just look at English, which has tons of words with Norse, French and Latin roots, in spite of originally being a Germanic language. Those have been around for centuries, but there are also lots of fairly new additions: Kindergarten, rucksack, angst and coleslaw - just to mention a few.\n\nOther languages usually have a ton of English or other European loan words, because a lot of inventions and research during the past 200 years come from Europe and the USA. For example, \"car\" and \"auto\" are very commonly used throughout the world, and anything related to information technology usually has english rooted words.\n\nThen you also have to consider that English was and still is pretty cool in many countries, so in some cases, English terms became commonly used in spite of having a perfectly fine word in the local language. For example, the word \"Computer\" replaced the German word \"Rechner\", and quite a lot of marketing agencies call themselves a \"Marketingagentur\" instead of the German rooted \"Werbeagentur\". This can be attributed to the massive influence the USA have on media, economy and technology throughout the world, an may be why apparently some Japanese use the term \"happy birthday\" instead of something in their own language.",
"Why not?\n\nI'm seeing \"Senpai\" used around here lately a lot. That may be used ironically for now, but still. English can very well adopt it over time. English uses loan words before. So this wouldn't be unheard of.",
"On top of what everyone else said, English is also seen as being trendy, so that's why people will use phrases like サンキュー or ハッピバースデイ despite there being native equivalents. A lot of the Engrish you'll see on clothes, for example, is basically the Japanese equivalent of Americans getting incorrect hanzi or kanji tattooed on themselves.\n\nAnd obviously, for things like \"Merry Christmas\", because Christmas isn't a native holiday, of course it'd be different. However, if I wanted to directly translate it, one might use a construction like いい~を which I've never seen used much outside of birthdays or New Year, and only in the sense of \"have a good year\".\n\nDisclaimer: Not a native speaker, might be full of shit. ¯\\\\\\_(ツ)_/¯ ",
"Japanese has a large number of words called 'gairaigo' which translates to 'foreign words'. These words are written using one of their 3 alphabets called 'katakana'. \nA lot of these words come from English but there are many which were/are imported from other languages. An example of this is 'pan' and 'resutoran' which come from the French words 'pain'(bread) and 'restaurant'(restaurant). \n\nThe Portuguese were the first European country to contact the Japanese therefore there are a lot of words of Portuguese origin used in Japanese. Examples are arukouru(alcohol), furasuko(flask) and kirisuto(Christ).\n\nOther interesting borrowed words are 'rentogen'(X-Ray) and 'hocchikisu'(stapler) which derive from the inventors' names.\n\nI didn't really answer the questions but figured I'd talk a little bit about load words.",
"I live in Argentina and we use some English expressions here to. Such as 'what the fuck' or 'shit' or pretty much anything technology related, we could say \"memoria de acceso aleatorio\" but we use \"Random acceso memory\" (RAM). I think in a way this is to avoid any confusion and to be able to read and understand English text with technical terms, but is also because we see you as eveything you think of yourself (better country than ours, the owners of America, we love your movies and music) so we copy you in the same way a small brother copy his big brother so he can be more like him, but by doing that he is not being authentic and everyone thinks he is stupid",
"Languages are not one to one in many cases. Many words and phrases are untranslatable or have connotations that don't exist in the target language. Take the English word \"schadenfreude\". This is a loan word from German but has no single word synonym in English. Or how about the English phrase \"Bon Appétit\"? That connotation simply isn't expressed in the phrases \"enjoy your meal\" which sounds a lot clunkier. Note that these are English words because they are pronounced using English language vowels and consonants, NOT the sounds used in the language of origin. Germans and French pronounce \"schadenfreude\" and \"Bon Appétit\" different when speaking their languages.\n\nSo when you hear Japanese people speak, they are not using English words. They are using Japanese words that have an English origin, especially when they pronounce them using Japanese vowels and consonants. Take for example the English word *hamburger*. This is a loan word in Japanese, ハンバーガー. However, it is now a Japanese word, because using Japanese vowels and consonants, it is pronounced *Hanbāgā*.\n\nThere's also a matter of convenience. A word in one language may have fewer syllables than a word that means something similar in another language. If someone knows both, then the word with fewer syllables could be used instead. Compare the English word *civilization*, with 5 syllables, to the Japanese word 文明 (bunmei), which has only two syllables. When it comes to a phrase like \"happy birthday\", if the target language has something that means the same thing, but has more syllables, \"happy birthday\" will be used simply because it's shorter. But again, it won't be the English phrase \"happy birthday\", but rather a phrase that only uses the vowels and consonants of that language.\n\nIn Japanese in particular, *happy birthday* can translate to お誕生日おめでとうございます (Otanjōbiomedetōgozaimasu), which is a MUCH longer phrase. It can also be translated (loosely) as やった (yatta), but that's more a general exclamation of excitement, like \"yay!\" rather than wishing a particular person happy birthday.\n\nSo tl;dr, Japanese speakers may use \"happy birthday\" because the Japanese equivalent is more complicated.",
"Because it adds **zest** and a **joie de vivire** a certain **je ne sais quoi** to language.",
"Japan is old, so when it comes time to pick words for new things, they pick what they're being called elsewhere. \n\nEnglish is a popular 2nd language to learn (in the US, we don't all learn a 2nd language the way other countries do - we may take a few classes in HS, but they take it more serious). \n\nThey consume western media (thank Hollywood for that). Attitudes towards each other have changed a lot since WWII. It's been mutually beneficial to be friends, and being friends means that we consume each other's media cultures. \n\nAll that combined, if they need to pick a word for \"hamburger\", they're going to end up seeing what we call it anyway, and since we're on good terms, they use it too. \n\n\n\n",
"You might be interested to know Japanese culture are not the only ones to do this either. South America is heavily influenced by America and English speaking countries. It is fashionable to wear clothing with English on it and say English phrases"
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7yn6j9 | is real gdp better for telling the real size of an economy than nominal gdp? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yn6j9/eli5_is_real_gdp_better_for_telling_the_real_size/ | {
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"Certainly. Nominal GDP doesn't correct for inflation, so the productivity seems to go up any time there is inflation.",
"Real GDP is inflation-adjusted nominal GDP. This is really useful when you compare one economy over time - since goods usually tend to become more expensive, pure nominal GDP does not tell you the full story.\n\nBut when we look at a single country in one year, the nominal GDP might be enough, depending what you want to find out.\n\nIf you want to make cross-country comparisons, again depending on your interest, GDP per capita, GDP adjusted for buying power, or other adjustments might be more useful for you. \n\nGross national income (GNI) might also be more useful - GDP shows you all goods produced in one country, while GNI shows you all goods produced by the residents of one country. GNI basically adds the money earned by residents abroad, and substracts money earned in the country by residents of another country. For example, the European Union uses this to calculate financial obligations of member countries - since personal income taxes are a big part of government income, and frontier workers pay taxes in the country of residence, this is much more useful than the GDP (which might lead to a case where almost all residents of a small country work abroad, but pay taxes in that country, so that country doesn't have to pay much to the EU)\n"
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uy5yi | why dont we bang solar panels on aeroplanes? | i mean obviously it couldn't power the plane or anything, but it could do the power for lights and heating and things, and surely this would reduce the CO^2 footprint, and like you dont have to contend with weather or anything for light
(aslong as you store the charge from daytime flights for the smaller majority of nighttime flights) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uy5yi/eli5_why_dont_we_bang_solar_panels_on_aeroplanes/ | {
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"There are two primary issues with this: weight of the solar panels themselves, and the power storage system. The first one of those is probably the biggest issue right now. If you put solar panels on the plane, you have to increase the amount of fuel you use to fly the plane due to their weight, which is not trivial. I doubt that it makes sense right now. Rather than use jet fuel to haul around solar panels to make electricity, it is probably better both economically and environmentally to just use jet fuel to generate electricity from the turbines. \n \nIf, however, you could do something like harvest electricity from a thin, paint-like coating, it might be a good idea. That's not realistic right now, but it might be do-able in the not too distant future. Of course, you have to worry about wear of the coating, exposure to extreme temperatures, ice, etc. So even with a futuristic paint-on solar panel, it's not like you could just slap it on and everybody goes home happy. You also have to be able to store the power, and I don't know if you'd have to beef up the existing batteries on the plane to do this. ",
"No real benefit. Onboard electricity demands are pretty negligible compared to the power needed to keep the plane flying.\n\nAnd a real downside in that they would increase the load the plane has to carry.",
"Heat is *very* expensive to generate using electricity yet is completely free on a jet aircraft, just as it is completely free in an internal combustion engine vehicle. Heating is a real problem for electric cars. "
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aup1x6 | colloidal silver? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aup1x6/eli5_colloidal_silver/ | {
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"Silver does have very low level anti bacterial properties. It saw some use back before penicillin class antibiotics came around. Most people that use it have hugely inflated ideas of its efficacy but it's not snake oil per say "
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6llflw | why do highways cause more traffic? | Some time ago, I heard that highways, counterintuitively, cause more traffic than normal roads in cities. What is the reason exactly?
Thx in advance | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6llflw/eli5_why_do_highways_cause_more_traffic/ | {
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"Highways make more people travel by car. This effect is often bigger then the size of the highway so you might inadvertently cause traffic to move slower. For example if you were to build a highway from a city to a nearby town then a lot of people will move out of the city to the town and a lot of the people living in the town would take work in the city instead of locally. And not only work but people would go to the city more often for events and other things. So by creating the highway you now have a massive increase in traffic."
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1u2pxy | is it important to try to keep someone conscious when they're hurt and dying? | First, a bit of context: We've all seen hundreds of movies in which one character gets shot/stabbed/injured in some way, and another character is by their side trying to keep them conscious for as long as possible. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don't. The longer I think about this, the more questions I have, so sorry about asking so many. If the specificity of the injury is important in order to answer any of the questions, feel free to go with "shot in the chest/stomach area (and loosing a ton of blood?)," or whatever helps you make your point.
1. If I somehow found myself in a situation where I was with someone who was teetering on the edge of consciousness, should I try to do the same thing as I've seen in movies? Does it increase their chances of surviving the injury? If so, why?
2. My hunch is that it somehow lowers the chances of a person going into a coma. If that hunch is correct, how could it possibly make any difference to the brain whether the person is conscious or not, from a scientific standpoint?
3. This is more of a psychological question: Hypothetically, if there wasn't risk of entering into a coma, would it make any difference if they were conscious or not? Is it hard to keep yourself from passing out after being potentially fatally wounded? If so, why? And is it really a question of will power? Maybe it's somehow like throwing up--if you "fight it," it's less likely to happen then if you decide to just go into the bathroom and not "fight it" (but not necessarily gag yourself).
5. A related question: If one were to get some sort of concussion, is it important to stay awake as long as possible, or does it not really make sense after a certain point?
6. Another related question (and what got me thinking about this in the first place): I have a friend who burned his finger while cooking and the pain caused him to feel like fainting. In this situation, would it be a bad idea for him to allow himself to faint (assuming he could make it to a bed or couch)? The key here is that he's in no grave danger, it's just a painful accident. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u2pxy/eli5_is_it_important_to_try_to_keep_someone/ | {
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"Movies aren't real. Most scriptwriters have not been in life or death situations - they've only experienced the situation through movies. When you see something in a movie that doesn't make sense, there's a good chance you're just seeing it because somebody is copying what they've seen in other movies.\n\nAs for keeping people conscious, it's only important because a conscious person can tell you what's wrong with them. You can't tell if an unconscious person is in pain from internal injuries that you can't see."
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2j2bkd | why do so many people believe the fake stories shared on facebook? | For example; the story about the seeing eye dog rescuing hundreds of people on 9/11. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j2bkd/eli5_why_do_so_many_people_believe_the_fake/ | {
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"It is an order of magnitude more difficult to refute bullshit then to create it.",
"Many of these stories, such as the example you provided, are happy feel good stories. This makes people want to believe them and there is generally at least somewhat believable. People would rather just accept these stories as true and feel happy instead of putting in extra effort to find out they aren't true. Basically they do not feel the need to put in the extra effort to lose the good feelings the story created.",
"People simply don't check the sources. They only care about the appearance of the story and whether it's interesting or not.",
"It's easier to believe it than question it. Something that is on paper or on a website doesn't require thought, it requires you to read. Questioning what you see would take common sense and thought. A lot of people just regard it as true because it's on the internet."
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3qdgr5 | why isn't there a mass immigration in canada from the us? | According to reddit (specially from r/worldnews or r/politics) , Canada seems some much better than US in terms of Labour laws, Medicare etc. May be this is a shower thought . | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qdgr5/eli5_why_isnt_there_a_mass_immigration_in_canada/ | {
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"canada is in general more expensive to live than the US. its also generally a lot colder. if a sudden influx of people appeared in canada, chances are the vast majority wouldn't be able to get jobs anyway so what good are labor laws then?",
"The reality is that Canada is not far better than the US. They are not far worse either.\n\nIf you listen to r/worldnews or r/politics you could come to believe that the US is some 3rd world police state. The reality is the US is a fairly good place to live. ",
"Uprooting your life, leaving everything you've ever known, and starting over in a new country is incredibly difficult. It's not something you want to do unless your current situation really is hopeless. People in America don't feel that their lives would improve all that much to justify the effort.\n\nPlus, developed countries like Canada don't just let anyone in, there's likely a long and expensive immigration process.",
"Why would there be mass immigration? There are no ground wars in the US or Canada. The majority of Americans and Canadians have comfortable lives and raise their families in peace. We're both HUGE countries, but we are allies, and we don't persecute one another. Our governments might be a little different, but basically we're pretty homogeneous. Also, the Canadian dollar is worth approximately 76 cents in the US. And Canada is cold. ",
"Because the idea of America being a dystopia that is falling apart at the seems is a bunch of bullshit spouted by idiotic American teenagers who think they live a hard life because they can't afford a brand new iPhone every year and European trolls. There really is not much difference between living in Canada, USA or Europe except that Canada is really boring.",
"* people mobile enough to immigrate often can make more money in the US\n* not everyone wants to uproot their lives for what would be a slight increase in standard of living\n* it is cold in Canada, especially in the places that would be affordable to immigrants",
"Life in the US is not as bad as angry teenagers on Reddit would have you believe. It has its downsides, sure, but every place has its problems. Overall it's not too bad for most people."
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36cqqg | how autistic people can do anything. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36cqqg/eli5_how_autistic_people_can_do_anything/ | {
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"I'm closing in on 50 and my brain races as much as it ever did to the point that severe depression has taken hold. I was an engineer but have been out of work for two years trying to get a grip in an alien world that I just don't belong in any more. It is getting harder and harder. New relationships are hard. Existing ones are few, but solid. The key, I think, is to accept who and what you are, and find your niche without the pressure to conform. These have certainly been my mistakes."
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8i4y39 | if species is defined as a group of organisms able to produce offspring with each other, how do biologists classify species that reproduce asexually? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8i4y39/eli5_if_species_is_defined_as_a_group_of/ | {
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"Turns out there are lots of different species concepts and not a single concept that works for every species. You are describing the 'biological species concept', but species concepts exist that define species by their role in the environment, their physical appearance, their evolutionary history, etc. Many of those concepts work well for asexually reproducing species. Ultimately, scientists go by the concept that works best for the group they are studying. ",
"Species *isn't* defined as a group of organisms able to produce offspring with one another.\n\nThis is a handy rule of thumb for many circumstances, but it doesn't work in many others. As you noted, there is an entire kingdom of asexual species that it doesn't work for. Additionally, there are separate species that *can* reproduce, and even produce fertile hybrid species. This isn't even particularly rare. Beyond that, there are even animals considered to be the *same* species where certain populations are *unable* to reproduce with others, as in ring species. \n\nSpecies itself is a difficult concept to define, and pretty much every attempt to define it has exceptions or flaws that prevent it from being applied perfectly. \n",
" > If species is defined as a group of organisms able to produce offspring with each other\n\nThat is not how species is defined. It is a useful guide, but the real definition is fuzzier than that, and scientists will often disagree whether to populations are differentiated enough to be considered separate species.\n\nOf course, such a metric is completely inapplicable when it comes to creatures that reproduce only by asexual means. Other factors are taken into account, and in general, the notion of species with quite a bit fuzzier."
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8zeqvl | is there a such thing as absolute silence, and if so, what is its decibel level? | I know that sound can measure at negative decibel levels, being that the decibel scale is logarithmic instead of linear; I remember even reading as a kid that the average person can hear down to 0 dB and some people with great hearing can go down to -10.
So what is the decibel level of pure silence (i.e. no sound whatsoever), if it even exists in the first place? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8zeqvl/eli5_is_there_a_such_thing_as_absolute_silence/ | {
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"If absolute silence existed, its decibel level would be negative infinity. The decibel scale is logarithmic, with the decibel value representing an exponent. There is no value n such that 10^n = 0, so a logarithmic scale cannot represent an absolute value of zero.\n\n",
"The sound decibel scale is about the amplitude of variations in the air pressure relative to a threshold that you can perceive(2 uPa). Absolute silence would require 0 variation, which would turn into -∞ dB SPL, this isn't achievable because there will always be tiny variations\n\nThe best sound chamber in the world is at -9.4 dBA which is obscenely quiet. dBA weights dB measurements for each frequency based off how sensitive we are to them, the threshold of hearing comes in around 11 dBA so this sound chamber is extraordinarily quiet, you would hear your own blood moving and it'd be weird.",
"Microsoft has an underground lab called the 'anechoic lab' and actually won the Guiness World record for the quietest at \n-20 decibels.\n"
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2fopxh | how do you tell that a picture is photoshopped? besides the obvious. for example, the dream house or nope house, looked plausible to me... | I mean sure it would be a pain to build in the side of a cliff and I would have no idea where to start, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. So, are there any dead giveaways for photoshopped pictures? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fopxh/eli5_how_do_you_tell_that_a_picture_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckb8zn5"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Directional shadows. Dead giveaway. "
]
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|
g35r9y | why do video games tend to require a loading screen when you walk into a building? i’m thinking about games like skyrim which let you roam their huge open world without any loading but require a load screen to enter a small building. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g35r9y/eli5_why_do_video_games_tend_to_require_a_loading/ | {
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"some random trees and bushes are lighter than a bunch of houses full of trinkets, and only what's near is loaded, so you can guess what happens when you load a city full of open houses",
"A couple possibilities come into mind. First, towns tend to be a lot more dense. That is, there's a bunch of stuff in a relatively small space. If all the interiors of all the buildings had to be rendered when you enter the city, it may exceed the ability of many systems to render well. So to mitigate this, the game waits until the player enters a building before rendering it.\n\nAnother possible reason is simply to allow more modular programming. The interior of the building doesn't have to exactly match the outside dimensions, allowing the developers a little more room to make elaborate interiors without worrying that they might infringe on the constraints imposed by the exterior. So you can have one map designer working on the overall layout of the town while another works on the interiors without worrying about potential conflict.",
"This makes me want to ask a similar question, why is it that in some games, when I die loading takes as long as if I just opened the game and loaded that file? At times the save was literally 5 feet from where I died",
"Depends on the game. Some games, like World of Warcraft, stream assets in all the time. As you walk, the game unloads things far away and loads things you're moving towards. This is nice, but harder to develop and requires some spare processing power and memory. Some older consoles just don't have the capacity. Some games, like, say, Final Fantasy 12, just *don't* implement dynamic loading due their target hardware.\n\nFF12 was originally made for the PS2, which doesn't have as much RAM as a modern computer. The recent Steam release of FF12 makes the small zones seem laughable in the face of what a game like Doom Eternal considers a single zone. FF12 was probably a fantastic experience when it was first released but now the small zones may seem awkward, as walking from one town to the other consists of relatively small areas with a loading screen between each.\n\nBack to World of Warcraft, you can walk across an entire continent with no loading screen but if you get teleported/summoned, you hit a loading screen. Why? Dynamic loading takes time. It has to take some time to pre-load things near you to set the system up, as well as unload things farther away (which, admittedly, is far quicker a process).",
"In the case of Skyrim their loading system is tied to cells. A cell in the engine Skyrim uses is a certain size, and when you enter that cell everything in it is loaded into memory. They don't just load the cell you are in, they also load a certain number of cells around the cell you are in. Outside this load distance they switch to lower level of detail objects to save on memory and rendering time.\n \nThe benefit of this is that you always know exactly what is loaded in, and it's easy for a developer to understand it because it based on defined spaces. The downside is that the game will load data you might never see.\n\nLet's say you enter a cell that has a giant wall down the middle of it. You can never see what's on the other side of the wall or go over there, but there's a bunch of assets over there. Because they are in the same cell as the player they are loaded into memory even though it's impposible for the player to see it. A lot of memory is used on things the player can never see.\n\nBecause of this they put buildings into their own cells. When you use a door or cave that uses a loading screen you are going into a completely different cell that only has the interior loaded. This means they are not using memory to load the interiors of buildings unless they have to.\n\nOther games use a somewhat more dynamic loading system. In Assassin's Creed: Odyssey if you enter a cave you don't have a loading screen, but you might notice that caves all look very similar and simple. They do this to help save on memory as you enter the cave. Further into the cave suddenly you might find lots of unique props. They are using that entrance to the cave to give the game time to unload parts of the world outside and load the next part of the cave. If you walk backwards in a cave and look out the mouth of the cave you'll see a point where suddenly it goes really bright and you can't see anything outside. This is where they are unloading the outside world. \n\nYou can find open interiors of buildings, but they are rather some in design and assets. If you pay real close attention you'll notice many buildings with interiors are set away from other buildings, or have large open areas around them compared to buildings that don't have an interior. This might be how they ensure there's enough free memory for the extra assets needed for building interiors. Ubisoft doesn't provide any information on how the loading system works unfortunantly, so we can only determine what's going on by looking at locations in game.\n\nFor linear games there's all sorts of tricks to mask loading time. One of the more commons ones is slowing the player down so the game has time to load. This might mean the player character litterally slows down to very slow walking speed (Arkham Asylum loved doing this, and put Batman on his radio so it seemed like he was really listening). More recently games have been forcing player characters to crawl very slowly through narrow spaces, which masks a load. Tomb Raider loves using this one."
]
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||
9ivvbj | how is sound transmitted via a landline? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ivvbj/eli5_how_is_sound_transmitted_via_a_landline/ | {
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"With electricity. Sound is physical movement— specifically movement of air. But if air presses against a microphone, the movement of the mic will generate a changing electrical voltage. This can be sent down a wire. \n\nThis voltage can then be applied to a speaker. It causes the speaker to move, which pushes on air, and in turn generates sound. \n\nThis is the basic principal. There is usually an amplifier involved so you can use more power to move the speaker than was originally taken in by the microphone... since neither is very efficient. This is similar to how a cell phone or CD player, which generate small signals, can be hooked up to a big speaker system to play music loudly. "
]
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||
73cmf3 | the market crash of 2008 was about the housing market. so how was it able to impact the entire market as a whole? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73cmf3/eli5_the_market_crash_of_2008_was_about_the/ | {
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"The first source was that it hit the banks. They had a ton of mortgage paper, and they were leveraged. In other words, they borrowed money to buy those mortgages. For every dollar of cash they had, they'd buy thirty dollars of mortgages. When them value of those dropped, they were wiped out -- if that thirty dollars is now worth 29, you've lost your first dollar, so are at even. So you try to sell. But that pushes the prices lower, so more people are forced to sell. \n\nSo that's the banks, where a lot of, well, banking happens. Now banks and other people need more cash to support themselves. But if you can't sell the mortgage stuff, you start selling anything else you have, even -- or especially -- stuff that has held its value until then. That's how the rest of the market gets hit. Got a few hundred million dollars of Apple stock? Sell it to get cash to keep the rest of your operation going. ",
"The market as a whole was heavily invested in mortgages. They would bundle a bunch of mortgages together into a *mortgage-backed security* that people could buy, sell, or trade. If a high enough percentage of people paid off their mortgage, the security paid out. If enough people defaulted, the security went kaput. They were seen as an amazing investment, because who defaults on their mortgage? Basically nobody. That's like, the #1 bill that you pay every month. Before water and electricity and all that, you pay the mortgage. \n\nSo since they were seen as such a sure bet, Wall Street bet billions on mortgages. They took those mortgage-backed securities and bundled them together even more into things called *Collateralized debt obligations* (CDOs), and they bet even more billions that *those* wouldn't fail. And then they bundled CDOs together into CDO^(2)s and bet even *more* billions!\n\nAll this money was changing hands, trading MBSs and CDOs and CDO^(2)s back and forth at inflated values, all based on the assumption that people would pay their mortgages. Nobody actually took the time to check at an individual level if the mortgages were good or not. And, thanks to the housing bubble and lax, get-a-mortgage-today screening requirements, many of the mortgages were *not* good. They would never be paid back - they were taken by people who just wanted to flip a house and make some profit. When the bubble popped, these people were left holding outrageous mortgages that they couldn't afford to pay, so they defaulted. And when enough of them defaulted, the mortgage-backed securities started going kaput. All that money that was invested in \"these mortgages will not fail\" just disappeared from the market. Poof, gone. ",
"It had mostly to do with the dismantling of laws that separated investment banking from retail banking. Investment banks like Goldman Sachs declared themselves FDIC-backed retail banks and retail banks, like Bank of America began engaging in investment banking. This, combined with the shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a services-based economy, as well as wealth disparity caused more high-risk and high-leveraged investing in the entire banking sector. Banks created increasingly risky and speculative financial products, such as Credit Default Swaps (CDS's), which were instruments that took bundles of loans (mostly mortgages and auto loans), and auctioned them off with the belief that those loans would not be defaulted on by the borrowers. When a wave of defaults did happen (the bubble burst), the purchasers of CDS's won out, and the banks that sold them lost. They aggressively foreclosed on homes, and lobbied for bailouts to keep from failing (they were Too Big To Fail). The entire credit market, centered on home mortgages and auto loans was impacted and banks-all banks since the investment/retail banking divide was removed-were unable and unwilling to lend which caused businesses to stop hiring and expanding causing wage stagnation, unemployment, and economic stagnation. It also caused wealth to trickle up into the pockets of those rich enough and astute enough to make the gambles that ended up paying off, but that also caused the crash to begin with. Even the firms that failed but were bailed out won because they received hundreds of billions of dollars in government money which they used to continue being profitable and continue engaging in reckless speculation. \n\nI'm not an economist, but from what I understand, this is what happened. If you're a rich-people apologist, you will of course focus on the working and middle class people who took out absurd loans on houses and cars they couldn't afford. These were dumb decisions on their part, but I happen to believe the burden of responsibility falls on those who specialize in finance and regulatory laws. It was the greed of financial firms that created the regulatory environment that caused the easy credit that resulted in people taking out crazy loans the made the credit bubble inflate. And it is those same people that continue to support a similar environment today. Investment and retail banking continue to be one and the same, wealth inequality continues to grow, high leveraged and high-risk investment and speculation continue to happen, and all of this will eventually lead to the same predictable outcome of a future recession or depression."
]
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43jfpt | being that we're able to find planets a habitable zone far throughout our galaxy, how is it that we've yet to find all the planets in our own solar system? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43jfpt/eli5_being_that_were_able_to_find_planets_a/ | {
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"It's easy to see a planet's silhouette in front of another star or to have light reflect off of the planet. The planet they just discovered is completely in the dark. The only reason they think it's there is because of how the gravitational pull in that area should work.",
"We find exoplanets by watching their stars wobble and change brightness. Then it's a matter of math to determine distance between star and planet, with some guessing too. If we estimate the size of the star wrong, we'll get the size/orbit of its planets wrong too.\n\nPlanet x however. Is very far outside the habitable zone. It never passes between us and our star. If it eclipses another star, we'll have to be watching that star on that day to see its brightness change. We can only guess its location by watching how comets and such move and vary over time. Maybe some wobble in the orbit of other planets. \n\nBut if X is not currently approaching Neptune or Pluto, it might be another century before X is close enough to wobble either enough for us to see it. It's barely been 1 Neptune year since we discovered it. At that time instruments might not have been good enough to detect the wobble. Or they were, and got brushed off as instrument/user error. Just chop off a decimal point."
]
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1pp989 | half life of a single atom or radioactive elements in magma | Radioactivity seems to require a group of atoms. If you monitor a single atom watching for it to decay, will it ever? If it does, what can you say about the time it took?
Say you have magma with some radioactive element in it. I've heard there are dating techniques that allow you to determine when the lava hardened. This makes it sound like the radioactivity and half lives only come into play when the stuff hardens but wouldn't the material be halving its life while still in the liquid magma too? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pp989/eli5_half_life_of_a_single_atom_or_radioactive/ | {
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" > If you monitor a single atom watching for it to decay, will it ever?\n\nYes.\n\n > If it does, what can you say about the time it took?\n\nIt's probabilistic. After < half life > years, there is a 50% chance that the atom would have decayed.\n\n > Say you have magma with some radioactive element in it. I've heard there are dating techniques that allow you to determine when the lava hardened. This makes it sound like the radioactivity and half lives only come into play when the stuff hardens but wouldn't the material be halving its life while still in the liquid magma too?\n\nYou are correct that the material will be decaying while in the magma. But there are some behaviors that still allow us to use half-lives to date when rocks solidified. For example, [potassium–argon dating](_URL_0_). Potassium-40 decays into argon-40, but unlike the potassium, argon is able to escape from the magma, so only potassium remains. But once the magma solidifies, the argon builds up, instead, so we can use the ratio of potassium to argon to determine the age of the rock.",
" > This makes it sound like the radioactivity and half lives only come into play when the stuff hardens but wouldn't the material be halving its life while still in the liquid magma too?\n\nOften the daughter products of radioactive isotopes have very different chemical or physical properties than their parents, that cause them to be separated in a dynamic system like molten rock. Potassium-40 is a solid but it decay into a gas. Certain crystals that form in lava like uranium but hate lead. These products would escape molten rock, but the fact they still there tells us when the rock became solid. "
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%93Ar_dating"
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3hzp4o | how come a full lobster is listed as market price but lobster tail usually has a steady price? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hzp4o/eli5_how_come_a_full_lobster_is_listed_as_market/ | {
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"text": [
"Lobsters are sold live, lobster tails are frozen. There are many more market forces that come into play for transporting live lobster.",
"Tails can be \"graded\" by size and purchased in bulk. Moreover, a restaurant can enter into a contract with a supplier: for the next six months, here's our price list. \n\nSo all the lobster tails are 6 ounces or 9 ounces or whatever size you want to buy/sell/prepare. IF the market price of tails rises, the proprietor doesn't have to change the price on the menu, Instead they can either \"eat\" the lost margin OR they serve a slightly smaller tail (move from a 9 ounce to a seven ounce). \n\nWhole lobster? Those are fresh and the price varies daily -- often dramatically. ",
"Lobster tail can be harvested during surplus and stored (in fact, by definition they have to be preserved for transport, so further storage won't hurt it), but live lobster has to be harvested in that season and they're a lot more perishable. "
]
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||
1s9le9 | why doesn't anyone pose sanctions on the united states? | I know the US is basically a global hegemon, but why don't other countries propose sanctions against the US for all the international laws it breaks and turmoil it causes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s9le9/eli5_why_doesnt_anyone_pose_sanctions_on_the/ | {
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"text": [
"1) they have no reason to\n\n2) good luck trying to impose economic control the world's biggest economy\n\n3) good luck surviving without US trade",
"Many countries are linked economically to the United States. Sanctions against the United States will impact the domestic sectors of an economy that rely on the United States to do business. \n\nMuch of the United States actions result in stable world-wide markets. This development benefits any country that engages in large amounts of trade, which also happen to be the most influential. ",
"A country large enough to make a impact would be devastated by the lack of US Trade. A country small enough to not be devastated by a lack of US Trade would not make a impact. "
]
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2twbk1 | why or why not would mandatory gun carry laws work? | Thought about this while listening to GTAV radio. Proposition 2048 or something. Mandatory carry, which implies it requires everyone to have a concealed gun. So robbing places would be dumb because you know someone will and can shoot you.
In a perfect world where guns are accepted and recommended, and it will be perfectly safe to shoot someone in case of a crime without you getting in trouble, with of course evidence. Why or why wouldn't this work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2twbk1/eli5_why_or_why_not_would_mandatory_gun_carry/ | {
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"Too many unprofessionals. lazy People not keeping the videos or equipment maintained to prove innocence. treating it like a toy. ",
"You would end up with a large number of people carrying a deadly weapon that they don't know how to use correctly. It would be like forcing all the 15 year olds to get out on the highway and drive without training.",
"That's a paradox: In a perfect world, a gun wouldn't be needed.\n\nCrimes would take a step up if everybody carried guns. A mother of five is still going to be the victim if a crook who now is a gun slinger by law wants her stuff. There's also a lot of paranoid people who would shoot people willy-nilly \"because they looked threatening\". Better safe than sorry, right?\n\nIt's wrong for crooks to shoot people, but it's also wrong to shoot crooks. A higher murder rate, no matter who the victims were, would not be a good thing. We live in a society along with other people. We're not alone against the world."
]
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2mtm7o | why would obama need to start a petition for net neutrality? what weight does his opinion hold? | I would have thought *the President of the United States of America* could make it happen without a petition.
.
Thanks peeps.
Much love,
Tez.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mtm7o/eli5_why_would_obama_need_to_start_a_petition_for/ | {
"a_id": [
"cm7hvis"
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"score": [
3
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"text": [
"The President seems to hold less acting power than the House and Senate. So Obama needs to persuade the common people to support Net Neutrality, so that the Legislative branch gets scared into supporting it too, out of fear of losing their seats."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
21fsrw | how does somebody investing money in my startup make him money? and if he keeps the revenue what money do i make? do i get my income in salary or investors money is my money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21fsrw/eli5_how_does_somebody_investing_money_in_my/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgclk8l"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"1) They effectively own part of the company. \n\n2) You usually don't give away 100% of the ownership of the company\n\n3) Not sure I understand. If you own a start up you pay yourself a salary. This should come from the operation of your start up which may be funded in part by investors."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
56j4i6 | what happens to the energy produced when an engine is revved? | Say you're in park and you rev your engine. If the energy produced by the engine isn't going to the wheels to propel the car, where does it go/how is it spent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56j4i6/eli5_what_happens_to_the_energy_produced_when_an/ | {
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"text": [
"It's going into heat, as any physics student could have told you. Specifically, the hot gasses are producing lots of hot exhaust blowing out into the atmosphere, and a good part of them are heating the cylinder head which will heat the coolant. Also the increased friction of higher revs will heat the coolant and oil. A small part of the energy goes into the sound produced.",
"The energy is released as heat waste, kinetic energy in the moving parts, and sound waves. Most of the kinetic energy is spent in the transmission and shafts, even though they are not moving the wheels, they have spinning flywheels inside. "
]
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[],
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|
66r1wc | what's the point of lips being so soft? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66r1wc/eli5_whats_the_point_of_lips_being_so_soft/ | {
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"text": [
"I would imagine it is so that it could be contorted to any shape to provide a good seal for sucking."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3d9lsn | why is it that a mobile phone's signal indicator bars seem accurate, but wifi signal bars have no bearing on reality? | In different locations in one's home/office, internet speed/bandwidth can vary drastically, yet this is rarely indicated in the wifi signal bars. Why do our computers lie to us about wifi signal strength? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d9lsn/eli5_why_is_it_that_a_mobile_phones_signal/ | {
"a_id": [
"ct36ero"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Your router does a lot of load balancing, and transmits data through different channels. Depending on the number of devices connected, and their location relative to the router/other wireless networks, wireless devices will be automatically assigned different channels to use. \n\nNot all channels are created equally, and some are slower than others. Some slower channels can broadcast a signal farther, while other short range channels offer the most bandwidth. \n\nIf you are on a 'slow' channel, you can still have a 'full' wifi connection, with unexpectedly slow speeds, and that is most likely what you are experiencing. People get around this by manually connecting to the 'best' channel. \n\nTo get more of a feel for wireless signals, I suggest downloading a 'wifi sniffer' app. This will display channel info, and some other neat goodies. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
376oxg | what are the white dots i see when i cough too hard? | Sometimes I will have a coughing attack which will lead to these floating white dots that go all over my vision. I have always called them 'Fireflies' because I have no other explanation for them. They seem to have random paths. What are they and what is really going on when I cough too hard and see them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/376oxg/eli5_what_are_the_white_dots_i_see_when_i_cough/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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2
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"text": [
"They are called [phospenes.](_URL_0_) Basically, when you cough, there is a sudden change of pressure in your eye. Neurons in the back of your eye respond to light usually, but they can also respond to changes in pressure. When they are stimulated, they fire off signals to the brain. Since they are neurons from the eye, the brain thinks that there must be trying to communicate about light. That's why you see white dots when you cough too hard, but you can also get them if you press on your eye. Even Issac Newton once described how if you press on one side of the eye, you get a colored ring on the opposite side. ",
"[here](_URL_0_) is your answer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene"
],
[
"https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120716114104AAAKshd"
]
] |
|
75ozgg | how does scanning. electron microscopy work and how does it differ from transmission electron microscopy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75ozgg/eli5_how_does_scanning_electron_microscopy_work/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Scanning electron microscopes fire electrons at a surface and a sensor measures the electrons that bounce back. This gives a 3D \"map\" of the surface structure.\n\nTransmission electron microscopes fire electrons at a material and a sensor measures the electrons that pass through. This gives a 2D map of the 3D internal structure of the material, much like an X-ray."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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5pjend | why do women seem to have a harder time losing weight than men? i've known several guys who said they cut out soda and lost 20-50+lbs, but i never hear stories like that from women, even on a smaller scale. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pjend/eli5_why_do_women_seem_to_have_a_harder_time/ | {
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"My experience is that women in general are more aware of how many calories we're consuming in the first place because we're inundated with weight-loss information in the media that's targeted at us. I know a lot of guys who eat and drink a ton of calories that they're not even aware of, or think something like an ice cream dessert is \"just a little snack\" and doesn't really count when it's got more calories in it than I'd eat in an average lunch. \n\nSo if a guy decides at 30 or so to start counting calories, he might realize that cutting out soda would make a huge difference. Whereas a woman who's been reading women's magazines since she was 12 already knows that, and if she hasn't cut out soda yet it's probably because she really likes soda or has some kind of emotional attachment to it. \n\n(My experience might not be totally normal here because I've struggled with eating disorders from a very young age. But it seems like a lot of people I know have similar experiences.)",
"Part of the problem is that women are lighter.\n\nIf you are 200 lbs., 20 lbs. is a tenth of your body weight, but if you are 140, it is a seventh. The more excess weight you have, the easier it is to lose it. It doesn't help that social judgments about being overweight are usually applied more harshly to women.\n\nAlso, the bigger you are, the more calories you burn. A man who works out for an hour will lose more weight than a woman, simply by virtue of being larger. What's more, women tend to have a slower metabolic rate, so even if they are the same size, the man will still lose more weight.",
"There could be a number of factors. One, it's probably somewhat biological since women need the fat for a better pregnancy. Two, most women were conditioned not to be so physically active, their gym routines are not as vigorous as those in male gyms. \n\nAlso, it would depend on their race, their genetics, their bodies, their diets, and their lifestyles. I'd really like to see someone link us to research done on the subject to reveal the factors. That would be mighty helpful! \n\n",
"Main factor is biological, the tldr is 'Hormones'. Women's body produces more hormones which encourage the storage of fat just in case it's ever baby time. \n\nMen's body instead produce hormones which encourage muscle growth instead of fat. This is why men will always be stronger than women even when everything else is equal and accounted for. \n\nboth kinds of hormones exist in men and women but our sex influences which gets produced more often.\n",
"Testosterone. Both men and women have testosterone.\n\nMen have testosterone levels about 10 times higher than women. Sometimes even more. \n\nHigh testosterone = more muscle, less fat. \n\nEstrogen increases body fat.\n\nWomen naturally have higher bodyfat levels too. It is because they need energy storage for possible pregnancies."
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28eqa0 | what exactly is visa? i have a wells fargo visa credit card, why does wf need visa, couldn't they be their own visa? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28eqa0/eli5_what_exactly_is_visa_i_have_a_wells_fargo/ | {
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"Because merchants around the world are set up to accept VISA, so it makes more sense for WF to partner with an already established credit company than to try to invent their own and spread it everywhere.",
"Visa is the company that processes the transactions.",
"Visa is a common transaction processing company. They provide the transaction infrastructure, the clearinghouse for those transactions, security and fraud prevention and a variety of other services to both merchants and banks/creditors. Bank of America initially created \"Visa\" and then decided it was far better to spin it off independently. They - along with other major banks - saw a greater benefit in a common infrastructure that would allow credit cards to take of generally. In this case, having multiple ways of processing credit cards and different standards posed a risk to adoption of them in the first place. The banks were encouraging adoption by promoting a common platform - adoption by both consumers and retailers was key to enable the banks to make a shit-ton on interest from consumers that used the cards.\n"
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81phh0 | if the human voice moves a very tiny amount to air be heard, why is a light wind which moves much more air not incredibly loud? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/81phh0/eli5_if_the_human_voice_moves_a_very_tiny_amount/ | {
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"Sound is a wave spreading in the air, alternating zones of higher and lower pressure. When a sound spreads, air itself isn't really moving in any direction, as opposed to wind, which is a displacement of an air mass. So sound is a wave of pressure variations, and air is a medium. When wind blows, the whole medium is moving, waves can still travel through it. Think of ~~waves~~ ripples on the surface of a flowing river : they can spread in any direction, regardless of the flow.",
"Sound is *vibrations in the air*. You hear sound because there are rapidly alternating (thousands of times per second) regions of high & low pressure.\n\nWind tends to be fairly constant.\n\n",
"Noise is based on compression waves. As an object, like a speaker or our vocal chords, vibrates, it pushes on the air around it and causes waves of compressed air to travel away from the vibration. This compression can be seen as air particles moving back and forth as they squeeze together and then spread back out, not in one moving direction like our breath. How loud the sound appears to us is a factor of how intense that compression was, how much air was squeezed into the same space as before; also known as the amplitude of the wave. \n\nIn the case of wind, all the air is moving together in generally the same direction, speed, and density. Compression waves are not being caused by wind, rather a whole chunk of air is moving together. Compression waves, or sound, can travel \"through\" wind though.",
"At the simplest level, sound is just vibration. When we speak our vocal chords oscillate many times per second. This creates a pressure wave that propagates through the air and is received by the ear, which translates the mechanical vibration into electrical impulses sent to the brain. Wind is a bulk flow, not an oscillation. Wind does not move because of wave physics, but rather because of an air pressure difference in the local area. Instead of making your ear drum move back and forth, wind just pushes on it constantly in one direction. Simply put, wind is not a wave, thus it is not sound.\n\nHearing the wind “howl” is actually due to something else called vortex shedding. This involves turbulence created by obstacles in the wind’s path. (E.g. telephone wires)\n\nElectricity Analogy: Sound is AC and wind is DC\n",
"A breeze is very loud, just at a frequency outside of our range of hearing. A breeze is very close to steady state (0 oscillations per second, or Hertz, Hz). Human hearing starts somewhere around 50Hz. \n\nIf the breeze were gust on and off 50 times per second (50 Hz), then you would hear it as a loud low rumble. This actually happens in some places where natural or man-made features cause the wind to resonate, but it is unlikely that a stray breeze would oscillate that rapidly. \n\nThe second part is that humans are more sensitive to some frequencies than others. Our hearing peaks in a range from 200-2000 Hz. If you have two sounds of equal loudness but different frequencies, a person will hear them as being of different relative loudness. \n\nSo even if you have a breeze oscillating at 50 Hz with lots of energy, it would not necessarily seem very loud to people nearby. ",
"People here are missing a huge point.\n\nIf you've ever recorded outside, you'll know wind is actually pretty loud but our PERCEPTION of it isn't. The oscillations are slow, so the pitch is very low.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis is a graph of human perception of the loudness of a frequency vs. the actual decibels of that frequency needed in order to sound the same to us. It requires soooo much more energy in that lower range to sound loud than in that middle range where human speech lives (keep in mind, every six decibels is twice as loud). Microphones have a flatter frequency response and will often go into the red from a little wind.",
"Imagine you have an elastic string. Sound is like what you get when you pull and release the string. It moves up and down but doesn't really go anywhere. Wind is like throwing that string in the air all of it is moving in the same direction. Sound is the same thing but with air atoms instead of string atoms.",
"No one is mentioning the vocal cords. The air you're forcing out of your lungs are causing your vocal cords to vibrate, which makes the sound. The wind isn't in an enclosed space being forced past something that is meant to make sound. Think about if you blow into a clarinet, it's going to be much louder than if you just blow that same amount of air out of your mouth with no instrument.",
"For the same reason that you are capable of blowing out larger gusts of air without yelling. The sound isn't coming from the air, it's coming from the vibration of your vocal chords. If there were tensed vocal chords strung up everywhere, I imagine wind would be very loud.",
"because wind generally isn't making any objects resonate using its energy. a human voice is heard by forcing air to vibrate the vocal cords - the body cavity (lungs, mouth etc) also resonates which contributes to how loud it is. \n\nwind can sometimes be loud if it's passing through trees, or in between buildings etc. that's because the wind is passing over an object, causing it to resonate. \n\n(FWIW this is a very simplistic explanation and I don't assume my terminology is scientifically accurate - it's just a description of the difference between the two things in OP's question that hopefully clears it up a little bit)"
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98kksy | why tf does it hurt so much when you swallow an air bubble when you drink. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/98kksy/eli5_why_tf_does_it_hurt_so_much_when_you_swallow/ | {
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"Bubble very big, throat very small, not good size, throat gets stretched out, stretched out throat not nice, hurts lots",
"Swallowing an air bubble when you drink gives you that sharp pain because Swallowing air results in a different onset of the esophageal peristaltic wave than usually. In combination with an underlying muscle/nerve abnormality, this can trigger a muscle spasm.\n\n\nLook up esophageal spasm (WebMD).\n\n\n\nEli5: Swallowing air can make you cramp like a leg cramp when playing sports but in your throat/chest area.",
"Expanding on above, sensory fibres (specifically nociceptors, which transmit perception of pain) are fired when stretch receptors are activated by the distention caused by the air bubble. Intensity of pain is caused by the number of times the neuron fires, and given the number of sensory fibres in the esophagus, that would explain why it feels more intense than you might imagine an air bubble to feel. \n\nEdit because I didn't read the instructions (I'm the worst):\nSpecial fibers detect when the air bubble stretches out your esophagus, and these send a message to your brain that it hurts. ",
"Wait what this has literally never happened to me. What is this?",
"I once took a big swig of coke, got the air bubble, hurt so bad I passed out, people in class thought I was having a seizure...also got coke all over my shirt."
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6qxm5i | why do our eyes flicker from side to side rapidly without our control at random times? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qxm5i/eli5_why_do_our_eyes_flicker_from_side_to_side/ | {
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"That may actually be [horizontal nystagmus](_URL_0_). Nystagmus is an involuntary movement of the eyes that can be congenital (from birth) or acquired later on in life. It tends to be a neurological condition of an underlying condition or syndrome. For example, my son has it because he has Fragile X syndrome. However, for the acquired type, it can be a sign of a disease or some type of toxin. ",
"Eyes have to keep moving in order to sense light. If your eyes remain fixed, [your vision will fade into nothingness due to neural adaptation](_URL_0_).",
"The vestibulo-ocular reflex (when you move your head side to side but your eyes stay steady) is also connected to balance and your inner ear, so conditions that cause dizziness often cause/can be diagnosed by analyzing nystagmus. ",
"If I'm understanding OP correctly, I don't think it's nystagmus. Nystagmus is *usually* slower and can last for long periods of time. I think what OP is experiencing is a split second, back and forth eye movement that is really rapid. I also have experienced this a few times in my life since I was a kid. No history of seizures, eye problems or anything. There is nothing online that I was able to find about what causes this and not very many people seem to have this either. \n\nBut from the 1 forum I found online that discussed this, it doesn't seem to be harmful. [Here's a discussion post I found.](_URL_0_)",
"All the answers posted so far are wrong. I was a neuroscience major in undergrad and this was covered in a class on sensation and perception. It is a normal action that is actually very beneficial to our vision, called [saccades.](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically, the jerky motion allows parts of our eyes that see certain things better than others to send signals to our visual cortex that allows for an overall higher resolution image to be perceived.",
"These are called microsaccades, and they are normal. (Unless the movement you're talking about is very large, then see other comments)\n\nThey are there to make sure that the image on our retina is not constant. Certain types of neurons --like those which process low-level visual information-- slowly adjust to whatever input they are being given, eventually not responding to it. So if the image on your retina did not change for a little while, you would not be able to see anything!\n\nThis neuronal behavior makes us more sensitive to small changes in the visual field and good at spotting motion.\n\nEdit: left out the micro... Saccades as someone pointed out are voluntary.",
"Soundsike you are describing saccades which are normal movements our eyes make focusing between objects, if you look at someone's eyes you'll notice they don't just stand still they kinda shake side to side, those are saccades and perfectly normal, unless you're having migraines/vestibular/neurologic issues to go along with them I wouldn't be worried",
"nystagmus\n\nits involves a complicated neural circuit, but basically it happens so we can track motion of specific object better and allows us to quickly \"reset our field of vision\"",
"This is not nystagmus. That is a slower and continuous side to side motion of the eyes associated with congenital defects, disease, and brain damage. I see it in the hospital on occasion after a person has a CVA or traumatic brain injury. Occasionally with sudden onset like brain injury, the people with it experience an off balanced feeling, similar to inner ear issues. \n\nThis is most likely little muscle twitches. Just like the ones you probably experience in other areas of your body. Probably from fatigue. Sometimes from too little magnesium in the diet. Or occasionally from medication side effects. \n\nAs always, if it is causing discomfort, if you're worried about the frequency, or it is inhibiting tasks of your daily life, please see a doctor. Your primary care physician can direct you to an optometrist if you don't already go to one. ",
"Hey, I just wanted to give some more information on this because there doesn't seem to be a good answer.\n\nThis is nystagmus, not saccades. It's usually normal but can be a sign of some brain diseases (8% of the population have physiological nystagmus, i.e. not from disease). Here is a wiki link - _URL_4_ and a _URL_2_ one too - _URL_0_. _URL_3_ is miles better and doctors all over the UK seem to use it, I'm not sure about other countries.\n\nAnyway, nystagmus is caused by your cerebellum which is a part of your brain that coordinates movement. The cortex (outside part of the brain) initiates the signal but the cerebellum helps keep everything coordinated. Here is a youtube video of someone demonstrating someone who has cerebellar problems trying to walk - _URL_6_. This is called an ataxic gait. \n\nFrom this article _URL_5_ it says that physiological nystagmus is caused by retinial image slip, in laymans terms just the image you are seeing moving and it is an involutary response. \n\nI'm sorry if this is too much detail for ELI5 but I've done the best I can.\n\nSources above and I'm a doctor.\n\nEdit: Here is a diagram of the brain where you can see where the cerebellum is and basically everything else you can see is the cortex _URL_1_",
"Most folks are saying Nystagmus or Saccades, but I'm not sure what you are talking about is either of those phenomena. Not that I'm any kind of expert, but I do experience something similar to what you are talking about on rare occasions. It most often occurs when I'm looking at one thing, decide to shift my gaze elsewhere, but as I try to do so, I reflexively notice something about the first thing I was looking at and my eyes attempt to return to the first thing, resulting in a rapid and involuntary shifting back and forth several times between the two points of focus which lasts for less than a second. It occurs to me probably no more than 2-3 times a year and whenever it does it is not unsettling or disorienting, merely surprising. I often attempt to recreate it voluntarily after it happens, but the movement is so rapid and specific I can't ever seem to emulate it. I don't know if there's a scientific term to describe it, but I would suspect it is merely your involuntary and voluntary eye movements momentarily fighting for control of your visual focus.",
"I'm assuming you mean microsaccades.\n\nOur senses acclimate to the world around us pretty quickly. If you're in a theater, you'll eventually adjust to the smell of popcorn until you don't smell it anymore. After a day at school/work, you might not feel your underwear anymore. This lets your brain focus only on important (which here means \"new\") information. \n\n\nYour vision is the same way. If an eye were to fix on, say, a lamp too long, the lamp would disappear. However, a lot of animals, like humans, rely on our vision a great deal and can't afford to stop perceiving something just because it doesn't move. A lot of edible plants don't move, for example.\n\nIn order to keep the world in focus, but using eye cells that quickly lose interest in still objects, our ancestors developed eyes that jiggle, just a little bit. It's called a microsaccade (saccade is basically an eye movement). Because the eyes jiggle, the world is constantly \"refreshed\" and the eyes don't loose track of a still moving environment as easily. The visual system evolved to account for this, so you don't actually perceive a jiggling world.\n\nEdit: it's worth noting that when I talk about our ancestors there, I'm talking about maybe fish, probably a lizard. Not Grog the cave man.",
"I get this sometimes, especially when I'm looking at the same thing for a long time (paperwork, distance driving, etc.), assuming I experience the same thing that you do. I'll be looking at something and then my eyes will suddenly \"shake\" and my vision will be interrupted for a split second.\n\nMy eye doctor told me that it occurs because my left eye drifts, like a lesser version of a lazy eye. Once the brain \"catches\" the eye drifting, it refocuses my eyes so that they're both looking in the same direction again, as they're supposed to. The \"flickering\" is essentially my eyes snapping back to looking in the same direction and focusing on the same thing.\n\nSorry if someone already posted this, or if this isn't what you're referring to. I hope this helps.",
"I went looking for an answer to this. (I suffer from what I believe OP is describing) and I found that I share a large number of symptoms in common with Meniers disease. Might be worth looking at this OP, if you get a chance. _URL_0_\n\nMy best description of the eye movements are as follows: \nIt occurs for less than half a second. It is a little startling and my brain only realises after that fact, what has occurred. The eyes move around the centre point in the horizontal plane. They move just over 50% (I estimate) of their full range of motion either side of the half way point. I can sense no objects when they move (ie. They don't settle on anything, like a saccade). The symptoms are not accompanied by anything else (directly, could be Meniers, see above). \n\nI have a friend who indicated that this sort of involuntary eye movement, for him, indicated he was about to have a seizure (he is a photo sensitive epileptic), however I have tried to note any cognitive or neurological impairment after an 'attack' and have noted no such symptoms, I feel perfectly normal. I have spoken to a doctor about this and they indicated that it may just be ocular fatigue and while I can't be sure I think all attacks have occurred in either low light or while reading. \n\nI am going to ask about the possibility of Meniers when I next see my doctor but they have previously said not to worry about it, so if it is your only symptom then try and self diagnose whether you might be having a complex partial seizure and if not then don't worry about it. :) ",
"Stare at a point in the wall, watch as everything around that one point goes black. Your eyes move to counter this and to constantly upload a stimulus to force the eye to take In more information for a better picture. ",
"Eye movement desensitization and reprocessation. It's something the body does to help our brains process information. The same thing happens when we are asleep. I once read about this in a Playboy article long time ago. Seems to be a [thing](_URL_0_).",
"Is this not a symptom of a seizure? That's what would happen to one of my family members when they had seizures (at least we called them seizures). 30 seconds or so where their eyes flickered left and right uncontrollably.\n\n(We assumed it was related to brain radiation/cancer/surgery)",
"Uh... I've never had that happen, do other people normally?",
"Being able to see and give attention to the right things is obviously really useful. It is so useful in fact, that our brain has created a special area to control our eye movements. This part of the brain communicates with other important centres of your brain that are responsible for knowing what's important amongst the stuff you see, and responsible for, well, *what you see*.\n \nNow this centre, (partially) composed of what's called the *[superior colliculus](_URL_1_)* and [frontal eye fields](_URL_0_), make sure your eyes will move in a way that benefits the rest of your brain, that is doing its best to make sense of this weird fuzzy world out there... Just to emphasize, it's *really* fuzzy and weird, or at least to us humans, who need to make sense of soooo much stuff! Our eyes and brains aren't *that* amazing at understanding it, so often we need to switch our eyes to get the right information. \n \nNow the thing is, you would go crazy if you had to decide every single eye movement, absolutely bonkers, because you typically make multiple ones every seconds, and situations that demand more are easy to imagine. Because of this, most eye movements, or *saccades* as these automatic ones are called, happen without this need for your conscious approval. \n \nThis automaticity of course means there's some kind of machinery at work with relatively simple rules. In the brain, this means that there's actually some kind of '*map*' of what parts of your visual field deserve the most attention. Even more strangely, these saccades not always *have* to be related to something actually out there. Me for example, I tend to look down to the right when I'm pondering something. Speaking more generally, when we dream we actually look *eeeeeeverywhere* constantly, all around! These are called rapid eye movements (REM), because they're so frequent (try opening someone's eyes when they're dreaming, or find someone who can sleep with their eyes closed, you might spot them. ^^it'sreallycreepythough )\n \nAnyways, that's a bit of a summary on eye movements and saccades, but quite frankly we need more information to answer your question. More importantly, and embarrassingly, is that science isn't all that certain about a lot of details of the brain. This is especially true for some oddities like the one you mention, as it relates to parts of our brain relating to things like attention, our visual representation of the world, and how we act accordingly. It sounds simple, but the details are too vague to explain details of oddities such as this with certainty. \n \nLet me put it this way. You have a machinery in your brain that helps move your eyes to help update a clear image in your brain of the external world, and also to guide the eyes to things deserving of attention. With the fuzziness of the image of the world in our brain, and the ambiguity and often indecisiveness of 'attention' a flickering of the eyes might just be akin to any other innocent well-intended oddity of our bodily machineries, just a hiccup of the brain.",
"What you’re talking about is Physiological Nystagmus. It’s a protective phenomenon to prevent over bleaching of Cones (a visual receptor) and overexciation at retina.",
"Certain kinds of stimulants can cause this rapid eye twitching. MDMA, MDA, cocaine, meth, crack, ADD medication such as Adderall. It's known colloquially as the 'eye wobbles'. Some anti-depressants can also cause twittery vision, but this can also be a sign that you are taking too much Serotonin, which can be very dangerous. \n\nIf this happens to you all the time, even if sober or not on any kind of medication, I strongly recommend seeing an optometrist. The symptom is known as 'occular flutter' and can be a sign of dozens of different, much more serious health problems.",
"That's funny, I used to do that all the time, now I feel like I have replaced them with semi-voluntary facial tweaks that nobody seems to notice but me.",
"Usually when I'm looking at and my eyes will sometimes dart back and forth a little while, you would be able to make my eyes are strained and when I read through seems correct.",
"The point militating against it here, is that science isn't all that certain about a lot when I'm reading, the actual word I'm looking at and my eyes naturally want to guess it's a muscle spasm.",
"It is a little while, you would be able to find about what causes uncontrolled microsaccades in some psychiatric patients?"
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53l79d | what is happening when you're talking and all of a sudden your throat closes, cutting you off? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53l79d/eli5_what_is_happening_when_youre_talking_and_all/ | {
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"Is that an actual thing? I am 57 and I have never had this happen to me in my life.",
"Your throat gets dry and wants you to swallow, or you are phlegmy and need to clear your throat.",
"Your epiglottis opens and closes to make sure when you swallow anything, it goes into your stomach and not your lungs. When you stop suddenly it's because the epiglottis has closed, so no air is coming up from the lungs, meaning you can't speak. "
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533bga | why do our/my fingernails turn white after a shower/being exposed to water for a while? | Note: I'm talking about just the tip, not the whole finger nail
I've noticed after showers my fingernail tips will turn while instead of a clearer look like they usually are. I've asked family and friends and they say that this happens to them as well. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/533bga/eli5_why_do_ourmy_fingernails_turn_white_after_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7pkk4q"
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"Your fingernails are porous. When you have been in the shower or bath, your nails absorb some water. That is why they are clear. They are also very likely to tear and be damaged when they are wet.\nbecause they have absorbed a lot of water and they are more pliable....a bit weaker. Nails are actually dead anyway. they get soft in water and become clear. When they are dried out, they get hard and turn white/yellow"
]
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[]
] |
|
5suv99 | loss of appetite to drugs | What happens when you take a drug that suppresses your appetite but you know you're hungry. For instance like stimulants like adderall or even harder drugs like coke or meth. You don't want to eat but your tummy is rumbling saying it's hungry | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5suv99/eli5_loss_of_appetite_to_drugs/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It's like you know you need to eat, but the thought, or even the smell of food is disgusting. ",
"\"Appetite\" is a large collection of feelings you experience when your blood sugar drops below a certain level, triggering a series of chemical reactions in your gut, which cause you to experience mild discomfort - hunger - and perceive an \"emptiness\" in your stomach.\n\nNormally, these also trigger a bunch of other reactions in your brain, which coordinates all the other parts of your body responsible for hunger: you start to salivate, your jaw muscles become excited, and your thought process starts to gravitate toward seeking and consuming food.\n\nStimulants, like all drugs, disrupt the brain's signalling. Specifically, they affect how dopamine and serotonin, two neurotransmitters, are used. Our understanding of them is limited, but essentially, your stomach is able to send the direct message via your nervous system saying \"I'm empty, put stuff in me\", but the cascade of other effects in your brain \"Stomach is empty, I should tell Body to go get some food and eat it\" never occur because they've been disrupted by the drugs.\n\nEven if you can override your endocrine system and force yourself to put food in your mouth, the relative inactivity of your jaw and throat muscles, as well as your salivary glands, means that eating will be physically more difficult than usual; swallowing won't come as naturally and your mouth will likely be drier than usual.\n\ntl;dr- hunger and appetite normally occur together, and roughly correspond to the physical sensation of low blood sugar and the cognitive drive to eat. Stimulant drugs disrupt appetite by diverting the signaling molecules used to trigger it - dopamine and serotonin - toward other parts of your brain."
]
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2b96r1 | why climate change doesn't result in increased precipitation? | This may sounds a dump question, but as you know due to climate change, mean temperature of earth has raised over passed years. Therefore shouldn't this lead to more evaporation of oceans and seas water and result in more rains? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b96r1/eli5_why_climate_change_doesnt_result_in/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Who says it won't?\n\nClimate scientists have been warning about storms of increased ferocity and regularity for some time now.",
"It has, but not uniformly... there have been more severe storms (hurricanes, typhoons, etc.) in recent years and impacts like the huge snowfall in the midwest this year. Some places are hotter and drier, others are getting more precipitation and flooding."
]
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4gr6yj | why do insects' legs fold under them when they die? do other creatures have similar 'death poses'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gr6yj/eli5_why_do_insects_legs_fold_under_them_when/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Pretty sure it has to do with blood pressure keeping them extended, and when they die the pressure isn't there anymore so they fold up. Kind of like when you blow up a balloon it stretches and becomes stiff then let the air out it's limp. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
8x4soi | what makes hot air look “squiggly”? | Whenever you open up a car door on a hot day, the air coming out looks different—almost “wavy”—against the pavement. Why is that and why is this something exclusive to hot air? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8x4soi/eli5_what_makes_hot_air_look_squiggly/ | {
"a_id": [
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" > Why is that and why is this something exclusive to hot air?\n\nIt isn't exclusive to hot air at all. You might notice that when you put your hand under water it also looks ripply, and it comes from the same sort of effect.\n\nWhat is happening is that hot air is less dense than colder air (which is why hot air balloons work) and as light passes between the different densities it is refracted or bent to take a different path. The turbulent interface between the hot and cool air makes a constantly shifting zone of slight refraction which you see as ripples in the light passing through it.",
"When you put a pencil in water, it seems to have bent. That is because when light travels through different objects, it's angle is changed. Same thing happens with hot air. Light is bent entering hot air from the relatively colder air and then again when leaving hot air to enter colder air. \n\nThe reason why the change in angle doesn't appear constant like in water but is squiggly because the hot air is flowing. ",
"Transparent materials all bend light slightly when it enters or leaves the material - this is called refraction. \n\nYou've seen it with a straw in a glass of liquid, and you see it with lenses and prisms. \n\nAir refracts light as well, just a little, and the amount it does so depends on how dense the air is. \n\nWhen you have air that's significantly hotter than the air around it, it billows just like smoke, in turbulent swirly ripples. \n\nThis is generally invisible, however the sharp boundaries between the hot and cold ripples mean that light passing through will get very slightly bent in those same ripply patterns. \n"
]
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26o1hr | how the dopamine reward system works. | Maybe I should post this in r/askscience, but here I go; How does dopamine work? I took a college course and I believe that I have a basic understanding, but I would like to know more. I hunger for this information. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26o1hr/eli5_how_the_dopamine_reward_system_works/ | {
"a_id": [
"cht1pc3"
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"Dopamine is a hormone held within the brain that is released to reward you when you do something good for your survival.\nA common example in which dopamine is released is eating. Whenever you eat, dopamine rewards you to ensure that you'll do it again! This hormone is also released when playing [some] video games. People tend to feel proud of their accomplishment if they win, and if they're rewarded for it, the brain will release more dopamine.\n\nDopamine doesn't actually make you do it again, it makes you want to do it again. Think of dopamine like 'crack', the first time you experience it, you love it, and you are hooked after that first experience with dopamine.\n\nDopamine is also the cause for many habits, whenever we perform a task that our brain sees as good, we're rewarded and we want to do it again, and again, and again. This forms a habit that's extremely hard to break because it's triggered within your brain."
]
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[]
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2ikh8i | how do many companies produce the same graphics card? | On NCIX I see the GTX 650 ti card from ASUS, Zotac, EVGA... How are so many companies able to make the same card? Is it still a Nvidia product? Are there copyright issues? Are they the same cards? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ikh8i/eli5how_do_many_companies_produce_the_same/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Nvidia and AMD produce chip \"reference designs\" which they license to other companies - such as ASUS, Zotac, Gigabyte, etc.\n\nThose companies then package those basic \"reference designs\" however they like. Some may add a bit of extra memory, or they may overclock the chip for extra performance and package their card with water cooling rather than conventional fans, or it may be exactly as described in the reference design.\n\nThis is the same business model that ARM use for their mobile chips. They license chip designs which companies like Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung and Broadcom then use in their systems (e.g. the CPUs in iPhones, and iPads are usually made by Samsung or TMSC for Apple, using a design Apple license from ARM).",
"The main portion of the video card that does the calculations and fancy stuff are just the chips/die. The rest of the stuff on the circuit board are the interface with the computer, power regulation, voltage regulation, etc. The chips are DESIGNED by AMD or Nvidia. In fact, they don't even produce them, the chips themselves are manufactured in chip fabs in Asia at TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY (TSMC) or Global Foundries. That said, AMD and Nvidia always provide a reference board for guidance, like \"this is how it's supposed to be put together and how it's supposed to work.\"\n\nAMD and Nvidia then sell the chips to Sapphire, XFX, ASUS, ZOTAC, etc and each brand designs their own board and will overclock/underclock them to their liking, add better cooling, change power regulation. Sometimes the same product (AMD 290 for example) will have varying clocks and speeds across different manufacturers because each brand wants to differentiate themselves from another. "
]
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1uv9i1 | why did people in old photos never smile ? | Was NO ONE happy back then? Or was it frowned upon to show pleasure in photographs? Genuinely curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1uv9i1/eli5_why_did_people_in_old_photos_never_smile/ | {
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"Photography back then required you stay very still for a significant period of time, at least compared to cameras today.",
"Cameras back then used to take quite awhile to capture the image, i guess its easier to maintain a resting face than it is a smile. People were happy and I guess if they had the willpower to hold a smile for 30 seconds or more then they might have smiled.\n\n",
"There's the staying still for longer exposures thing as mentioned, and also being a new medium the custom of smiling hadn't been established. People weren't used to having their pictures taken and thinking about how their expressions would appear to the person who would be looking at them. Their only frame of reference would be painted portraits, and you don't see a lot of smiling in those, either.",
"Why do people smile all the time on pictures now? ",
"It's a combination of technical and cultural factors: long exposures made holding smiles difficult, poor dental care made smiles unattractive, and photos were so rarely taken that they were treated as formal events where it was not considered appropriate to smile. [This article](_URL_0_) on PetaPixel goes into more detail.",
"_URL_0_\n\nThis is a good example. I got this from typing into google 'victorians smiling'. \n\nAlso, I learnt during University that it was custom at the time to have a photo taken when someone died. The example I remember was of a family photo with a baby in a crib. \n\nTurned out the baby was dead. ",
"Just as it's customary now to smile in photos, it is often customary to be stoic in photos, in present day in some cultures and in the past in many cultures. My fiancee is Serbian and when she moved to the States and saw how people smiled in pictures, she thought they were crazy idiots.",
"Bad teeth. Look at those Civil War era photographs......stern looking men with their mouths tightly shut. ",
"The same reason those photos are in black and white. The world was just shades of grey; it didn't turn color until the 60's. So the photographers were actually taking color pictures of a black and white world. Imagine living in a black and white world - pretty bleak, huh? That's why no one smiled.\n\n/r/explainedlikeCalvinsDad",
"They were not FAKE happy. ",
"Two reasons:\n\n**Time:** Cameras required the subject(s) to stay still for a long period of time, a 'resting' face was more comfortable to hold for that length of time.\n\n**Culture:** In the early days of photography, only wealthy people were able to afford to have photographs taken of them. They generally wanted to look stern and powerful so they often refrained from smiling. Once the general public was able to get photographs taken of them, they imitated the expressions found in images of wealthy people, similarly to how people in modern times people often imitate clothing styles, for example, of celebrities."
]
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[],
[],
[
"http://petapixel.com/2012/11/04/say-prunes-not-cheese-the-history-of-smiling-in-photographs/"
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"http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/18-photos-of-victorians-smiling"
],
[],
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[],
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|
1ma6c1 | how does someone circumvent a censored internet? | Just curious. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ma6c1/eli5_how_does_someone_circumvent_a_censored/ | {
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"text": [
"VPN or proxy.\n\nIf you're at work, don't. IT will immediately know and you will be fired as soon as they get around to giving a shit.",
"try downloading the pirate bays modified firefox browser "
]
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|
3hjyce | why do chip makers always claim that their new chips provide more performance while using less power, yet battery life on consumer devices isn't much better? | It seems that every year, new chipsets are announced and the marketing department trumps how they are more power efficient than the last generation. You'd think that after some years of this, it would amount to significant battery savings, but smartphone battery life in general doesn't seem much better than that of the iPhone 1.
Case in point: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hjyce/eli5_why_do_chip_makers_always_claim_that_their/ | {
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"text": [
"If your smartphone was doing the same things today that it did 5 years ago, but with today's processors inside, you'd have loads of battery life.\n\nBut modern smartphones do a lot more. The screens are bigger and more powerful. Apps spend more time running in the background. Desktop backgrounds are animated. Widgets are constantly updating. All of this takes battery.\n\nWhat's more, as the usefulness of our phones increases, we spend more time using them than we ever did in the past.\n\nAll this extra use and background activity offsets the gains in processor performance - or, to put it another way, this progress is only *possible* because of these gains.",
"If an iPhone 1 was made today, with current technology, it would have a significant increase in battery life. A 2015 iPhone has a plenty of battery consuming features that the original did not have, so that offsets the improvements in chip technology.\n\nLarger display with higher pixel counts, more ram, 4g radio, Bluetooth radio, improved wifi, NFC, and so on. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/the-many-tricks-intel-skylake-uses-to-go-faster-and-use-less-power/"
] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3we6zm | how does constantly mixing cement keep it from turning into stone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3we6zm/eli5_how_does_constantly_mixing_cement_keep_it/ | {
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"text": [
"Concrete mixer trucks are spinning the tank, because the raw materials are put in the truck and mixed together on the way to the delivery. \n\nIf I remember correctly, even in the truck, it begins to set within 90 minutes. See also _URL_0_",
"As pointed out before, it doesn't, however it does prolong the process.\n\nCement solidifies by basically turning itself (a paste of very specific particles and water) into a crystal. The particles pretty much combine with the water to form nice hard crystals (so saying you're waiting for the cement to \"dry-out\" is technically incorrect).\n\nBy forcing the paste to tumble around, you constantly break the connections before they grow into stable forms."
]
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[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_mixer#Concrete_mixer_trailers"
],
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||
7layia | how are " sun dogs " created? | [ Examples of a Sun Dog ](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7layia/eli5_how_are_sun_dogs_created/ | {
"a_id": [
"drkv19b"
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"score": [
5
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"text": [
"They are rainbows.\n\nIce crystals in the air don't have a shape that splits the colors as well as liquid water droplets do, so they don't look as colorful."
]
} | [] | [
"https://imgur.com/a/4tM7r"
] | [
[]
] |
|
ekncn7 | how do cooked pasta bowls stay "fresh" | I know they are processed to ba-jesus and back, but I've seen these things be good for a year, but after heated, are bad after 3 days.
Search: "velveeta pasta bowl" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ekncn7/eli5_how_do_cooked_pasta_bowls_stay_fresh/ | {
"a_id": [
"fdcrkl5"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Water - if these are the pasta bowls that are dehydrated, adding water allows bacteria to grow.\n\nIf these are wet past bowls - if they are sealed, opening them and exposing them to air lets germs, mold and oxygen in.\n\nNow there are germs and molds that grows on food as soon as it's exposed to air - we can't taste it and we're immune to them. Or their colonies are too small to ruin the food.\n\nIf you heat and serve your pasta bowl then put it away, well you have given the bad stuffs (mold and germs) free reign. Refrigeration slows but can't stop them. And if you leave the bowl out then it's going to go bad because preservatives can only slow spoilage. \n\nI learned about the mold because I had a teacher who was allergic to that mold and she couldn't have leftovers more than one day old."
]
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|
7gqun1 | why are some people strong despite not being muscular? conversely, how are muscular people not always strong? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gqun1/eli5_why_are_some_people_strong_despite_not_being/ | {
"a_id": [
"dql1wcm"
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"text": [
"Please add a flair; part of it has to do with type of muscle and the type of strength (aerobic vs anaerobic, long vs short muscle strands, etc.) but I'd like an expert to weigh in and give the whole answer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
9x596b | why have apprenticeships never taken off in the us like they have in europe for certain fields (it for example)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9x596b/eli5_why_have_apprenticeships_never_taken_off_in/ | {
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"text": [
"I worked at a large resort on the beach a few years back, we got several folks doing an apprenticeship from a local culinary school. They were supposed to work alongside regular staff in the diff kitchens and obviously learn about the running of a large commercial kitchen. In reality they were used as labor savers doing menial jobs and didnt get the training they were supposed to. The school ended that program with us after the first round.\n Point being, too often as I have seen interns used as free labor and not as a teaching opportunity"
]
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||
dbuibq | how do astronauts fuel oxygen tanks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbuibq/eli5_how_do_astronauts_fuel_oxygen_tanks/ | {
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"text": [
"They bring water which is split in to hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen can then be pumped in to used tanks, as well as supply the rest of the station."
]
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] |
||
8ax5oo | did life on earth begin wth 1 organism or a few? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ax5oo/eli5_did_life_on_earth_begin_wth_1_organism_or_a/ | {
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"The simple answer is that we don't know. \n\nThe probable answer it that it started once as independent origins would likely not have a identical biochemistry.",
"Life almost definitely didn't begin with a cell that could reproduce itself - that's way too complicated. Most likely, different *components* of what we now call \"life\" formed separately. Simple bubbles of oil-like molecules could have been the precursors to cell membranes. Aromatic chain molecules could have been the original \"genes\", even before DNA. Randomly assembled molecules that were *sort of* capable of constructing other molecules *sort of* like them may have filled the seas even before the first cell existed.\n\nSome of these sort-of-reproducing chemicals would be better at reproducing themselves than others, and some of these may have chemically attracted other molecules that could protect them from other chemicals that could damage them. Some chemical combinations were more effective at surviving than others, leading to evolution. Replicating molecules that surrounded themselves in protective \"bubbles\" were very successful, and these became the precursors to proper cells.\n\nIt is very likely that the first \"cell-like\" structures formed multiple times, and may even have had completely different chemistry from each other. However, what we do know is that at some point, certain innovations were so successful that they completely dominated their competition. One example of this is nucleic acids. All life on Earth today uses either RNA or its double-stranded equivalent DNA to store their genetic information, but these are very complex molecules that almost certainly did not form spontaneously. So, there must have been other, more primitive genetic systems that they evolved from, and then DNA proved to be so much more efficient that it out-competed all other forms of genetic chemistry.\n\nAll known life on Earth *today* descends from a single common ancestor, called the \"Last Universal Common Ancestor\", or \"LUCA\" - a carbon-based, single-celled organism that encoded its genes using either DNA or RNA (it is unclear which came first) and lived about 3.8 billion years ago. But there may have been *other* forms of life that this common ancestor killed off, or possibly even assimilated into itself.\n\nThere are some scientists who are interested in the possibility of finding a \"shadow biosphere\" - an isolated remnant of these early life forms that somehow escaped extinction. But so far, none have been found."
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2bllac | what caused the decline of science and learning in the middle east? | 9KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMvstyNSMCenQVGGgPLaDKbKM43VR49KN2DDTHvuNpgzXG3wELPY2HyUBDKccpUMv | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bllac/eli5what_caused_the_decline_of_science_and/ | {
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"There's no consensus on what caused the decline but it's suggested that invasions by the Crusaders and Mongols which destroyed libraries and schools were the beginning of the end of science and math in the Islamic world. They never really recovered.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I've actually been intermittently reading an awesome book on this! It's called The House of Wisdom ([link here!](_URL_0_)) that chronicles the learning, leaders, and historical context of the institutions in Baghdad. It's based on accounts by the scholar Adelard of Bath, who brought much of the learning back to Europe. Fascinating, often overlooked period of history.",
"I want to say Mongols. As I understand it, the Arab world was almost apocalyptically wiped out by them.",
"I think science and math, like literature and other learning tend (always exceptions) to exist when enough people, and their society, have the time for and are receptive to learning for some period of time. \n\nWhen the people or society are undergoing upheavals such as invasions (pointed out by another poster), wars, famine, regime changes, etc., people spend most or all of their time just trying to survive. Learning beyond that needed to obtain food, shelter, and other necessities decreases.\n\nAdditionally, the society or culture itself may not receptive, such as religious fundamentalist or other regimes that encourage following a particular religion, doctrine, or orthodoxy and discourages (many times actively discourages) original thought/thought outside the orthodoxy for that regime or society. \n\nNot a scholar in this area, but not sure there have been many extended periods of time in the middle east over the last several centuries where: \n-there haven't been such upheavals, \n-there have been receptive regimes/societies, and \n-there have been enough people with the time and energy (such as a large middle class) to allow scientific learning and discovery to really take root. ",
"this maybe against the rules here. I do not know. I just finished reading \n_URL_0_ and the answers are complex. I am still hoping to find someone to explain it to me like i am 5.",
"I'm seeing a lot of \"religion\" as the answers put forward, but that can't be close to a comprehensive account. For one, math, science, philosophy, etc flourished for centuries under Islam. Secondly, it is not as if the West was irreligious around the time when it began to eclipse the Islamic in learning. It's almost certainly not one thing, but the disproportionate effect the Mongol invasions had on Islamic centers of learning would be a primary reason. Also, the capture of Constantinople had to important effects on the West. 1) the increased contact with Islamic learning and the diaspora of Greek speakers fleeing west led to rediscovery of classical (often Greek) learning leading to the Renaissance 2) two this lead to a veritable closing down of the overland trade routes to the East, i.e. the Silk Road, which incentivized the exploration and discovery of sea routes to the lucrative markets in the east. Therefore, so you enter the age of discovery with its incumbent developments in navigation (math, astronomy, time-keeping), engineering and geography, not to mention the new influx of material wealth and colonies and contact with other cultures, etc. All in all, the capture if Constantinople was a pretty big deal and explains the advancement of the West (out of necessity) far better than \"religion.\"",
"While just about every civilization has risen and fallen, we ARE slowly developing a globalized economy. The Middle East, though, is largely left out of said economy. There's lots of resources there (oil, for example), but it's hard for our Western governments to negotiate, as they are so different than ours. The exception to this would probably be Israel, where the US and the UK have lots of business ventures.\n\nNow, business is not the main focus in most Middle Eastern countries, at least not as much as the divide over religion is. Whether it's about true religious beliefs or national/ethnic pride, that's another debate for another time. But in countries with so much military spending (not unlike the US, but more so) people aren't going to be investing in education. \n\nI think a good way to put it is over here, you are raised to work and \"produce\", while over there, you are basically raised to fight.",
"Firstly, the Mongol Invasion theory is immediately debunked: [ibn al-Shatir](_URL_11_), [al-Khalīlī](_URL_15_), [al Khafri](_URL_5_), [al-Tusi](_URL_12_), and [Urdi](_URL_19_) (all very important Arabic scholars of astronomy) all come *AFTER* this point. The Mongols took over the leadership, but let the scholars continue on with their business. In fact al-Tusi asked Hugalu Khan, the Mongol leader, for money to make a new observatory, and his request was [granted](_URL_3_). Similarly [the Al-Ghazali thing with his anti-philosopher rant](_URL_0_) had basically [no effect](_URL_10_) on the rather vibrant scholarship that occurred *AFTER* he wrote that nonsense.\n\nThere are much more obvious and compelling theories, such as the rise of the [Ottomans](_URL_18_), and the advent of the [printing press](_URL_1_). Prior to the rise of the Ottoman empire, the Arabic empire/Caliphate was able to use [Arabic as a Lingua Franca](_URL_17_) for it's science, since all the upper echelons of power and, consequently, scholarship was practiced in Arabic. They funded their science by patrons who were spoiled by riches obtained by [the trade monopoly they had over the silk road](_URL_16_).\n\nAfter this, a combination of things happened. 1) [The Ottoman empire did not propagate any Lingua Franca over their territory](_URL_13_); not Arabic, and not Turkish (each region just used the language of the local people there, so Persian, Arabic, and Turkish were all widely spoken, with no expectations of bilingualism). 2) The printing press was easily usable for alphabetic scripts like Latin, and most western scripts, but was [very difficult to get right with Arabic writing](_URL_9_). 3) This coincides roughly with \"the Age of Exploration\" -- this is basically when [Europe learned to sail around Africa](_URL_2_), to accomplish their trade with India and China, and thus were not beholden to the [silk road](_URL_6_) bottleneck.\n\nThis meant that serious scholarship was less funded in Arabic territories than [before](_URL_7_), and because of the reintroduction of language stratification, there was, effectively, smaller scientific communities with which to discuss things. By contrast, in Europe, they had the [printing press](_URL_1_#Printing_revolution), [Universities](_URL_14_), and had all the Arabic and Greek sciences translated to Latin or Spanish ([this occurred largely in Spain between 11th and 13th centuries](_URL_8_)). So by about the 15th or 16th century whenever there was a choice, intellects would have enculturated themselves in Europe instead of the Islamic territories.",
"I think a large part of the answer as to why we don't see a strong secularism in parts of the middle east today is that the United States and its allies, including the UK, during the Cold War, deliberately funded and trained religious extremists in these areas, and deliberately destroyed secular alternatives, because these secular alternatives were usually populist and progressive. To the governments of the US and UK during the Cold War, a reactionary religious fanatic was vastly preferable to a secular progressive. \n\nWith all secular alternatives destroyed, communities in a lot of places, like in Gaza, have no-one to turn to in hard times but people like Hamas. ",
"There's this BBC documentary that speculates that the printing press was one of the factors.\n\nCompared to the Western form of writing which easily uses the prefabricated letter blocks in printing books, Arabic script is harder to translate to a reusable typeset. Hence books by Western authors (and ultimately their knowledge) became more easily accessible compared to the Eastern ones. ",
"You should really take this to /r/askhistorians if you don't want a lot of crap answers.",
"it's funny since they are the ones who invented a lot of our math and the number system we use too!"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age#Decline"
],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1608190587?pc_redir=1406126477&robot_redir=1"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Philosophers",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery#mediaviewer/File:16th_century_Portuguese_Spanish_trade_routes.png",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maragheh_observatory",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Printing_revolution",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shams_al-Din_al-Khafri",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#mediaviewer/File:Silk_route.jpg",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage#Science",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_translations_of_the_12th_century",
"http://blog.29lt.com/2010/06/16/1st-printing-press-in-me/",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Incoherence",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Shatir",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_al-Din_al-Tusi",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Ottoman_Empire",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university#Establishment",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shams_al-D%C4%ABn_Ab%C5%AB_Abd_All%C4%81h_al-Khal%C4%ABl%C4%AB",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_trade#Arab_trade_and_medieval_Europe",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate#First_Marwanids",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu'ayyad_al-Din_al-'Urdi"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
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|
5y28up | why are there so many intelligence leaks from the united states? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y28up/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_intelligence_leaks/ | {
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"A lot of it has to do with how big the intelligence community in the US is. It's not just the CIA, it's also the FBI, NSA, DIA, each military branch with their own intelligence fields, and many others, each with tens of thousands of people. The US typically has three classifications for data - confidential, secret, and top secret. Usually you will need a top secret clearance, and while they are difficult to obtain, hundreds of thousands of people have them (Since they're required in most intel fields). While they review pretty much everything - work, residence, friends, family, income, debt, etc, they aren't perfect. Also, sometimes they even relax the standards if they need someone to get a clearance - this happened to some of the people I knew.\n\ntl;dr: US intelligence is a huge field across many independently run organizations, and they need to give hundreds of thousands of clearances. It's nearly impossible to prevent EVERY leak because of this."
]
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[]
] |
||
a9zbvg | what happens when you (hypothetically) strangle someone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9zbvg/eli5_what_happens_when_you_hypothetically/ | {
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"Well, from what I understand there are two ways. First way is because you're not getting oxygen in to your lungs due to your windpipe being crushed and so you can't oxygenate your blood and you stop breathing and lose consciousness. I believe this is called asphyxiation.\n\nThe other is that you block off the blood supply to the brain by blocking your jugular veins. This is a way faster way since your brain is immediately starved of blood/oxygen so you can lose consciousness within seconds and die within minutes. This is what happens with a move like the rear naked choke. "
]
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[]
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||
p512h | the benefits of facebook going public and also the drawbacks. | I've been seeing a lot of news articles recently about Facebook going public. Just wanted to learn about the repercussions of that for Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and its users.
What if Facebook stays private like it is right now, what are those repercussions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p512h/eli5_the_benefits_of_facebook_going_public_and/ | {
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"Functionally: None.\n\nYou could buy stock in Facebook, essentially you'd own part of it and share profits. The repercussions of that are tough to say. I very much doubt anything will change, but it also means that Facebook will be looking after the interests of its shareholders. Facebook has never had any problems with money, I doubt any changes will occur based on this decision.",
"The only real difference is the directors will be beholden to public shareholders who approve their nominations by the board and can vote them out of a job at shareholder meetings instead of private investors they can schmooze with hookers and blow."
]
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[],
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20ltm9 | when i pour liquid from one glass to another why does it spill if the glasses touch? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20ltm9/eli5_when_i_pour_liquid_from_one_glass_to_another/ | {
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"text": [
"Umm... it doesnt.\n\nUnless im missing something from your description"
]
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[]
] |
||
6kglj1 | when in a water proof tent, why is it that if something from the inside touches the tent walls, it will get wet, despite water not coming through otherwise? | Last time I went camping it poured. My tent held up and rejected rain all night. My bag, however, managed to get soaked. I realized it was resting against one of the tent walls, and historically have experienced the same thing.
Anything that touches the wall will get wet. I'd love to know why! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kglj1/eli5_when_in_a_water_proof_tent_why_is_it_that_if/ | {
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"text": [
"Tent seams are water proof, but the tent walls are meant to be able to breathe so water can pass through, but only if it has something else to latch on to like your sleeping bag. "
]
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[]
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|
due7k2 | chiropractor techniques | The guy I go to now is super traditional, but I see videos of chiros doing these wild adjustments. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/due7k2/eli5_chiropractor_techniques/ | {
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"A lot of what some chiropractors talk about is pure snake oil. Chi, energy flow, fixing problems with organs, etc is mostly non-sense. Chiropractic care only deals with the position of joints.\n\nChiropractors that try to up-sell you on supplements, and various other alternative medical theories are quacks. Those that work to relieve your pain, use massage therapy, and work with physio therapists tend to be more in the realm of actual medicine.\n\nChiropractors work by popping and repositioning joints. If you have a joint that's out of place or stuck an adjustment can help relieve the pain by releasing the muscles that are having spasms and tightness caused by the joint.\n\nThe problem is that they don't often deal with the causes of these problems. Sometimes a joint is out place due to an injury, other times it's due to a flaw in your anatomy, etc.\n\nPopping an repositioning the joints will only go so far. Sometimes the pressure relief is just enough to help you deal with the pain to help the joint heal. But if you have a condition like scoliosis chiropractic care can only go so far to relief the discomfort.\n\nPopping the joints helps relieve the pressure and spasm but doesn't work the muscles that are connected to the joint. Physio therapy goes further to work the muscles and joints, but a therapist won't necessarily pop the joint to give you immediate relief. Sometimes a combination of both is required to help improve your condition. \n\nSometimes you need an orthopedic surgeon...",
"Because people will pay for it and for some reason it's covered by insurance. If someone is in enough pain they'll do anything to feel better, and chiros know that. Same way any kind of quack works. Unfortunately when people see chiros instead of physical therapists, orthopedic surgeons, etc, they may not be addressing the underlying concerns."
]
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[],
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|
9x901w | how do free to play games such as fortnite battle royal make money? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9x901w/eli5_how_do_free_to_play_games_such_as_fortnite/ | {
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"text": [
"Usually through in game purchases. If you wanna play for free you can, if you wanna use a fancy gun or wear a tie dye speedo, you have to pay for that. "
]
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[]
] |
||
pz7qn | wht will happen to greece once it collapses? | I asked my economics teacher, he didn't know. I asked my all-knowing father and he didn't know, either.
As a citizen of the European Union, I think this whole issue indirectly affects me as well, so I think I'd feel safer if someone gave me some predictions or visions. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pz7qn/eli5_wht_will_happen_to_greece_once_it_collapses/ | {
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"Greece won't collapse.\n\nThe EU is propping up Greece so that it can change the way that it works, but that is going to be a long slow process. The trouble is that you can't just take money away from people if they've paid into it. eg you can't cut the pension of someone who has paid into it for life, but you can change the way that future pensions work (eg by getting people to work for longer, putting more into it in the first place, etc).\n\nThe loans that Greece is getting from the EU are set up to allow it time to do all of this. In the short term there will be cuts in public spending and probably increases in tax.\n\nIf Greece did collapse it would be disastrous for the Eurozone as it would probably create a domino effect with other countries who are on the brink collapsing too. It would then ruin the more affluent countries as huge volumes of their market are within the EU (due to the common market). It's far more within their interests to prop up Greece for 20 years until it is able to run on its own again. Which is how it should work - you take the rough with the smooth. You can't live with the benefit of being in the EU and then throw out countries when it doesn't go right for them so that you don't have to deal with the downsides.",
"Greece will collapse.\n\nThe people of the northern EU will not continue to hand over hundreds of billions of euros knowing that the Greeks are likely to elect a left wing government and default on their debts. It is simply not in the interests of the Greeks to keep taking these enormous 'bailouts'. The austerity measures include massive cuts to pensions (not just future pensions), public service (police, nurses, firemen, teachers) paycuts and tax hikes.\n\nThe bulk of the extra money is set aside to pay back the interest on debts (about 15billion euros a month). \n\nA default on these debts would mean the abandonment of the Euro and a return to a sovereign Greek currency - presumably the Drachma. A steep recession would follow but they are heading for one regardless. When you ain't got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.\n\nThe wealthy who have already invested money in hard assets abroad would flee the country with suitcases full of Euros. The government would try to stop this - probably violently. Prices would increase. If the government prints more Drachmas to try and meet this there will be an inflationary cycle similar to those seen in Weimar Germany or Mugabe's Zimbabwe. If the government do not print more money, there will be bank runs and the attendant food shortages and riots. The government will try to stop this - probably violently.\n",
"The Persian Empire will spread unchecked.",
" > Greece won't collapse.\n\n > Greece will collapse.\n\nWell then.",
"This explanation might be a little over a five year olds head but I find this interesting. From a business perspective the possibility that Greece could default on its sovereign debt is also quite scary.\n\nCorporate and consumer interest rates (the rates the bank offer people) are generally created by adding the **risk-free rate** to the **risk premium**. The risk premium is calculated based on several factors (e.g., credit risk, default risk, collateral etc.) but the risk-free rate usually refers to short term government bonds or sovereign debt, which is typically an investment with no risk of financial loss. Government bonds are considered risk free because governments have the ability to raise taxes to pay their debt obligations.\n\nNow imagine if Greece default on its sovereign debt. That means that the risk-free rate is no longer risk-free. This could change the foundation of how we calculate corporate and consumer interest rates, which is a fundamental part of financial theory. That's like 1+1 no longer equaling 2.",
"EU is not the same things as Eurozone, keep that in mind. Not all EU member states use the Euro.\n\nIf Greece were to collapse, faith in the Euro would collapse and bring down the Eurozone, then Europe. If Europe falls, the global economy is crippled. Of course, that will not happen. ",
"Nobody is quite sure. If Greece defaults, then the other 16 members of the Euro will probably try to kick them out, since the stability of their currency will be affected, which will make it harder to do business with the rest of the world. But nobody is quite sure what a country leaving the Euro will look like. \n\nThe last time a capitalist European country broke up was Austria-Hungary in 1919, and there was a lot of financial upheaval as money started bouncing around very fast between Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, as people tried to get their old money in the place where it would convert to new money at the best rate. All that money sloshing around caused lots of financial damage, and meanwhile ordinary people couldn't protect themselves because they had to keep their money wherever they were living.\n\nThe example of Austria-Hungary is chilling, since it means that there's probably no orderly way for Greece to leave. If people with money in Greece are forced to convert \"good\" Euros to \"bad\" Drachmas, then as many people as possible will just move their money out of Greece. The value of drachmas will drop like a rock, since the entire point of bringing them back will be so that they can depreciate against the Euro, and nobody likes having their money lose value. If enough money leaves the country, the ordinary economy can just stop, since no monetary value will be left in the country to do ordinary things like workers' payroll. And there's really nothing today stopping everyone with a bank account from moving all their money to France with just a few mouse clicks. Some reports say this process has already started. Nobody really knows how it can end. \n\nSo, Greece ",
"I honestly want to say nothing *should* happen, but idiots will make it seem like it's the end of the world by sensationalizing it. edit: uncertainty. fear. I love watching people so scared... So yea, it'll do stuff, because of fear.\n\nI'm not expert, but Greece has the same GDP as Washington State, and slightly more than Indiana.\n\nYes, the entire country is roughly equivalent to Indiana, in terms of GDP.\n\nIf Indiana collapsed, how much would it affect Europe? None.\nHow much would it affect the US, even? Very little, I would gather.\n\nWhy should Greece affect EU, then?",
"Four hours and zero real answers. One might presume that the situation is complicated.\n\nIf you want a good parallel to look at, the [Argentine Crisis](_URL_2_ for the broken link\") is worth checking out. The TL;DR there is \"too much debt, no way to pay it, a 'run on the bank', widespread economic depression, sporadic rioting, plummeting currency values, eradication of foreign debt (more on that in a minute), recovery.\n\nThe difference being, of course, that Argentina wasn't part of an economic union. This is important because commerce and trade is usually equalized by varying exchange rates against each other - if I want to sell more olive oil and buy less cheese, I devalue the drachma against the franc and suddenly the French can afford more olive oil and the Greeks can afford less roquefort. The EU, however, did away with this mechanism over 20 years ago (while the Euro came into circulation 10 years ago, the Treaty of Mastricht in 1992 slowed things down). \n\nThe problem, basically, is that the \"value\" of any EU country's economy *has* been changing over the past 10-20 years but the \"price\" of that country's economy has been locked down. Think of a crumbling wall. There are other bricks besides Greece that are ready to tumble, but Greece looks like it will go first and without Greece there, other bricks will fall. When they do, there will be a nasty bout where \"value\" and \"price\" equalize in a free market to make up for 10-20 years of artificial pricing restrictions.\n\nThe reason everyone freaks out about Greece is that because banking is so fluid and so international, any default of Greek debt causes money flight to Portugal, Italy and Spain (with Greece, the so-called \"PIGS\" of the EU - not making this up), which are almost as fragile as Greece. The \"contagion\" (another word used commonly) then spreads to France and the UK which, while robust enough for the time being, may not be able to take the financial shock of a \"run on the bank\" as large as the Mediterranean coast. How far the banking shock travels is anyone's guess - you're now talking about a pretty sophisticated model without a lot of known inputs. \n\nSo basically, the worry is that if Greece is allowed to fall, everybody's economy suddenly experiences 10-20 years worth of economic adjustments in the space of a few hours. It's not like everybody suddenly ends up in the poorhouse, but credit will become difficult to get which means banking and commerce become harder. There would likely be a recession, nobody's sure how deep or how long. In the end, Europe is a scattered collection of countries with exchange rates, just like it was before the Euro.\n\nHere's where it gets interesting. You look at that and say \"well, clearly Greece shouldn't be allowed to default on its debts and leave the Euro.\" Thing is, by devaluing Greece's currency, it also devalues all its foreign debt. Greece *could* solve its own problems by destroying the value of the drachma, suffering a 3-5 year recession, and coming up roses, selling olive oil and Santorini vacations at a cut rate price. *So could everyone.* So on the one hand, you have \"don't let anyone fall.\" On the other hand, you have \"if falling is an eventuality, the first person to fall wins.\"\n\nIt's very much in Greece's immediate benefit to default on its debt and leave the Euro. The Greeks are being told to eat their peas by Papa Europe but they also have the option of storming away from the table. And if they storm away from the table, a lot of kids are going to follow them and the people with the most to lose are the responsible adults.\n\nFor further (adult) reading I recommend [Endgame](_URL_1_) by John Mauldin, [Aftershock](_URL_3_) by Robert Reich and [This Time It's Different](_URL_0_) by Reinhart and Rogoff.",
"ELI5 how this affects the United States?",
"Let me put it this way. Have you ever seen a cat stuck in a manifold?",
"IF it collapses (which it won't because we've had time to prepare for it), then entities who own Greek debt would immediately suffer huge losses, as they won't get their investment back. This would be mostly [Germany and France banks](_URL_0_). If the German and French banks fail, then they would drag Europe down with them. The euro currency would probably be dissolved. The contagion would effect the United States on a grand scale, removing about 21% of our foreign trade. The market correction would be significant, and 401ks tied to corporations would surely plummet. People around the world would probably start withdrawing their money from banks, like they did in September 2008. Banks currently only have about 10% of cash on hand, so there won't be enough money to go around.",
"I'll assume the Greek collapse means it will be kicked out of the Euro. If that's the case, then they will develop their own currency (back to the drachma, I presume). That currency will invariably be worth very little, because no one will trust its value. That means that Greek goods will be relatively inexpensive in the short run. Their exports should increase, bringing new value to their currency over the long run."
]
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-Financial/dp/0691152640/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329842629&sr=1-1",
"http://www.amazon.com/Endgame-Debt-Supercycle-Changes-Everything/dp/1118004574/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329842573&sr=8-1",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_(1999%E2%80%932002\\\\\\)\"apologies",
"http://www.amazon.com/Aftershock-Economy-Americas-Future-Vintage/dp/0307476332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329842601&sr=1-1"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://mobile.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/debt-crisis/110719/euro-zone-sovereign-debt-crisis-banks"
],
[]
] |
|
20dk3x | what would a non-carbon based life form look like? specifically silicon based. | I've been reading about possible life forms being based other than carbon, like silicon. How different would they look like from us? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20dk3x/eli5_what_would_a_noncarbon_based_life_form_look/ | {
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"text": [
"Anywhere from exactly the same (unlikely) to \"you wouldn't even recognize this as being alive.\"\n\nThere are some general assumptions that can be made based on animal life here on earth:\n\n1) Most likely will have a head\n\n2) Most likely will have sensory organs, probably based on or near the head\n\n3) Will likely have a dermis layer (skin, fur, etc.)\n\nAnd I could go on. If you're looking for specifics of how it would look (color, number of legs, etc.) we have no way to know.",
"It doesn't really affect the macroscopic structure, look at all the different types of life that all use carbon. It would affect their nutritional needs but there's no way to say that a silicon-based life form looks like *this*, any more than a carbon-based life form looks like *that*."
]
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[],
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|
2knwb8 | if bill cosby did get charged for rape, how can he settle and get off scott free? | In 2006 Andrea Constand had a case against Cosby for rape. What I don't understand is how can the case be settled if it's a criminal matter. If he committed a crime should he not be punished? Or if he was innocent should he not be cleared? Or is this a case of rich mans justice? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2knwb8/eli5_if_bill_cosby_did_get_charged_for_rape_how/ | {
"a_id": [
"cln2dwm",
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"score": [
3,
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"text": [
"A rape victim can come after their rapist with a civil suit or a criminal charge. Civil suits can be settled out of court. Constand's case was a civil suit.\n\nOne compelling reason to file a civil suit is that civil cases tend to reach resolution much, much more swiftly. Another is that the victim rather than the state maintains control of the prosecution, and the defendant can be deposed whereas in a criminal trial the defendant may decline to take the stand.",
" > how can the case be settled if it's a criminal matter. \n > Or if he was innocent should he not be cleared? \n\nThats exactly what happened.\n\nAnything else that happened afterwards, was a civil matter involving the individuals and not a criminal case.\n",
"I do believe there is a statute of limitations (ie only a limited amount of time that someone can take a case to court) in criminal charges depending on location, which is a shame. Rape/molestation victims take time to heal and build up courage to stand up to their victimizers, which people may not be able to understand. Civil suit would be the only legal means of a case, however there would need to be evidence. Evidence 20 years after the fact is hard to prove, physical evidence in such cases are a rarity..."
]
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[],
[],
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|
jmfbs | what the hell is a credit rating and why's it such a big deal? | Help me out reddit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jmfbs/eli5_what_the_hell_is_a_credit_rating_and_whys_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2db3i7",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It's basically a trustworthyness scale. The more likely you are to pay back your loans, the higher your score is. If you make a lot of money, your score goes up. If you never miss payments, your score goes up. You're essentially establishing how trustworthy you are in a quantifiable sense.",
"It's basically a trustworthyness scale. The more likely you are to pay back your loans, the higher your score is. If you make a lot of money, your score goes up. If you never miss payments, your score goes up. You're essentially establishing how trustworthy you are in a quantifiable sense."
]
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[],
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|
62bgld | the physical differnce between flexible and non-flexible people | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62bgld/eli5_the_physical_differnce_between_flexible_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"dflcnpt"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Muscle mass can inhibit flexibility by pulling harder on connective tissue. Scar tissue can inhibit flexibility by reducing the elasticity of connective tissue. Stretching can increase flexibility over time by lengthening muscles and ligaments. It can also train your body to accommodate deeper stretches. Your body contains feedback mechanisms to prevent your muscles from ripping themselves off of your bones, and these come into play when you are close to the limits of your flexibility. Your muscles also contain mechanisms that prevent them from becoming overextended, which dramatically reduces their strength."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
agnyss | why exactly happens that makes brain damage permanent after three minutes of oxygen deprivation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/agnyss/eli5_why_exactly_happens_that_makes_brain_damage/ | {
"a_id": [
"ee7k8vr"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"The brain needs a constant supply of oxygen to keep its cells alive and functioning. When the blood circulating to the brain cells is either cut off or is not receiving enough oxygen to adequately supply the brain cells, they essentially starve to death. \nThe same happens when people have cardiac issues where blood is cut off to the heart and parts of the heart muscle die if too much time passes before oxygen flow is restored. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
2tpd7l | what happens to the staff of a former president? | A former President can write books, speak in public, etc. I'm wondering what happens to the people below him. Is it the same for his (or her?) Cabinet, and what about the people below them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tpd7l/eli5what_happens_to_the_staff_of_a_former/ | {
"a_id": [
"co141aq",
"co141kp"
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"text": [
"They go work for new politicians, hopefully with a kick ass letter of recommendation ",
"Cabinet level advisors are usually let go when the administration changes. From there they go a lot of places, consultancy jobs, other political appointments, foreign service/diplomacy posts, back to the private sector. As far as I know theres nothing specifically forbidding them from making speaking tours or writing a book unless they intend to disclose classified info. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
2m0jx2 | what are the pros and cons of net neutrality? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m0jx2/eli5what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_net_neutrality/ | {
"a_id": [
"clzvj8f"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"People who are against net neutrality say internet providers could make arrangements with websites and services to provide better access, but at a cost. \n\nPeople who support net neutrality think this will most likely be abused to hell and they will basically blackmail services so they pay the ISPs, or else they will heavily limit or right our block it. \n\nIn general net neutrality has very few benefits and lots of disadvantages for a consumer and mostly helps out the companies. "
]
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[]
] |
Subsets and Splits