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20prs9 | why were the balkan nations allowed to break away from yugoslavia and serbia with western support, but crimea is not allowed to break away from ukraine? | Most of the people don't identify as Ukrainian. It has never historically been part of what we consider Ukraine until "gifted" to the Ukraine SSR by Khrushchev in 1950s. I distrust Putin as much as anybody, but shouldn't we respect what a large majority of the Crimean population wants? Didn't we bomb Serbia just to allow Kosovo that right to self determination. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20prs9/eli5_why_were_the_balkan_nations_allowed_to_break/ | {
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"Putin rolled an army in and conducted a vote that other leaders have called completely wrong. Is it really possible for 95 percent to agree to side with Russia and also have enough people to overthrow the pro Russian government? The tartans have publicly stated they refuse to participate in a clown show off a vote do almost all of them didn't vote. Russia has been carefully controlling the media that's leaving there, the vote was rigged (as most believe) and the parades and celebrations apparently organized by Russian spetznaz pretending to be self defense units not from Russia. It's not wrong to assist in a country stepping away from another, it is wrong to walk in pointing guns under the guise of protecting Russian speaking people to brow beat the opposition into backing down while you run a cat and dog show of a vote to convince people of something that isn't true. Long story short Putin is bullying those who don't agree to stay away do Russia can keep hold of their ONLY warm water port and what many consider the most important strategic point for Russia's defence against a sea based assault. It isn't about people for Putin it's about strategic assets and a warm water port."
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25dqdc | do "on demand" tv services affect ratings? | I know that ratings are (in a simple nutshell) used to determine a show's popularity, and to help shuffle timeslots per targeted viewing audience. Do "on demand" services still measure the number of watchers for a show/network/genre/etc? Also, does the use of "on demand" services make it difficult for networks to determine timeslots for shows? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25dqdc/eli5_do_on_demand_tv_services_affect_ratings/ | {
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"\"Live\" audience is still king when it comes to TV. Those are the numbers they use to sell commercial space\nPotential sponsirs can set up and distribute their commercials easily online, so online audience doesn't count. The provider basically buys the rights to rebroadcast \"on demand\", so the commericals there don't count for much to a potential sponsor.\n\nSo, it is still of vital importance to know who is watching a show during its broadcast timeslot (and to a smaller extent, rerun timeslot). That's where the big money is traded",
"[There are separate ratings that include on-demand figures.](_URL_0_)"
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2n5f2t | how come i can get really tired reading a book or watching tv, but when i try to go to sleep immediately after i toss and turn for hours before finally falling asleep? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n5f2t/eli5_how_come_i_can_get_really_tired_reading_a/ | {
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"If you're like me, it's because your mind races. Reading or watching TV means something is effectively doing a lot of the \"thinking\" for you. You can start to doze and still have the thoughts be fed to you. When thinking in bed, some thoughts lead to more and it just spirals out of control. \n\nFunny thing is, when you're in bed and can't sleep and your mom texts you to take out the trash. Sleeping is almost instantaneous.",
"When you're watching TV or reading and you are tired anyway, you are not focusing on trying to sleep. You're sat nice and comfortably and you are relaxed so your body goes into sleep mode. When you are in bed and think about sleeping, you can be worried that you won't fall asleep and so you don't. Your mind needs to be relaxed.",
"I would expect this has a lot to do with two things:\n-One: that you are underestimating how much energy it takes to do something like processing information from any medium, like books or TV, your brain uses about 20% of the energy you expend daily, and much of that energy will be attributable to doing those exact kinds of things. It's like trying to lift furniture when you are too tired and just want to watch TV, but the next level down.\n-Two: when you are laying down completely, with your head down which it probably isn't during those other two activities, you have sharply improved blood-flow to the brain, because of gravity and because when your neck isn't straight it probably reduces circulation some. More oxygen means more cellular respiration means more energy to burn, plus some extra oxygen is added because you can breath more easily on your back usually.",
"I can't speak about reading, but I remember reading a study where the glow of a TV screen enters your retina and convinces your hypothalamus that it is still daytime, which inhibits your brains production of melatonin and other sleep hormones. ",
"The stimulation from prior activities makes your head weird and have to process all of those things, delaying sleep. This is a better question for realdeal /r/askscience/",
"Its your body way of telling you that you didn't reddit long enough. Go a head and take out your phone and open your favorite reedit app up and it will all go away.",
"Basically, you're trying to stay awake. And being the scumbag that our brains are, it wants to do the opposite. You wanna sleep? Let's stay up till 3. You want to stay awake? let's fall asleep in the next 11 seconds.",
"Pro tip: thinking about the future keeps you up. Thinking about the past helps you sleep. ",
"That is one of the most fucked up things in my life...\n"
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1xnsv7 | how do small isps now entering the market expect to compete longterm with verizon and other gigantic isps? | I hate the monopolistic nature of Verizon and other ISPs, but don't fully understand how it all works behind the scenes. Will the government ever be able to regulate the internet like gas, water, and electricity? Why? Why not?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xnsv7/eli5_how_do_small_isps_now_entering_the_market/ | {
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"Smaller ISPs have to identify a market that is badly served by the existing providers and then serve that market. For most places in the country that's virtually impossible from a technical standpoint so the only thing they can really offer is either better customer service or a lower price. The margins on internet service are not good to begin with so offering a lower price is usually a quick trip to failure.\n\nCustomer service is a hard thing to sell. Most people find that most of the time their internet service \"just works\". There's very little customer service that most people ever need. It's hard to get someone to pay for something they don't use and don't need.\n\nYou could imagine a company that tried to provide customer service for the apps and operating systems on top of the internet stack but it would be fiendishly difficult to deliver that service - there are just so many variables, and even communicating with a customer about the problem can be maddening when the customer doesn't know enough about their system to answer questions helpfully or provide useful descriptions of the problems they are having.\n\nThere are pockets where you might be able to build an ISP with a technical advantage. Some rural areas are poorly served by existing ISPs. They're usually poorly served because the cost to run the wire to the homes is prohibitively high. I knew of a few small private ISPs that made a good business out of creating mesh wifi networks with cantennas and a lot of elbow grease in the 2003-2005 timeframe that were able to make some money in that kind of area, but I don't know if they remained viable over the long term.\n\nThe government will likely never regulate the internet like a utility. Unlike utilities where in general the best business model is a monopoly, internet service remains a market where competition from several providers and several technology platforms remains the best option (from a consumer's stand point)."
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41mw3e | why is when someone is being interviewed on a channel like cnn, is there a delay between when they ask a question and the response. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41mw3e/eli5_why_is_when_someone_is_being_interviewed_on/ | {
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"Because the signal needs to go from where the question is asked, to a modem, to a cell tower or dish array, to space, back to a cell tower or dish array, to another modem, and then then to the speaker wherever the interviewee is.\n\nIt takes time for digital information to travel, even on \"live\" television. ",
"The speed of light is the fastest anything can go, including data and signals. You have to account for the time it takes for the signal to travel from interviewer to interviewee and then back. Then there is also probably some kind of technical processes (encoding and such) that would add a bit of delay.\n\nThen add in the reaction and thought time of the interviewee, their on TV, they are going to think about what they say before saying it."
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4xqbml | why are there different events in gymnastics for men and women? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xqbml/eli5_why_are_there_different_events_in_gymnastics/ | {
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"The amount of upper body strength needed to do rings and pommel horse. Historically I don't think women had that kind of strength. It's possible that some of the women who compete now might be able to pull off those apparatus. ",
"There's an emphasis for women on grace, and for men on upper body strength.",
"Simply male and female anatomy. Male events are primarily strength related (*especially* upper body strength) and females are generally smaller and more flexible so they correlate with those better. Now that's not to say neither can do either, but one sex will have a slight advantage due to that",
"Because in sports we are allowed to admit the basic scientific fact there are physical differences in male and female anatomy. . .\n\n\n\n-\n\n\n. . . for now.\n\n",
"Men and women have different centers of gravity. Men's are near the middle of the chest, women's are lower near the hips. This difference is key to certain gender specific events like the rings and pommel horse. "
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2gyaij | why is it acceptable for cats to scratch people, but when a dog bites someone it needs to be put down? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gyaij/eli5_why_is_it_acceptable_for_cats_to_scratch/ | {
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"I've known people who got rid of aggressive cats because they were about to have a baby. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have had to put cats down for scratching/biting.\n\nCats have to interact with the world with their claws. It's unavoidable. Of course they will scratch things sometimes, but usually it's by accident or the cat doesn't understand it's improper.\n\nIF the cat is intentionally *attacking* then of course that is a problem. But there is no way a dog bites you by accident.",
"Because dogs were bred to be hunting and guard animals, and therefore have the physical ability to do harm to a human that greatly surpasses that of a cat.",
"When cats attack a human it's usually more a \"hurt them enough to scare them away and/or run away myself,\" whereas big aggressive dogs can legitimately kill someone. Cats also tend to be more indoor animals, so if a person has a mean cat it's usually confined to that person's house. \n\nOne of the main points here is that dogs are much scarier than cats, for the most part. \n\n\n"
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7nyma1 | why do peeholes face up and down rather than side to side? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7nyma1/eli5_why_do_peeholes_face_up_and_down_rather_than/ | {
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"In short, it's vertical so that urine flows better. If it were side to side (horizontal), it could lead to issues with peeing, as it would require more force to pee. \n\nI googled this if you want further information (called the external meatus opening) "
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e7q3bu | how does your muscle grow stronger/thicker upon being damaged? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e7q3bu/eli5_how_does_your_muscle_grow_strongerthicker/ | {
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"the muscle tissues get damaged. Then your body repairs them stronger so they don't get damaged as easily.",
"Take a ball of clay, shape it into a football shape. Then score it long ways (surface level cut) with a knife. That's in a sense what happens when you exercise but many times over and much much smaller tears (can't see with the naked eye). You basically damage your muscles.\n\nWhen your body goes to fix the tears, instead of just sticking the clay back together, your body adds more new clay to fill up the tear. Do this over and over and your lump of clay (muscle) will become noticeably bigger. And bigger muscles generally mean more strength.",
"To add to the other answers, nobody really knows if it is the damage that causes growth. Other competing factors are tension, metabolic stress, or other mechanisms that i frankly don't know.\n\nEdit: this study for example found that the body does not increase protein synthesis in muscles until after the microtraumata are rrepaired. This might indicate that one should maximize their training while trying to minimize muscle damage. _URL_0_"
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8r5xrk | how come rechargable batteries like in our phones don't "overcharge" when left in the charger at 100%? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8r5xrk/eli5_how_come_rechargable_batteries_like_in_our/ | {
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"There's a circuit in the phone which monitors the battery voltage. When it reaches the goal, it cuts off charging any more. ",
"Whem you plug your phone in, a couple of active devices in the phone monitor the voltage of the battery and modify the current going in, and when they detect the battery voltage is at its highest point, they disconnect the battery from its supply",
"They can, but you have to try to do it. If you put your phone to sleep and let it stay in the charger, it'll stop charging after a point.\n\nIf on the other hand you keep it on, have it doing something like playing movies, and leave it on overnight while being charged.. That can cause problems.\n\nIts why I had to replace my 3DS. The battery pretty much inflated to the point where it nearly broke the case.",
"They did overcharge older rechargeable batteries. I remember when mobile phones started becoming mainstream you had to make sure not to leave them at 100% for too long once they fully charged.\n\nToday there is a circuit that stops electricity once the battery is fully charged."
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1l34l7 | why is it harder to do things that are more beneficial for us? for example, why is it easier to sit at home and watch tv than to run and exercise, or to eat a double cheeseburger than a salad? | I've always wondered this. Obviously there are some exceptions, like causing physical pain to ourselves is harder than not doing anything at all. But, it seems like most of the beneficial things to people in general (losing weight, building muscle, studying hard, work, etc.) almost seem like chores, and something we have to constantly struggle with ourselves to do. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l34l7/eli5_why_is_it_harder_to_do_things_that_are_more/ | {
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"Generally speaking, animals try to maximize energy intake (cheeseburger) and minimize energy expenditure (watch tv). Rich(ish) humans in modern 1st world countries are kind of a unique outlier among animals in that they have *too* *many* calories than is healthy. We haven't adapted to that yet.",
"Because using as little energy as possible while taking in as much energy as possible is what our brains believe is necessary to survive.\n\nThroughout 99.99% of human history, it was important to eat foods high in sugar and fat, as it provides humans with lots of energy. If you didn't crave the taste of fats and sugars, then you would have less energy and be less likely to reproduce. We are descendants of those early humans who actively sought fatty and sugary foods.\n\nWe don't like exercising because we are hardwired to conserve as much energy as possible. We might run into a predator and need to flee, or run into some prey and chase it down at any moment. Our brains tell us that we can't afford to use this precious energy on something that wont feed us or help us reproduce.",
"There's a lot of evolutionary instincts involved here that stopped us from being animals that eat, procreate and sleep for their lifetimes. \n\nIn a simple answer to your question, you prefer to sit at home and watch TV because you're rewarded instantly from your (small) effort: you get information and spend less energy, whereas with going outside and running you're not only spending a lot of energy, but the reward you get is not instantaneous: your heart muscle only strengthens with many sessions. \n\nIn really short words, you feel accomplished instantly when you sit down and do what you feel like rather than finding motivation to use energy for gains that you will only see weeks after. "
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f93ux9 | how are artists able to recreate what someone would have looked like from solely having their skull to work with? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f93ux9/eli5_how_are_artists_able_to_recreate_what/ | {
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"They can't. Those forensic facial reconstructions you see are approximations of what a person *might* have looked like based on mostly educated guesswork and artistry. There are some things we know, like the placement of muscles in the face which gives us a rough idea of the shape, but they have to guess as to the tissue thickness, and things like skin, cartilage, eyes, and hair are also largely guesswork."
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drhr4m | when and why did the greek economy start to tank? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/drhr4m/eli5_when_and_why_did_the_greek_economy_start_to/ | {
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"Well it was during the 2008 recession. At that point most European countries had economic difficulties, but by 2010 most of them had recovered while Greece was still in difficulties. It's at this time that Greece debt increased, but when other countries stabilised their debt by 2011, Greece kept getting more and more debt, their inflation started to drop and went into deflation in 2013. At this point, they should have been able to recover, but since they were using the Euro, they couldn't do what they want with it to fix their deflation problems, which lasted until 2017.\n\nThat said, I'm don't know if Greece could have fix the problem faster is they were not in the Euro zone, because they have an horrible track record when it come to inflation control. From mid 70s to mid 90s they had over 10% inflation, going up to 35% at some point. Greece was never a stable economy.",
"I came across this video recently, offers some really interesting historical context for this subject:\n\n _URL_0_",
" \n\nImagine I tell you I'm about to get a great new job, and if you loan me some money, I'll totally be able to pay you back, and then some. It's looks like a pretty sweet job, so you say why not.\n\nI start living large, nice house, fancy cars, so that job must be working out. I am making my payments, with interest, but I am also asking for more loans. I show you spreadsheets that prove how the money is flowing in, and since I am offering to pay interest, you keep up with the loans.\n\nFast forward several years. I've kept on living large, but I owe you a *lot* of money, more than you think I can pay back. On paper, it is a good investment because of the interest, but you are starting to get suspicious. You snoop around, and find out I completely lied to get the job, wasn't doing very well at it, and those spreadsheets I showed you were completely made up. I am a total fraud, living a lie so you would loan me the money that supported my opulent lifestyle.\n\nSo what do you do?\n\nYou could cut me off. I'd lose my house and car, probably my job, and you would be out a lot of money.\n\nOr you could keep loaning me some money, on the condition I cut back, get my act together and get into a position where I can pay you back. You might even forgive part of the debt in the hope of seeing at least some of it.\n\nThe problem is, I really like my house and car, and don't want to move into an apartment and ride the bus. Every time you try to get me to cut back, I drag my feet, throw tantrums, call you a bully, come up with wild, unworkable alternatives, and take no real responsibility for my actions. Each month, when the bills come due, I threaten to just not pay anyone and become homeless if you don't do things my way. You are pretty fed up with me, and figure things will end badly no matter what, so why throw good money after bad?\n\nThat is pretty what happened with Greece. They lied their way into the eurozone and lied about their economy, all the while using their eurozone clout to borrow money like crazy and spend it on useless public sector jobs and tax evasion. When they were found out, they blamed the lenders and instead of trying to change their ways elected leaders who promised they could solve the problem with fairy dust and unicorn farts."
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ebiff3 | how does something like this double rock happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ebiff3/eli5_how_does_something_like_this_double_rock/ | {
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"When a mommy rock and a daddy rock love each other very much,.....\n\n\nThe rock was encased in sandstone. And the outer layer hardened, and eroded."
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6r05s0 | why do the ads never have an issue loading but other content does in bad connection areas? | So I'm in a pretty bad area right now for reception. 1 bar on the LTE and for some reason my phone won't drop to standard 4G.
But the kicker? Every single web ad still loads fine, even if the images or text does not. Why is it that for some reason I can't get text comments to load while at the same time, there is no delay in the animated ad for a D & D-esque ripoff of Clash of Clans? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6r05s0/eli5_why_do_the_ads_never_have_an_issue_loading/ | {
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"The way it's been described to me in a previous post similar to this is that the ad content is more localised and because of that it is essentially pre-buffered. I think the correct terminology was that the ad data was already cached on the site because those ads will get played more often and the actual video data isn't cached because it isn't as often used.\n\nForgive me for having anything incorrect but this is what I can remember of how it was described to me as I had often wondered the same thing."
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2wvl2d | how does dr.oz, who has been proven to spout completely inaccurate information to the public, keep his license? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wvl2d/eli5_how_does_droz_who_has_been_proven_to_spout/ | {
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"As silly as it might sound, all it takes is a disclaimer. Feel free to read it on his website, _URL_0_, just search for the title \"NO MEDICAL ADVICE\".\n\nBasically, because you're not paying, visiting, or speaking with Dr. Oz, no doctor-client relationship is made, thus none of the \"advice\" he gives is medical advice.\n\nHe's been sued many times over the things he says, and they get thrown out, thanks to the disclaimer.",
"[Vox explained it](_URL_0_):\n > The fact that Oz hasn't lost any credentials speaks to a larger challenge in modern medicine: Once you get a medical license, its actually really difficult to lose it.\n\n > \"This has been a longstanding complaint with medicine and the professional regulation. You either need to have sex with patients who file a complaint, be a really bad substance-using person... or you're malpractice-level bad as a doctor,\" David Jones, professor of culture of medicine at Harvard University, says. \"Nothing in Dr. Oz's conduct is even close to getting the attention of the state boards because they are dealing with sex criminals, alcoholics, and gross misconduct.\"...\n\n > Oz is not practicing medicine when he calls supplements \"magic weight loss cures\" or \"lightening in a bottle\" on TV. He also denies any financial stake in the products he features on his show, so the state regulator has no grounds on which to go after him",
"Not to mention that he's a Cardiologist. Which makes me seriously question why anyone takes any non cardiology advice from the man.",
"He performed a quadruple bypass on my father a while back and it's heartbreaking to see how he destroyed all of his credibility. He was once well-respected in his field but that's shot to shit now. "
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9p508s | why do monks have such a long tradition of brewing beer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9p508s/eli5_why_do_monks_have_such_a_long_tradition_of/ | {
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"You’re celibate as a monk... sooooo what else you gonna do?",
"AFAIK anything non-alcoholic or not boiled was not safe to drink back then (Also, beer was allowed during fasting). Beer was the standard beverage in any community for that reason, and since monks lived in \"closed economies\" (i.e. they were supposed to produce all their goods themselves), they brewed beer. At first only for themselves, then for pilgrims and finally they became known for it and produced it for everyone. ",
"Free labor + access to science + a need to provide some finance to the monestary. Interestingly, for some time in some monestaries, beer was permissable during the lenteen fast. Woohoo!",
"They sure do make good beer, I know that much. Weihenstephaner, absolutely superb. The Dunkel is the best. ",
"Water used to be dangerous unless boiled. Beer and wine have alcohol, so it was safer and could be stored. The church hasn't always frowned on alcohol--Christ's first miracle was to turn water into wine.",
"Christians used to fast a lot during the middle ages. Beer didn't technically count as eating, as it was a beverage, but still had high calorie intake.",
"Clergy were the most educated people of the time. They developed beer and wine making to a science (which is ironic in a way) and the only people with enough of an education to pass the knowledge on to were other monks. \n\nIn some wine regions the soils and local/regional microclimates were mapped out by the monks to such precision that they knew which rows of grapes would do better than the others right beside them, so accurate that fruit from individual rows can fetch premium prices to this day.",
"Churches owned a lot of property (incl. farmland) and had the human and material resources to churn out products like bread, cheese, wine and beer on a large scale. Monasteries became small factories where the monks were producing not only for themselves but also for resale to fund the church’s operations and interests (maintenance, expansion, missions, etc...). \n\nAs other have pointed out, earlier wines and beers were very weak compared to today so they were commonly drunk by all ages throughout the day.\n\nThe discovery of yeast by Louis Pasteur was a game-changer for brewing because the brewers/ monks could replicate the flavour of beer and make a consistent product. Monasteries were early adopters and as a result they produced very high quality beer. They had the knowledge, experience and resources to make a delicious and repeatable product. Today many monastic beers are highly prized and some of the proceeds are still used in the same ways as they have been for centuries.",
"Honestly, monestaries were pillars of economy back then, they had massive plots of land, large amounts of labour and access to some of the most advanced technology, it shouldn't be surprising that they brewed beer, made wine, stitched fabrics, forged tools, crafted furniture, etc \n\nThey did practically everything. Beer just stayed as one of the ones they did forever"
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jdok8 | two graphics cards in sli or crossfire. | 1 card = 2 monitors AND one card speed
2 cards = 4 monitors AND ?? cards speed
2 cards in SLI or Crossfire = 2 monitors AND ?? cards speed
Help please :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jdok8/eli5_two_graphics_cards_in_sli_or_crossfire/ | {
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"Let me see if I can explain this without getting too technical.\n\nLet's say a graphics card is car manufacturing line, and the cars that come off the line are the frames per second. The line can only produce so many cars at a time. The cars can look really good, but the plant would have to go slower and you would get less cars per hour. This is the same with the graphics card, you can make your game look really good, but you get less frame rates. On the other hand, you could have the manufacturing line go really fast, but the cars that come out won't look as good. This is the same with the graphics card, you can have more frames per second if you lower the quality. \n\nNow, assume you wanted to get better looking cars, and a lot more of them at once. Your plant can't make all those cars with the one machine you have already, so you go and buy another machine that is the exact same make and model (EG: If you have an Nvidia 460, you go and buy another Nvidia 460). You then connect these two machines together with a cable, allowing them to talk and coordinate the instructions of how to make the cars. By doing this, the two machines work efficiently to produce more cars that look really good. This is the same as SLI/Crossfire. Instead of leaving all the heavy duty work to one graphics card, you give that graphics card a \"buddy\" of sorts that he can offload some of the work too, thus having two cards producing images instead of one.",
"Let me see if I can explain this without getting too technical.\n\nLet's say a graphics card is car manufacturing line, and the cars that come off the line are the frames per second. The line can only produce so many cars at a time. The cars can look really good, but the plant would have to go slower and you would get less cars per hour. This is the same with the graphics card, you can make your game look really good, but you get less frame rates. On the other hand, you could have the manufacturing line go really fast, but the cars that come out won't look as good. This is the same with the graphics card, you can have more frames per second if you lower the quality. \n\nNow, assume you wanted to get better looking cars, and a lot more of them at once. Your plant can't make all those cars with the one machine you have already, so you go and buy another machine that is the exact same make and model (EG: If you have an Nvidia 460, you go and buy another Nvidia 460). You then connect these two machines together with a cable, allowing them to talk and coordinate the instructions of how to make the cars. By doing this, the two machines work efficiently to produce more cars that look really good. This is the same as SLI/Crossfire. Instead of leaving all the heavy duty work to one graphics card, you give that graphics card a \"buddy\" of sorts that he can offload some of the work too, thus having two cards producing images instead of one."
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9dmrup | how does gravity bend light if light is massless? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dmrup/eli5_how_does_gravity_bend_light_if_light_is/ | {
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"Because gravity bends space-time itself. \n\nThe light is still going straight, by its own point of view, but the space-time is curved by the gravity, so something traveling straight through curved space-time alters its direction relative to an observer outside the curved region. \n\nBlack holes basically curve space-time inward to the point that there's no getting back out of that gravity well. ",
"Gravity bends spacetime. Light moves through spacetime, so the light bends because the space it's traveling through bends. \n\nThis was predicted by Einstein and then confirmed by an [eclipse](_URL_0_).",
"Also, light isn't truly massless. Light doesn't have a rest mass, which is mass of a relatively stationary object and light is always moving at the speed of light. But photons have/are energy, and energy is also mass in special relativity. So light has a mass that depends on it's frequency.\n\nEdit: As u/AirborneRodent points out, this post uses outdated terminology. I am referring to light having a relativistic mass, which is apparently no longer really used. From what I can tell, relativistic mass was used as an intermediary conceptual step between Newtonian gravity between two masses and gravity affecting energy as in relativity (Due to E = mc squared being well known). This is no longer taught. ",
"The key here is to remember that gravity doesn't only act on mass, but energy in general. So if you have a gravitational source, anything with energy will be attracted to it. Since light carries energy, it feels gravity.\n\nAnother way of looking at it is by saying that light (and everything else for that matter) wants to travel in straight lines. But since a gravitational source will bend spacetime, what the light thinks is straight doesn't look straight to an outside observer. Therefore, the observer says that the light's path was \"bent\" (even though it is just traveling on its preferred path).",
"Picture walking along a flat, featureless surface like a road. Going down it, you're traveling 'along the road'. Add a gently curving hill. Though you're still traveling in the same direction (along the road) you're also moving vertically, because the road is bent.",
"Gravity is an illusion that appears to work on Mass. In reality gravity is a curvature of space-time. \n\nAll things passing through this curvature are affected, light curves around it, massive objects fall toward its center (which is what we perceive as gravitational force/acceleration due to gravity)\n\nEdit: I guess illusion is too strong a word. but trying to ELI5",
"Push down in the center of your mattress.\n\nNow roll a ball straight across the mattress.\n\nOh, you can’t? The ball wobbles near the center where you’re pushing down?\n\nBut why does it? After all, you’re not touching the ball at all!\n\nSame thing with gravity bending space. The light doesn’t change direction - the space it’s moving through is warped.",
"I'm curious. We known the mass of the sun bends spacetime. What if the sun were to vanish would this space-time still be bent or is there a time limit until the flatten out again? \n\nAlso can something as small like a photon or electron bend space-time?",
"Why does light have to follow spacetime?",
"I think the best way to answer this question is to accept that there is no gravity. Stay with me for a second.\n\nWe call the apparent force that mass has on time itself as gravity. But in reality it is just space-time. I never was able to grasp the idea of space-time until Vsauce came out with [this](_URL_0_) video. It blew me away.\n\nHe concludes the video by saying, \"...you feel as though you're being pushed into the ground not because of a force called 'gravity', but because time is moving faster for your head than for your feet.\"\n\nIf that peaks your interest please watch the video.",
"It's worth mentioning that even in classical mechanics, no quantum and no relativity, the equations of physics still say gravity should bend light. The only disagreement is how much of an effect gravity has (larger in relativity, but by extraordinarily tiny amounts. You need really sensitive equipment to measure it.)\n\nUsually, things with momentum also have mass. In fact, one usual definition of momentum is (mass)*(speed). This starts to break down in classical E & M, where electric and magnetic fields also carry momentum. I'm not saying electric fields move around charges and give them speed and momentum, I'm saying that there are ways to construct physical systems where particles begin and end with different total momentum, violating the holy law of conservation of momentum. The only thing that saves you is to recognize that the electric field also has momentum, which is sorta like saying that if you were to jump really hard in a direction that isn't just straight up, the Earth's gravitational field, not the Earth but rather just the gravitational field, would start moving around. If that sounds weird, it's because it is.\n\nLight is just an oscillating electric field, so it definitely has momentum. Anything with momentum also has energy. In truth, these are the quantities that gravity acts on (and also pressure, but that plays no role here). You can take a look at Newton's equation of gravity and notice that if you have two objects and one of them has a mass of 0, the gravitational force between them is 0. That's very nearly true, the force on massless objects is very tiny, but this is just an approximation. Massless objects are very, very strange so it's useful to not use the more complex equations that describe objects with energy or momentum but no mass. However, this absolutely can be done inside Newtonian mechanics if you're more careful.\n\nAgain, no quantum and no relativity needed. The answers that classical mechanics are numerically incorrect almost all the time for the bending of light, but the basic jist of the calculations are there. Relativity can be looked at as a slight correction to Newtonian mechanics, and quantum can be looked at as a slightly different correction. Most of the time these corrections are negligible, here they aren't. But they just amount to adding more terms in the equations, there's nothing fundamentally wrong about Newtonian mechanics that these corrections bring to light, at least not in relation to your question.",
"Gravity doesn’t move things, the warp in space created by gravity moves things. You don’t need mass to be affected by gravity",
"Also, if light is massless, how come if you hold a studio flash up to a cymbal and trigger it the cymbal does *ding?*",
"Because light isn't really \"massless\" in the way you're thinking about it.\n\nAnyone who knows at least a tiny number of facts about Albert Einstein generally knows his most famous equation: E=mc^2.\n\nThe entirety of this equation tells us that energy (E) relates to mass (m) in a direct way. (c) represents the speed of light, and is a constant. If you can agree that light has energy (not really a big idea), you can see that the energy in a single photon of light can be assigned a given amount of mass equal to its energy divided by the speed of light (300,000 kilometers per second) squared: **E/c^2 =m**.\n\nThe speed of light squared is an ENORMOUS number: 90,000,000,000. We're going to strip the units off for this, because they're not really important for the math.\n\nWorking through a hypothetical: let's assign the energy of a single photon of light as being equal to 1 (again, without worrying about \"one of what?\"). It's \"mass equivalent\" then, is 1/90,000,000,000. This is TINY -- but it is NOT ZERO.\n\ntldr: Gravity affects everything with either mass or energy.",
"[Here's a previous thread](_URL_0_) discussing this from just a couple of days ago.",
"It may be easier to find some YouTube videos that depict this put picture a wide cloth that is stretched out flat. The cloth is what we will call “spacetime”. Now imagine a heavy-ish object lime a baseball and drop it in the center of the cloth. The cloth isn’t flat anymore. It’s concave. Now take a few marbles and imagine throwing them in a circular motion around the cloth. They won’t go in a seemingly straight line because they will be riding along a curved surface since the baseball is weighing the cloth down.\n\nLight follows the same idea. Our sun is the baseball and the marbles can be thought of as the planets. Now each of those marbles actually are warping the cloth around them but by a smaller amount. So mass does not matter, it’s about the plane that the light is traveling on and in our case, this plane is warped by heavy objects in space (planets, the sun, etc) ",
"Gravity isn't actually a force. Well, it is but it isn't. The consensus is that Gravity is most likely an effect that mass has on space-time. The fact that it causes things to orbit or \"move towards each other\" is just a side effect of it's effects on space-time. \n\nSpace-time is this 4 dimensional \"stuff\" that we are in, the planets are in it, space itself is in it, the whole universe is composed of this space-time \"stuff\". You can try to imagine it like a 3 dimensional grid paper with planets and stuff inside this 3d lattice - that's not literally how it looks but it's a good way to visualize the effects that gravity has on it. The 4th dimension is thought of as time, which isn't necessarily important for this explanation, but just know it's \"there\" somewhere.\n\nNow you have this nice uniform grid of space-time that extends up and down, left and right, forward and backward. Now imagine you try to squeeze a big planet in there - it's going to displace those nice grid lines and cause them to bend around the shape of the planet. So now you have a large \"empty\" space but in the middle there's a big giant \"curvy\" part because you put the planet there. Now imagine there's a beam of photons (light) that starts wayyyyyy off in the distance somewhere, and it's headed straight for this curvy part where the planet is at. \n\nThe light travels perfectly straight until it reaches this curved part, and then when we watch it pass by the edge of this planet we notice that the light doesn't move straight and hit the planet, it actually follows that curve around it. If you were riding on top of one of the photons, you wouldn't really notice anything. It would seem like you just kept going straight. But outside that bent portion of space-time you do actually see that the light in fact followed a curved path.\n\nThis isn't because gravity bent the light, but it's because the medium the light is traveling through was bent by gravity.\n\nThis is a really general example and doesn't take into account any of the other weird stuff that happens in reality, but it shows you that you can do some really weird stuff to space-time and make it seem like some weird stuff is happening to the light or matter within it, when in reality the light or matter is still perfectly following the laws of physics.\n\nAnother cool example of this is faster than light travel. Everyone knows that nothing (information, more specifically) can't travel faster than light in a vacuum. *Or can it?* Well, no, it can't...but you can trick information into traveling faster than light! Like I said before, space-time can pretty much be manipulated and do anything it wants, it can bend, twist, morph, tear (theoretically), and you can use these weird abilities to get between two points in space faster than light would normal take to get there. You can take two points in space that are 2 lightyears apart, bend them together (still working out the details), so that they are actually right next to each other, and then travel between the two points, and it seems like you traveled 2 lightyears in an instant. This is the whole \"wormhole\" theory. \n\nI could go on for hours, but I'm getting off topic. I'm not a scientist so if any want to correct anything I've said incorrectly please do so. I hope this helped you visualize what's happening when we say \"light is bent\" by gravity.\n",
"Who says light doesn't have mass? It just has very little mass. "
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349hyy | why does a clock exist in the cpu? | Can't there not be a clock so the computer doesn't need to wait for any sort of signal to process an instruction? Surely that will allow the CPU to compute instructions without any factor of *waiting* for a clock tick? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/349hyy/eli5_why_does_a_clock_exist_in_the_cpu/ | {
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"Well, that is a bit like saying \"Why do you have to wait for your left leg before you take a step with your right? Wouldn't you run faster if you simply didn't do it in steps?\"\n\nThe tick is what keeps the processor synchronized. It does one calculation after the other, the ticks are the calculations being made. It's not waiting in between.\n\nWhat you do to make your CPU work faster is make it tick faster. But you can only increase it so much before the signal doesn't reliably come though and it start crashing.",
"Imagine a chain of old timey villagers between with a river and a house on fire. They line up between the river and the fire and pass buckets between themselves, getting the full buckets upstream to the fire, and empty buckets downstream to the river. \n\nWith synchronous computing (which is all of mainstream CPUs today), everyone is going at exactly the same speed at exactly the same time, tick, pass the full bucket up one person, tock, pass the empty bucket down one person. It's very efficient and beautiful to watch, but the major downside is that you can't move any faster than Timmy the slow village idiot, so everything moves only as fast as the slowest part of the chain allows.\n\nWith asynchronous computing, everyone moves at their own pace, and parts of the chain can ferry those buckets much faster than Timmy the idiot, especially those strapping young lads from the local Olympic bucket-passing team. look at them go! The downside is that it looks like chaos, and if everyone is not vigilant about who they're passing to and from, passing buckets more slowly than their max speed to poor old Timmy, Timmy's going to get his hands full and collapse, breaking the entire chain, and the house burns down.\n\nSo, in a nutshell, following a clock is nice and simple, and pretty good, not using a clock is vastly more complicated. I haven't heard anything about it since about 2002 when it was a big talking point in computer research, though, although some parts of CPUs may be clockless nowadays. ",
"[This is actually possible](_URL_1_), but these sorts of systems are much harder to design. \n\nLogic gates all have a propagation delay, and the clock signal ensures all components have settled into a stable state before the next step of the computation.\n\nIf there is no clock, there is a risk of a [race condition](_URL_0_), where the result of the computation depends on which of two operations completes first. Asynchronuous systems must be designed to prevent this happening.\n"
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a6ngt4 | why are canadians so stereotyped? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a6ngt4/eli5why_are_canadians_so_stereotyped/ | {
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"we dont have much going on except igloos, the tundra, tim hortons, poutine and snow which makes us humble and therefore polite.",
"Even if you say something that's innacurate we won't correct you in case we hurt your feelings.",
"If you're American, it's because you tend to have a better idea/more stereotypes about the people around you. People from other countries won't have as many associations about Canadians, other than those pushed by American media.\n\nBasically, when you think about your classmates, you have way more things you can think of to stereotype them. You have much less of an idea about stereotypes for kids in a different class, and that's why you think there are more stereotypes for kids around you and less stereotypes for kids in a different class."
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7yg0rd | ~6 months later why haven't gas prices gone back to what they were before hurricane harvey? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yg0rd/eli5_6_months_later_why_havent_gas_prices_gone/ | {
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"Oil prices are a bit higher than 6 months ago. It was $50 a barrel now its about $62 i think. So slightly higher."
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56sh1j | i wear eye glasses, why do colors red and blue move the closer they get to the edge of my lenses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56sh1j/eli5i_wear_eye_glasses_why_do_colors_red_and_blue/ | {
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"The refractive index of the glass is dependent on the wavelength. Blue light will get bent further by the glass then the red light. In the extreme case in a prism it looks like [this](_URL_0_). The lens in your glasses will bend the light first one way then the next way so it should not be as visible as with a prism but there can still be a notable shift. This is also part of the reason why expensive lens assemblies in cameras or binoculars have a lot of different lenses. Some of the geometry is to correct the different wavelengths so that they all stay in place and in focus. You might notice it on some camera images that there is a red or a blue frame around certain objects."
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2zg3n8 | what makes a man's sperm come out so quickly? is there some kind of pumping mechanism? | When a man ejaculates, he -normally- pumps out sperm at a very high speed. What is in the body that makes it come out so fast? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zg3n8/eli5what_makes_a_mans_sperm_come_out_so_quickly/ | {
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"You know how you can form your hands in a pool such that simply squeezing shut your hand causes the water to squirt out quite rapidly? It's like that. It doesn't take a lot of muscle power but quick compressions with a small opening."
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2s6ojm | why can we not combine 2 or more wifis to get 1 super fast wifi? | Basically, I know my 2 neighbors passwords and would love to be able to combine all three of our wifis to make a super wifi, why is this not possible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2s6ojm/eli5_why_can_we_not_combine_2_or_more_wifis_to/ | {
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"There actually is, but it's still new so almost nothing supports it.\n\nThe way the Internet works, it's basically sending messages to addresses (where each address corresponds to one Internet connection). The idea of a single device having multiple addresses wasn't planned when the foundations for the Internet were designed in the 70s. The Internet Engineering Task Force published a Request for Comments on what they call [multipath TCP](_URL_0_) a couple years ago. It's still considered experimental. Newer iPhones use it to allow more seamless switching between wi-fi and cellular data, but that's the only use of it that I know of. ",
"It is, it's just not easy.\n\nYou can connect a computer to 2 difirent networks. The problem is, it then becomes very complicated to mantain 2 connections and 2 athuntetations and ensure that the packets from the 2 connections are assembeled in the correct order. Basiclly everything become an order of magnituade more complex. Because this is not a common thing there is really no consumer friendly software that does it so you need to be very techinicaly profissent to accomplish it.",
"It's sort of possible, but you need specific hardware to achieve it. Your computer probably only has one wireless receiver built into it, which can only connect to one wireless network at any one time. Incidentally, if you're not familiar with how networks work, here's a super brief explanation. Networks operate by sending and receiving packets of information. Routers are in charge of taking those packets and forwarding them to the correct destination. When you watch a YouTube video you are receiving packets of information from a content provider's servers. Data packets are sent from there through multiple routers (including your home router), eventually hitting your computer. In order to link together multiple Internet connections you'd need to set up something like...\n\nMulti-WAN or multi-homing, which allows you to \"bond\" multiple lines into what is effectively one line with increased bandwidth. However, there are several caveats:\n\n* Without support from your ISP (which wouldn't happen in your case since you have at the very least multiple accounts in use through one ISP and at worst multiple ISPs), you will not see tripled speeds on downloads, only what one connection supplies. However, you can run three downloads, and each will run at the maximum speed one WAN connection can handle at the same time. The router can route new requests over whichever of the two lines has the most available bandwidth if you set up the load-balancer correctly.\n\n* Most residential routers do not support multi-homing (at least with stock firmware). If you have a router which supports DD-WRT, I believe it is possible, but still very tricky to configure correctly. I'm not sure if a residential router can support it even with DD-WRT, given that they generally only have 1 WAN port and the rest are switched internally.\n* Sticky connections are necessary for much of today's web, and might be difficult to set up depending on what software you're running on your router.\n\nI honestly don't know of a device that can do this with **wireless** WAN links, although it can be done via wired connections.\n\n\n\nWhat you wish to accomplish may also be achieved by setting up load balancing on a per packet basis, but you must have a server that handles incoming packets from all WAN links and reassembles the data into one unified stream. It's fairly complicated and it definitely cannot be done over wireless connections."
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4i39pl | how come when children cough they seem to cough for longer than adults? | I've always noticed that when a child is coughing, they seem to cough for long periods of time uncontrollably, whereas adults seem to only cough once or twice, unless they're sick. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i39pl/eli5_how_come_when_children_cough_they_seem_to/ | {
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"Children don't have the same level of control. They are not as good at repelling irritants, which cause coughs. And then they react more strongly when they do get an irritant. "
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9mlx77 | why are many japanese companies active in so many different, unrelated industries? like yamaha, which makes musical instruments and motorcycles | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9mlx77/eli5_why_are_many_japanese_companies_active_in_so/ | {
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"all sorts of strange conglomerates like that exist around the world. Sometimes its because of matched proficiencies or technology (Agfa materials for example makes printer ink, cameras, and medical imaging devices, because that all derived from really old camera tech).\n\nSometimes its just families/companies buying up random stuff where they see opportunity (Irving is a canadian company that is in ship building, forestry, oil, and toilet paper, and a couple more I forget).\n\nEDIT: in Yamaha's specific case the CEO repurposed machinery used for wartime production (they were required to help the war effort) into making motorcycles, so option b with a little help.",
"A lot of times it's because of war. BMW used to make planes for the war effort so that's why their emblem is a propeller. Sometimes the companies just dont stop. ",
"The large conglomerates are known as Zaibatsu. The big 4 Zaibatsu (Sumitomo, Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Yasuda) have roots in imperial Japan, where they were employed by the government to collect taxes and produce military equipment. At one point in time, virtually all business was conducted by these 4 conglomerates, who had unstoppable monopoly power.\n\nAfter WW2, America dissolved the large conglomerates to encourage capitalistic competition, but the supply chain and business relations were so intertwined that the split businesses just fell back into place and the conglomerates were reborn.",
"It happens all over the world, but a lot of western conglomerates have big companies you've never heard of owning a bunch of little brands you're more familiar with."
]
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dbiqf5 | why we don't replace the blood in a sick person (hiv, cancer) with clean blood. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbiqf5/eli5_why_we_dont_replace_the_blood_in_a_sick/ | {
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"They actually do this for leukemia (cancer in white blood cells) by giving them clean bone marrow. It is just expensive",
"It would take a LOT of blood to replace it, there are rejection and infection risks with doing it, possibly also risk of blood clots and similar.\n\nAnd to what end? Few diseases are only in the blood. Most of the disease or cancer will be in their tissues, muscles, skin, lymph nodes etc All you'd be doing is exposing them to all the risks of a major transfusion in exchange for maybe a slight decrease in viruses in their body for a few days."
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6s6n9e | how do police body cameras record 30 seconds prior to being turned on? | Recently in the news there was a incident where a Baltimore police officer was caught planting drugs at the scene of an arrest.
From what I gathered, the officer turned his body camera on right after he planted them (then proceeded to walk back and pretended to discover them). The officer was caught because apparently when they activate their camera, it records 30 seconds prior.
How does this work? Is the camera always filming, but not saving the footage? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s6n9e/eli5_how_do_police_body_cameras_record_30_seconds/ | {
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"The camera is always filming and automatically deletes any footage after 30 seconds. When the camera is turned on, the deletion process is stopped, even for the still-present footage from the 30 seconds before the camera was turned on.",
"Yes. There's a \"buffer\" which is constantly holding the most recent 30 seconds, but it is not normally saved. It is constantly recording into that buffer and overwriting the old video. When the camera is activated, the most recent 30 seconds is saved along with whatever follows until the device is turned off or it fills up. "
]
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[],
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|
61ygum | how do pronunciation characters work in dictionaries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61ygum/eli5_how_do_pronunciation_characters_work_in/ | {
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"The Oxford version uses the [International Phonetic Alphabet](_URL_1_) which, while more complicated, is also more precise.\n\nFor example, in the more 'layman friendly' _URL_0_ version, how is _per_ pronounced? Does it rhyme with _fur_, or _air_?\n\nThe IPA symbol ə tells us precisely that it's a schwa, the kind of relaxed sound we'd use for comm_a_ or _a_-fraid."
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27xv2e | how come books don't have age restrictions? | Specifically Novels / Short Stories etc. Thanks for the responses :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27xv2e/eli5how_come_books_dont_have_age_restrictions/ | {
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"I think some do. Although I think it's at least a lot more relaxed because it is left to the reader's imagination of how bad it really is.",
"Because for the most part sexually graphic novels and short stories aren't marketed towards children, so children aren't the ones buying them. Whereas adult movies pretty much market themselves to everyone.\n\nAnd those that are meant to be shown in schools often aren't explicit and imply things more than anything.",
"Usually more mature literature will have more complex vocabulary and thus younger audiences are less likely to read it",
"Because books are rarely blamed for school shootings or rapes, unlike movies or video games.",
"[From a recent article...](_URL_0_) Children often don't truly grasp the implications of what they are reading, so if they come across something they don't understand, they just read over it and move on.",
"Who calls for restrictions on movies, games, TV & music?\n\nPrimarily the religious right.\n\nWhat would happen if they tried to restrict the content of books?\n\nPeople would point out that anything they call to ban is already in the Bible. It's full of wars & murder & rape & sex and all the other 'naughty' stuff.\n\nThe religious right would never stand for restrictions on distribution of the Bible so they shut the fuck up about books."
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|
1kexg3 | if humans a diurnal (opposite of nocturnal) then why is it so hard for me to go to sleep at night and so hard to wake up in the morning? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kexg3/eli5_if_humans_a_diurnal_opposite_of_nocturnal/ | {
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"You can condition yourself to sleep at certain times through habit. Also, if you use a computer or other electrical lighting, you are tricking your body into thinking that it's still light out, and therefore not time to sleep yet.",
"There are a million possible reasons for this. Modern technology has done an excellent job of messing with our natural sleep cycle: you could be inundating yourself with light, maybe your sleep hygiene is bad, and maybe you are looking at a TV/computer screen too close to bedtime. Any of these or other factors can cause parts of your brain (usually the visually stimulated parts) to become over active, leaving you wide awake in bed",
"Depends on your age, teenagers are closer to nocturnal than diurnal. Your sleep cycles naturally change over the course of your life."
]
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4h5q4d | if my fingerprint was never recorded, how can i be ided? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h5q4d/eli5_if_my_fingerprint_was_never_recorded_how_can/ | {
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"This is true. If you were never recorded there would be no record.\n\nYou'll be fingerprinted for almost any government job, any time you're arrested, or for certain types of background checks.\n\nIf none of that occurred, then there would be no record.\n\nIf in the show the guy they were looking for was former military or something, then that might raise suspicion."
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||
436qqq | why do jobs that are very important get less pay than jobs that are less important? | For example, why does an actor have an average salary of $65,000, while an electrical engineer's average salary is $64,000, and a financial analyst has an average salary of $75,000. Especially considering 2/3 require a bachelor's. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/436qqq/eli5_why_do_jobs_that_are_very_important_get_less/ | {
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"text": [
"the $65000 number suprised me so I googled...\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > According to the most recent SAG statistics, the average member earns $52,000 a year, while the vast majority take home less than $1,000 a year from acting jobs.\n\nthat aside, \"importance\" is a subjective term. And putting that aside, there is a matter of supply and demand. Teachers are very important, but their job is not particularly difficult. So there is a large pool of applicants. ",
"Capitalism...Salaries are based on how much money you are earning other people, not hour important your job is. ",
"I think you're getting confused on alot of factors. First would be the salary figures. \n\nIn Detroit $50,000 is a pretty average salary. If you get into engineering you'll get hired out of school for $50,000. \n\nThe equivalent salary in San Fran is $165,000 _URL_0_\n\nDoesn't matter what job you have. If you earn $50,000 in Detroit. You would need to earn $165,000 in San Fran to be equivalent. I have a friend who was earning $70,000/year and only had to work 30hours per week in Detroit. Went to Palo Alto earning $125,000 and was bragging. He wasn't bragging after I told him he took a huge pay cut. \n\nSo when you're looking at these averages. It's really not measuring anything well at all until you specify which city those numbers are coming from. Because $64,000 EE in Detroit is way way way better paid than $65,000 in hollywood. \n\nA followup to your question though.\n\nWhy does a MD doctor earn like $400,000/year saving the world but an actor or sports person typically earns millions a year. \n\nInfact there's a general rule. The more people your job affects the more you can earn. Bill gates is very very rich because practically everyone in the developed world has microsoft in his life. \n\nA popular actor reaches a ton of people and therefore earns much money.\n\nA doctor who cures your sniffles doesn't meet that many people. \n",
"Highly paid jobs are typically those where having the very best creates much better outcomes than the average.\n\nIf you're paying for a plumber, a mediocre plumber will plug a leak just as well as the best plumber in the world. The mediocre plumber will be a bit slower than an excellent plumber - but that leak will still get plugged. The excellent plumber can perhaps make twice as much by doing things much quicker - and you might pay him a bit extra because the job looks nicer. But you probably won't pay too much more.\n\nFor say, an actor - having the best makes a much bigger difference. Millions of people will watch a movie with Leonardo DeCaprio in it. Those people would likely not watch the movie if a slightly less talented/famous actor was involved. Since DeCaprio can bring in an additional 10 million in revenue - it's worth it to pay him that much."
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4bdtmd | why is it that some cultures have a lot of restaurants while others have a tradition of eating at home more? | In my city there are many Chinese and Sushi restaurants. The newspaper said that Chinese have a long tradition of going out to restaurants for meetings and family gatherings.
On the other hand, there are only two West African restaurants in the metro area. I asked the owner why it's so hard to find African Restaurants and she said "In West Africa, people like to make and eat food at home" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bdtmd/eli5_why_is_it_that_some_cultures_have_a_lot_of/ | {
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"Restaurants are popular in societies that (1) are wealthy and/or (2) have a dense urban population who can easily walk to a shared eating place.",
"Growing up Vietnamese, when it was only my immediate family, we would eat at home. For large family gatherings, events, or holidays we would go out to eat, but we would always support local Asian restaurants. For family gathers where 15 people are around, it's much easier to just pay a restaurant to cook and then you don't have to worry about the clean up. Plus it helps the Asian community. Where I grew up, we had Asian neighborhoods with shopping centers that were owned by Asians. You had a Chinese grocery store, tailor, bakery, etc. Any money that we could give back to the community to help it thrive is a big reason I think most Asians go out for large gatherings."
]
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9860cy | how do gas and electric companies get their product to your house if they all use the same systems like gas mains or long streched of wire? also how is this detectable or easily changable via signing up for them, or ending your buisiness with them? | Please correct me because I'm probably very, very wrong about this, but I thought that all electricty that goes to your house is sent over big electrical cables that eventually go into your house, similar to gas mains or pipes. I also thought that the only way that they could tell that you're using the resource is via a meter that does a science thing to detect how much is being used, but I don't understand how the companies could detect whose gas/electricty it is.
So reddit, how far off am I with this one and how do things actually work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9860cy/eli5_how_do_gas_and_electric_companies_get_their/ | {
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"Well firstly utilities know where their meters are and for a long time and this still happens in some places there are people whose jobs it is to drive to each meter once a month and read the number. Nowadays most meters communicate wirelessly though. Also not all utilities are connected, there isn't one giant gas system or water system at least not in the way you are thinking. For gas there are pipelines that lead into smaller systems. The utility knows from a huge meter how much gas they are getting from the pipeline and can check their meters to see who uses what. Electricity gets a little more complicated because it's mostly a bunch of \"smaller\" grids some of which sell electricity to each other. But a similar concept applies.",
" > I also thought that the only way that they could tell that you're using the resource is via a meter that does a science thing to detect how much is being used, but I don't understand how the companies could detect whose gas/electricty it is.\n\nThis one has a simple answer. There's a separate meter for each customer, so your meter only reports how much you use. The meter is usually attached to the customer's house or building.",
"Before modern meters that send the information electronically to the company, companies employed meter readers who literally went from house to house checking the meter each month. ",
"The simplest answer is by measuring inputs as well as outputs. \n\nIn NZ we have a regulated market with 3 types of electric companies, producers, retailers and lines companies. \nProducers own the power plants mostly hydro and geothermal plus wind and gas and a little coal for base load. \nLine companies own the power lines in an area. \nRetailers market it to households and usually differentiate offers by price and add on services or bundle discounts like internet services ( which is a similar market model)\nProducers can also be retailers. But I don’t think lines companies can be either of the other two. \nProducers sell on spot market \nRetailers mostly sell at fixed prices, but some do spot price plus margin. \nWhen demand is high spot price goes up so producers with more expensive generation can produce and sell to the grid to increase supply e.g. diesel powered stations. \nThe lines companies charge a day rate or a tariff per unit which is usually passed on to consumers\n\nAll of the inputs and outputs are measured by an independent body which controls the flow so the system remains stable and each company gets revenue for producing or retailing. Some retailers will also offer the spot rate to home producers, with deductions for line input charges. \neg excess solar to sent to the grid",
"As far as gas, different companies own different lines, and they aren’t connected. \n\nI work for a gas company",
"It all comes down to the book keeping.\n\nYou are correct in saying that all the energy is fed into one overall grid - so multiple power companies will be generating electricity and all feeding it into the same wires, and then on the other end multiple users will all be taking a supply from the same wire, whoever their supplier actually is.\n\nIt all works because the amount of energy generated and used is tallied up - so it is known how many watts a companies users have consumed, and that company then have to ensure they are supplying that amount of energy into the grid."
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3jxm7g | how do "blackheads" get this big? or is this more than just a buildup of dirt? warning! may be graphic. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jxm7g/eli5how_do_blackheads_get_this_big_or_is_this/ | {
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"Its wax, oils and dirt from your skin and pores that gets clogged up and forms that giant ball\n\nIf left unattended, more and more matter will ball up and result in something like that",
"I should probably be ashamed to admit that I got tingly all over from watching that... but then my husband came over to see what I was watching and he felt the same way. Lucky for us he has keratosis pilaris and delights in our regular \"pick-pick\" sessions. \n\nOn topic: I work in the cosmetics industry, and I specialize in dermatological skin care... in 13 years I've never seen a blackhead that big. That looks more like a desiccated cyst."
]
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||
2cvj9f | why don't engines create max hp at max rpm? | I like cars and motorbikes and as such have a decent understanding of this area (I like to think so anyway). Although I have always just accepted that combustion engines produce maximum horsepower before the end of the rev range like [this](_URL_0_)(although it is more signifcant in other cars) and never questioned it until now, why is this though? Logically it would make sense to produce more power the higher the rpm, seeing as the combustion cycle is happening more per minute. Anyway thanks for reading this and I hope to receive some interesting answers :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cvj9f/eli5why_dont_engines_create_max_hp_at_max_rpm/ | {
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"Horsepower is a measure of work which is force over time. Assuming that each cylinder produces the same amount of force every 4 stroke cycle, the more cycles you can pack into a given amount of time, the more work.\n\nSo your gut feel is mostly correct. Because the rpm keeps increasing, but the cylinders are still producing the close to the same amount of force, the peak hp is up near the red-line.\n\nThere are other forces at play which can cause the peak hp to be somewhere else like increased friction at very high piston speed or pumping losses due to trying to get air through a fixed size hole (the valves are the restriction in most cases) at increasing speeds. Those other factors can eventually overcome the gain from additional cycles as rpm increases."
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1nfbrk | what is bitcoin mining and why isn't it profitable? | Overly asked question on ELI5, of course, but I can't understand why it isn't profitable. Wouldn't everybody be mining if it were? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nfbrk/eli5_what_is_bitcoin_mining_and_why_isnt_it/ | {
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"In order to make an outright profit you have to be able to buy all of the materials to mine, *get* the materials to mine (i.e. shipping time), then pay to run them (electricity). At this point the vast majority of the mining power in the Bitcoin network is made up of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs)--small processors that implement the mining program at the silicon level. They are just about as fast and efficient as is possible. Due to the large number of ASICs in use right now it is not even worth the electricity to try to mine with a regular computer (e.g. CPU or GPU).\n\nSo, when it is said that \"it is not profitable,\" that statement is to say that if you bought mining hardware today then you would never make enough income off of it to offset the cost. However, there are lots of people who already bought hardware. For those people the best course of action is to keep mining--the hardware is making an income in excess of its cost to run (electricity). Some miners in this situation are trying to limit their losses and recover some of the money they spent on the mining hardware, while others have had their mining hardware long enough that they have paid off the purchase price and are mining at a profit. In either case, though, they make more money by mining than not.\n\nTL;DR: Mining with purpose-built hardware you have is more profitable than not mining, but buying hardware to mine with will never recover the initial cost of the hardware (given certain assumptions about future mining difficulty and Bitcoin price). "
]
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|
1rqa1q | how can the power company remotely shut off power to a single house? | After years of being a Reddit lurker, I finally created an account to ask this very question. How can the power company remotely disable power to a single house? If this is possible and seemingly so easy, how come they can't also monitor usage remotely? Why do we still have meters and meter readers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rqa1q/eli5_how_can_the_power_company_remotely_shut_off/ | {
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"I work for an electric company and currently we are installing Smart Meters on everybodys house. These meters will be somehow read 48 times a day (every half hour) and people who have the smart meters will be able to check their usage when ever they want through a website given by their power supplier, and yes they will be able to turn off the power remotely if the customer hast paid their bill. also they will be able to tell when you loose power for faster recovery time and it will be on a grid system so they know exactly where the problem is. they will also be able to tell when people are trying to tamper with their meter. Meter readers are slowly being not needed and are being absorbed into the company via promotions, but even when every houe system wide has a Smart Meter there will still be a need for meter readers because some state laws still require meters to be read by a person every so often\n\nEDIT: added more about meter readers\n"
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6s122b | why are video game communities so prone to breeding a toxic environment? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s122b/eli5why_are_video_game_communities_so_prone_to/ | {
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"Online gaming provides an outlet with a mask of anonymity combined with an environment of competition for the venting of latent passive aggressive behavior from unresolved issues in their real lives."
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692yao | gutters | I've recently moved to a new place, and for the first time thought about the gutters, since one is broken.
What are they for? Why is it advantageous to keep water away from the wall of the house? Especially since it only really keeps it away from the top? Wouldn't it be helpful to wash the walls and windows in the rain? Is it just the dirt from the roof? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/692yao/eli5_gutters/ | {
"a_id": [
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"It helps direct water off of the roof and away from the base of the house. By doing so I reduces the amount of water at the foundation of the house. If too much water enters the foundation, it can rot your foundation, flood your basement, etc. basically causes lots of issues. Typically houses are graded (land slopes away from house) so water flows away from the base of the house even at the ground level."
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2fi568 | what is the psychological reason or phenomenon in which parents truly believe their children are attractive even if most people would find them ugly? | I've met parents who truly believe that their ugly or below-average child (or teenager) is good looking.
I'm wondering why. Is this some kind of evolutionary adaption? By being exposed to their children so much do they unconsciously ignore their children's flaws? Or maybe they love their teen so much that they can't perceive the flaws (kind of what happens when people are dating).
I know that looks are subjective, but there is usually some agreement. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fi568/eli5what_is_the_psychological_reason_or/ | {
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"Probably as an in-group bias.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Babies are a lot of work. A lot. Have you had one? Seriously, fuck babies. \n\nNo woman in her right mind would want children given what she goes through, with childbirth and then having this screaming shit machine waking her up at all hours of the night for food or to change a bit of fabric full of shit, for years, and having gone through it once, why would she do it again? \n\nThe reason is that when a child is born, there are a lot of complicated hormones that are released that bond the mother and child, and to a smaller extent, the father and child. These hormones make the mother experience pure bliss after it's over (and when those fade, post-partum depression can set in coming off the high), and more able to deal with no sleep, poop, puke, crying, and everything else babies and children do for 18 years. \n\nThese hormones turn into a Pavlovian thing - when the baby smiles at Mom, Mom gets a shot of happy drugs, and it makes it all worthwhile.\n\nMeanwhile, the rest of us are looking at the screaming, stinking, drooling baby thinking \"isn't a Tamagotchi easier?\""
]
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"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism"
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ddcwph | how does a company just “shut off the internet” within its borders? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ddcwph/eli5_how_does_a_company_just_shut_off_the/ | {
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"A country you mean?\n\nInto and out of every country there are surprisingly only a few high bandwidth fiber optic cables. These are used for everything: phone, cell/wireless, internet data you name it (everything gets converted to IP packet switched behind the scenes nowadays anyway). These lines and the junction point/switches and routers where they break out into smaller connections to go the last mile to your house or work are consolidated in one or two data centers at the telcos in your country. Not only that, but usually just one or two telcos actually went and laid the cables, the others in your country just lease bandwidth from those. \n\nSo when President Junta decides to cut off Facebook because the Rebels posted a picture of him having sexual relations with a burro, the head of the police just has to call one or two telcos and say \"Cut off the internet or we cut off your head.\"... from there, the folks in the network operations center really just have to click a few clicks to disable the links with the outside world.\n\nExample: this is the [worldwide submarine cable map.](_URL_0_) These are the fiber optic cables that run along the sea floor and connect countries via the oceans. Zoom in - quite a few countries are only connected to one, or two of these massive internet backbone/telecommunications cables. Literally if you were to know where to look, there'd be a thickly sheilded cable running up out of the ocean and up the beach to a little shack with a bunch of network gear in it (its a little more complicated than that, but not by much.)... There are terrestrial and satellite links too, but the principal is the same: its expensive to set these international internet/telecom cables up, so they're done surprisingly infrequently. Thanks to the wonder of switched internet packet protocols, if one link goes down (some idiot with a back-hoe), traffic will re-route to another available connection, but its always possible to disconnect an entire country's set of internet connections.\n\nedit: and by disable links, usually nothing gets unplugged. All you have to do is disable the routing protocols that allow data traffic to flow in/out of the country.",
"Internet traffic is more like myriads of children running along the paths and through the gates, not like the freely flowing water in the river.\n\nYou just close the gates and kids stay in, and no kids from the other side can get through either.\n\nSure, it's much more nuanced than that, but ELI5 it's like this.",
"for how decentralised internet is to the end user, it is surprisingly held up by only a few cables. no point in building more. hence, you can cut off access quick and easy if you have the resources of a major world government.\n\n\ni don't know how exactly the ban you are inferring to happened or what it was, but i know that most UK bans on websites (_URL_0_ etc.) are just mandates from the government to local DNS services (and ones big enough that they have to bend over backwards) to stop properly indexing said bad websites. they're insanely easy to circumvent.",
"I work in telecom. To shut off say... Alaska. All you’d need to do is unplug 4 cables. It’s really scary to think about considering how vulnerable a lot of places would be without communications.",
"If you mean country then you typically don't, there are dozens of undersea cables (speaking from the perspective of the USA) which connect countries together. For people who say 'there are only x many...' they are wrong. There are publicly known ones, private lines, military, and government. Some governments can come compel ISPs to turn off the internet, they typically do that by removing routes from their borders (not country border, BGP border routers) which make whole networks go dark. The internet is very literally designed to prevent one person or country to simply turn off the internet. Even if you remove routes from public BGP, many companies run private BGP between their internal networks. While undersea cables contain the majority of traffic, governments and MNCs have access to satellite internet as well. The world wide web is just that, a web of interconnected networks.",
"Every communication on the internet from point A to point B goes through several nodes before reaching its destination.\nThe path (in term of nodes to traverse) to use is decided by algorithms called Routing algorithms.\nA governments can decide to tweak these routing algorithms on every node of the internet residing on its territory (i.e. nodes used by its citizens) to make any destination on the internet unreachable (or limit the capability of its nodes to allow only national websites)",
"ELI5 (niece practice): \n\nThe stuff you see on the Internet move around the world by wires, mostly. The wires are controlled by electronics that people control.\n\nTo \"shut off the Internet\" somewhere, these people just have to use the electronics so the wires in these areas stop working. Now stuff from the rest of the world can't use these wires to move Internet information into these areas because they're not working anymore."
]
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[
"https://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/"
],
[],
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"thepiratebay.org"
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[],
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||
32vq6v | how the hell bb8(new starwars robot) works? | I guess some kind of magnets involved. But please ELI5. For those who don't know what BB8 is [here](_URL_0_) is a video which might help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32vq6v/eli5how_the_hell_bb8new_starwars_robot_works/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqfa16j"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It's impossible to know exactly without seeing the inside of the robot but I'll try.\n\nMoving ball robots are actually something that exist. You can find dog toys that are just a ball that has a weight inside that is slung around to make it move. \n\nMore complex robots (e.g. [this](_URL_1_), though I think this one can only move back and forth) have the weight placed on the bottom of the mechanism and moves by spinning itself. Imagine standing inside of a ball and walking forward. You shift the weight forward and the ball moves with you. \n\nThe head is moved via an arm with two magnets on the end. The magnets are polar opposites so that it can line up with two magnets on the head without being backwards and it just moves and spins the arm around to move the head.\n\nThe thing is there's multiple ways to accomplish movement and we don't know how they did it in the video without cracking the thing open and showing us. I would guess that the mechanism is in a fixed position and it uses a 360º wheel on the bottom to move the ball since that would make it easy to animated the head.\n\nI know I'm pretty shit at explaining stuff and I'm also pretty shit at drawing stuff but maybe if I do both it'll make more sense. [Mail in degree worthy picture](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [
"https://youtu.be/bnDdSSFenRk"
] | [
[
"http://i.imgur.com/ol7xneF.png",
"http://autsys.aalto.fi/en/attach/Rollo/image7DU.orig.jpg"
]
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|
fd0k8c | what is back pressure, and how does this relate to centrifugal separators/purifiers? | I've recently qualified as a marine engineer, but am a bit stumped when it comes to understanding back pressure and how it's used to make the separation process of heavy and light oil more efficient. All the explanations I've read are all related to cars or bikes, which isn't helpful.
If there's anyone who has worked with oil purifiers, and can explain this, would help a lot.
Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fd0k8c/eli5_what_is_back_pressure_and_how_does_this/ | {
"a_id": [
"fjefkli"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Back pressure is maintained by the gravity disc and is used to limit flow of separated water holding the water inside the purifier. If the hole diameter is larger then back pressure decreases and more water flows out of the purifier and the oil/water interface will expand outwards. If the hole diameter is smaller then the increased back pressure will push the oil inward and the oil/water interface will contract inwards. If your gravity disc is too small then water will start coming out from the purified oil side causing a \"leaking purifier\". If your gravity disc is too large then oil will come through the water outlet causing an \"overflown purifier\"."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
1dii8d | why "may day" caused riots in seattle last year. | Or rather, why Anarchists used it to cause riots. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dii8d/eli5_why_may_day_caused_riots_in_seattle_last_year/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9qqefd"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"May 1st is [International Worker's Day](_URL_0_). It has historically been associated with Leftist groups. \n\nIn the US, Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September, namely because of IWD's association with Communism. Many of the US groups that observe it are less than mainstream. So a group of violent radicals, partially inspired by OWS, decided IWD would be a good day for a riot. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day"
]
] |
|
2lhn8g | if americans changed to medicare for all or universal healthcare, would their increase in taxes be more, less, or equal to the amount they pay for medical now? | After hearing some of the out of pocket and monthly premiums people pay, would the tax increase to fund universal healthcare be equivalent or better?
Edit: maybe I'm asking the wrong subreddit | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lhn8g/eli5_if_americans_changed_to_medicare_for_all_or/ | {
"a_id": [
"cluu13v",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Almost certainly less.\n\nIn every country with a universal health care system [medical costs are substantially less than in the US.](_URL_0_) \n\nTheir [health care outcomes are better](_URL_1_) than in the US too.",
"It depends. If it were a federal universal healthcare, they'd probably try to standardize healthcare costs and minimize what they have to pay health providers. This might mean that healthcare costs come down overall and the taxes would be lower, on average, than current insurance plans or out-of-pocket costs.\n\nHowever, whenever government gets involved, you also have the added cost of the bureaucracy (i.e. the people the government hires/appoints to be in charge of the universal healthcare plan or whatever, and the overhead for whatever their department needs to function). This would likely be part of the cost in tax-dollars, so might end up balancing out on the whole, or even making it more expensive if the department is not particularly efficient."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/",
"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0910064"
],
[]
] |
|
63t0tj | photographic memory. | How does it work and is it something you are born with or can you acquire the ability over time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63t0tj/eli5photographic_memory/ | {
"a_id": [
"dfwrm4p",
"dfwy09k"
],
"score": [
5,
2
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"text": [
"From what I understand; it's a fallacy.\n\nYou can have an exceptional memory, but the proof of a truly photographic memory is proving elusive.",
"The way I remember things is to recall the picture in my mind. \n\nI can write down a phone number, look at it for a few seconds, and then discard the paper and then weeks or months later recall the number without ever having dialed it.\n\nI do art for a living. When I was a kid I could draw cars, houses etc with some degree of accuracy from memory. My teachers got me excited when I did it too."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
3ne99h | why is google transitioning into "alphabet" and what does this mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ne99h/eli5_why_is_google_transitioning_into_alphabet/ | {
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"text": [
"To end users it has no impact, Google will be Google. For investors they are forming a parent company with separate entities. I've seen companies do this for focus, to share costs correctly (efficiently), for reporting & to be able to sell of pieces or to add acquisitions easily. ",
"It's entirely an organizational change for Google that in no way matters to almost anyone. Nothing is changing whatsoever for the end user, no brand change, not nothing. \n",
"Google is investing in and developing many new companies and products, but their is no way to predict how successful (or not) those will be. Creating a parent company that Google is simply a part of protects the Google brand. ",
"Google has two \"branches\" of companies that do various things not related to the main Google activities. These are being moved out of Google and into Alphabet, the new company. Alphabet will manage Google and it's two \"branches\".\n\nEDIT:There aren't just two, but several branches, including Google Fiber, Google X, and more.",
"Imagine you were a company selling candy, and you called yourselves \"The Candy Company\". You start out selling chocolates, then expand into gum.\n\nEventually, you start selling things to help you make candy, like Easy Bake Ovens for brownies and some cookie cutouts and stuff. Those get SUPER popular. After that, you start selling kids toys, cause you already are selling Easy Bake Ovens, right? So you start selling bouncy balls and Legos.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nNow, you are selling all these toys, but you call yourself \"The Candy Company!\" Crap! You need to change your name so you can sell both toys AND candy. But you still want your candy division to be called \"The Candy Company\"...\n\nSo now, you make \"The Candy Company\" a division of \"The Fun place for Kids!\" which is your new name.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nThats what google is doing. Alphabet is the new overarching company so that Google can branch out of software.\n\nA quote from [alphabet's site](_URL_0_):\n\n > What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related."
]
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"https://abc.xyz/"
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||
23ohic | if antibacterials kill 99.9% of germs, why haven't our bodied become almost totally populated by offspring of the .01%? | I would think that the .01% that survived would continue to reproduce unchecked since they are seemingly immune to the anti bacterial. Or is it not that they're immune, but that they just got lucky? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ohic/eli5_if_antibacterials_kill_999_of_germs_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgyznq1",
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"text": [
"It's really late, but the short answer is that you can never get rid of what your 'normal flora' . It helps keep other organisms in check (they do not disappear with antibacterial soap).\n\nAlso, your skin serves as a huge part of your immune system and if they can't get in, they won't have the water, nutrients and moisture to survive for long periods of time. ",
"When you are talking about germs, it's important to consider orders of magnitude:\n\nIf you get a little bit of poop on your finger after going to the bathroom, that little tiny smear has thousands of times more bacteria than the bacteria that was already on your hand. When you apply sanitizer you will get 3 - 5 Log reduction (where each point of reduction equals 10 times less bacteria than before).\n\nSo plugging some hypothetical numbers in, if an area on your hand has 100,000 cfu/cm^2, and a poop smear has 100,000,000 cfu/cm^2, the total bacteria totals 100,100,000 cfu/cm^2. Reducing this number by 99.9% gives you ~1,000,000 cfu/cm^2, which is still more bacteria than you started with, but much much better than had you not washed at all.",
"I always thought it meant 99.9 of the germs on the surface and they just didn't want to say 100% to save their asses if someone managed to get something after using it.\n\nlike there's 1000 germ buddies chilling out and now 999 of them are dead.\n\nnot that it can kill 99.9% of all known type of germs"
]
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[],
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|
2bzj4y | why do we celebrate with our fists clenched? | Like this : _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bzj4y/eli5_why_do_we_celebrate_with_our_fists_clenched/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjag5gv"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"It's a show of power. Clenched fists, loud voices, arms held above your head, maybe even stomping the ground with your feet.\n\nCelebratory shows of power have been with humanity for an extremely long time. Blind people will celebrate in the same way, despite having never seen another person."
]
} | [] | [
"http://imgur.com/Hdrb24z"
] | [
[]
] |
|
5jj8ex | what does the discovery of anti-hydrogen mean in practical terms and how will it change the way we view the elements? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jj8ex/eli5_what_does_the_discovery_of_antihydrogen_mean/ | {
"a_id": [
"dbgkrpi"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"We already knew about anti-hydrogen, quite well actually, the recent discovery was that it has an identical emission spectrum to hydrogen - the caveat is that this was entirely predicted by our current model of particle physics, and so it was more a confirmation than a discovery.\n\nSo this isn't likely to change the way we view elements, but it provides more evidence for the predictive power of the standard model. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
7py241 | rockets have to go straight up from the ground instead of flying high and kicking in the rockets to escape gravity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7py241/eli5rockets_have_to_go_straight_up_from_the/ | {
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"text": [
"How do they get up in the air? Something has to carry them *and* all the rocket fuel they need, which means you need a winged aircraft capable of carrying a giant load.\n\nEasier and saves money to just launch from a pad.",
"I think you are asking why don't they start off like an airplane, and then switch to rocket mode later.\n\n\nYarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why space launches always start from a stand still position? ](_URL_4_) ^(_19 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: why do space shuttles need to take off vertically and not horizontally like an airplane? ](_URL_6_) ^(_12 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why launch into space from the ground as opposed to something like a high-altitude aeroplane? ](_URL_5_) ^(_18 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do space shuttles take off vertically instead of gaining momentum like a jet on a runway and use it to help propel them into space? ](_URL_3_) ^(_20 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does NASA and other space agencies launch their rockets pointed straight up, at a dead stop? (MIC) ](_URL_1_) ^(_9 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do spaceships and rockets have to launch vertically instead of taking off like an airplane? ](_URL_0_) ^(_20 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do Rockets launch straight up, instead of ascending like an airplane? ](_URL_2_) ^(_7 comments_)\n",
"At low altitudes, there is a lot more air, which acts against a rocket's morion. To get around this and minimize fuel consumption, a typical launch will ascend vertically through the lower atmosphere, and then turn and accelerate near-horizontally into orbit"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h587t/eli5_why_do_spaceships_and_rockets_have_to_launch/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2askov/eli5_why_does_nasa_and_other_space_agencies/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60hpum/eli5_why_do_rockets_launch_straight_up_instead_of/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/263mrw/eli5_why_do_space_shuttles_take_off_vertically/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kv5bc/eli5_why_space_launches_always_start_from_a_stand/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/te7ko/eli5_why_launch_into_space_from_the_ground_as/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sb9xm/eli5_why_do_space_shuttles_need_to_take_off/"
],
[]
] |
||
1ykmnr | why do acoustic guitars sound better with age | EG: [Trigger](_URL_0_), Willie Nelson's guitar | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ykmnr/eli5_why_do_acoustic_guitars_sound_better_with_age/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Regular playing of a wooden instrument improves it's tone over time. People thought that it was just a marketing gimick or just snobbery, but it has actual basis in science. The vibrations over time basically stiffen the wood making it more responsive and resonant.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"I know more about this from violins than from guitars, but...I suspect it's the same.\n\nThe first reason is the least romantic and the least discussed. We throw away poor sounding instruments as they get old and start wearing out. We repair and preserve those that sound good. So....if you line up 100 instruments of random ages you can bet that the old ones will in general sound better for this reason alone! \n\nBut...the one general statements can be made after a long and ardous study published in Nature magazine on this topic is that old violins that people rate as sounding great do a far better job of resonating lower octaves. We loooooove broad, strong low sounds. Equally significant was that the sound radiation is more _even_ across octaves in older, great sounding violins (that is the direction and other qualities of the sound is consistent across frequency).\n\n\n\n"
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/trigger"
] | [
[
"http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/27/science/when-violinists-play-their-violins-improve.html"
],
[]
] |
|
43xiiu | how are leicester city doing so well in the epl this season | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43xiiu/eli5how_are_leicester_city_doing_so_well_in_the/ | {
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"text": [
"- Emphasis on pace and counter-attacking, over holding possession. \n\n- Some very accurate passers in the midfield to get the ball forward effectively. \n\n- A very clinical finisher who is scoring a lot of his chances.\n\n- Really high fitness levels and work rate.\n\n- Some players really good at disrupting the oppositions play."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4ksnkj | if electrons repelling each other means you never really touch something, how do different things feel differently? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ksnkj/eli5_if_electrons_repelling_each_other_means_you/ | {
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"text": [
"Different configurations of electrons-repelling-you feel different. Your mistake is in assuming that you have to actually touch something to feel it- that's true for a common-English understanding of what it means to touch things, but not if you insist that touching something only counts if the atoms are knocking into each other with literally zero space between them.",
"Well technically an atom is mostly empty space so if the electrons somehow suddenly stopped repelling each other you wouldn't feel anything, if you went to touch a table your hand would pass right through it. \n\nThis would present a bigger problem however because nothing would be repelled and all of the atom's mass would be pulled towards the center of the earth by gravity and you would end up with a very dense sphere where the planet used to be. \n\n",
"Keep in mind that nerves cells are like a million (billion?) times larger than an electron. Touch has nothing to do with any individual electron interaction; rather the cumulative interactions of billions upon billions of electrons.\n\nThen of course, there is the entire nervous system and the brain to interpret all the signals into something you experience as touch.",
"Methinks Prof Moriarty would [disagree](_URL_0_) with your statement that you never really touch something. In this great video he defines touch as the point at which van der Waals attractive force is balanced by the repulsive force due to the Pauli exclusion principle. ",
"Wood feels different from steel because the electrons of wood are positioned in a different way than the electrons in steel. As a result of this, they repell your hand in a different way.",
"For your practical thinking you can basically ignore the fact that they aren't \"touching\" you feel things are different for the exact same reason you'd think you would if there wasn't a miniscule space in-between. It's not like your skin is hovering over things at a high distance, it's so small that it almost doesn't matter.\n\nEdit: Amazing highly accurate drawing\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically it's not like the top where your finger is just floating over the object. If you zoomed in an insane amount you it would kinda look like bottom where there is a tiny gap but it's so small that it doesn't matter and it's so small you can't ever see it. ",
"So if we really don't touch things this means we're all technically virgins?",
"The idea that particles have a size can be misleading. Every particle is an infinitely small point in space that projects a field that interacts with other particles, which means that technically nothing touches anything, they only interact to a certain degree due to their fields of force."
]
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||
2iyssd | if obama can veto bills, why doesn't he just veto the tiered net neutrality bill, and draft his own to send to congress for approval? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2iyssd/eli5if_obama_can_veto_bills_why_doesnt_he_just/ | {
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"text": [
"Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe regulatory decisions like this (made by the FCC) have to be passed through congress and the president as legislation.\n\nIt's more like there is legislation granting the FCC the authority to establish a regulatory framework and Internet Service Providers are responsible for following the rules and regulations established by the FCC. If the FCC introduces a 'fast lane' system into that regulatory framework, I don't believe that requires any approval. If Congress doesn't approve, they'd have to pass legislation limiting the FCC's authority and/or specifically outlaw the FCC's proposed 'fast lane' system."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3uqx8r | why do many arab countries have similar flags? | United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Western Sahara, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Sirya (Egypt and Yemen missing green though) all have black, white, green and red in the flag. I know that the black symbolises Mohammed's army flag or something along those lines, but what about the other colours?
Also some of those countries's flags have a similar layout: three colours divided horizontally and a triangle (in the case of UAE it's not a triangle but a vertical rectangle) on the left with the remaining one. Is there a reason for this too or just a coincidence?
Thanks for your attention. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uqx8r/eli5_why_do_many_arab_countries_have_similar_flags/ | {
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"Other colors are the other Arab empires. Black is for the Abbasids (not Muhammad), White for the Ummayaads, Green for the Fatimids, and Red for the Hashemites, which were the rulers of Mecca who organized an Arab nationalist movement against the Turks.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I mean when you think about it, how many western countries use red white and blue. Off the top of my head I can think of UK, France, USA, Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand etc "
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Arab_Revolt"
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|
1h3kvp | how does filibustering work? why doesn't someone just interrupt them because they're rambling on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1h3kvp/eli5_how_does_filibustering_work_why_doesnt/ | {
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"Part of the rules which make the orderly discussion of bills possible is that when you \"have the floor\" you won't be interrupted.",
"The rules say. Unless you cede the floor, you hold the floor.",
"Anyone care to explain it like I am a five year old non American? "
]
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26c7rf | if technology were capable of electronically modelling the human brain, including all synapses, chemical processes, and sensory input, would it actually be capable of learning on its own, or would we still have to tell it how to learn with programming? | Secondary question: What's the closest we've come to modelling the brain programatically? I gather it wouldn't be a very good model, considering there's a lot about the brain we don't really understand yet. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26c7rf/eli5_if_technology_were_capable_of_electronically/ | {
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"text": [
"OP specified that everything is modeled.\n\nIs a perfect model the same as the original? Functionally, yes."
]
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|
717ytd | how does the post office know which piece of mail to forward? does someone read every piece? | Random thought. Since there's no barcode how does it get sorted? There must be a ton of names on the list. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/717ytd/eli5_how_does_the_post_office_know_which_piece_of/ | {
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"Optical scanners read the address. They do fine with machine printed addresses like from a business or your home printer. They do *okay* with neatly handwritten addresses but sometimes they can't make it out and human has to read the address then enter it into the computer system. \n\nAt that point a barcode gets printed onto the envelope or onto a sticker that is placed on the envelope and the automation system routes it to the proper address based on the bar code.",
"A computer reads every address, checks to see if there's a forwarding order and diverts if out to slap a forwarding label on it if necessary.\n\nThe USPS has some of the fastest and most competent OCR on the world, including cursive writing.\n\nEach mail scanner/sorter does 50,000+ letters per hour, including the lookups and bar code printing. "
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9uf124 | how do different fruits have different amounts of sugar or minerals if they grow from the same soil? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uf124/eli5_how_do_different_fruits_have_different/ | {
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"Plants are not primarily composed of the soil in which they grow. The vast majority of the plant's structure, including the sugar in the fruit, is composed of air, water, and sunlight. Through photosynthesis the plants can react the CO2 and H2O to form things like cellulose and glucose, catalyzed by the energy input of sunlight.\n\nDifferent plants will absorb different amounts of trace minerals from the soil and incorporate them into their fruit and structure, but the soil is in most cases just to keep the plant upright, hold water for the roots to access, and that is pretty much it."
]
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||
2pez7d | why can't terrible teachers be fired? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pez7d/eli5why_cant_terrible_teachers_be_fired/ | {
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"Tenure: the idea that the longer you're there the more it takes for you to get fired. A lot of public school teachers are contractually protected, even if they're shitty, from being terminated for anything short of grievous misconduct. ",
"Tenure and unions.\n\nFrom there things can vary by school & circumstances.",
"I was at a teacher inservice once...learning about a grading scale...and the instructor told us tenured teachers were more likely to be struck by lightening then fired for performance reasons.",
"Teacher here. Teachers can be \"fired\". I think there is a big misconception with how evaluations and tenure work in a public school setting. Speaking from my own experience, there has been a huge shift towards data collection and goal setting in a number of areas for educators. This in part is to ensure that students are getting the best education & making growth, but also to train teachers to become reflective in their teaching. That being said, if you are a good teacher chances are this is no problem. I'm sure there are teachers that sneak by, but in time their scores or demeanor will sell them out. So due to this process, it is possible for \"terrible\" or ineffective teachers to be fired. I believe these evaluation processes have been created in part to support a PS in letting go of teachers. \n\nEdit: I should note that my state does not have a strong teacher union. ",
"Former Teacher here, now Administrator:\n\n1. To answer this, you need to know a little history. Teachers used to be fired all the time for not agreeing with their boss's beliefs. For example, they could be fired if they were democrat and their principal or superintendent was republican. They could be fired for not taking \"allegiance oaths\" swearing that they would never say anything bad about their school. They could be fired for not being the same religion. They could even be fired if they went to a bar, got their hair cut at a barber's shop, or even went on dates. Tenure was put into place to stop this from happening. \n\n2. Tenure basically means that teachers get \"due-process\" in order to be fired. They cannot be fired for no reason. This means that the Principal and / or Administration of a school has to prove that the teacher is a bad teacher AND that even with professional development, additional training and mentoring, the teacher isn't changing their behavior and improving their instruction. \n\n3. Most teacher unions also want to get rid of \"bad\" teachers. Bad teachers give the profession a bad name. HOWEVER, the union's role is to make sure that the teacher isn't being fired unjustly. They are there to make sure that the Principal and Administration actually have a really good case for firing. Good unions will work WITH the school district to provide the remedial training for the struggling or \"bad\" teacher.\n\nIn my own experience, I was a teacher in a school with a \"bad\" teacher. What she was doing put all of us under a microscope and made us all feel uncomfortable, especially because all of a sudden there were loads of administration down our hallway and we felt we were all being watched a little excessively. **NOTE** She was not doing anything illegal or putting students in danger in any way - if she had been, she would have been fired immediately as that is considered to be a just cause for termination. \n\nWe all worked with her, with the union, and with the Administration to try and help her improve her teaching, but she refused to change. By the time she was \"fired,\" the administration had enough data, documentation, and evaluations to show that she was ineffective and that she should be let-go. Which is how modern tenure is supposed to work."
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248ylo | if the recession ended five years ago, why does the economy still seem so bad? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/248ylo/eli5_if_the_recession_ended_five_years_ago_why/ | {
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"Because we haven't fully recovered from the recession.\n\nThink of it like your house burning down. The fire stopped months ago, but you still aren't in a new house and all your clothes smell like smoke.",
"The recession did not end five years ago."
]
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1ix7f5 | how do they film tv shows/movies that take place in big cities? | When they're making TV shows that take place in Chicago or LA or New York City, how do they film on the streets? Do they just film around people, or do they block off the section they want to use? They can't just shut down part of a city to film there, so how do they do it without getting interrupted? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ix7f5/eli5_how_do_they_film_tv_showsmovies_that_take/ | {
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"Some options:\n\n* They block off streets on weekend mornings.\n* They film on a set and digitally composite with computer graphics.\n* They film in Vancouver.",
"Sometimes yes they actually do shut down streets and such. It costs a lot of money to do that in a big city, and cities are happy to take their money. Occasionally they just do shoot around people as well.\n\nOften times though, other cities, or sets will take the place of another city. They could easily film say a street in Vancouver or Toldeo, Ohio and say thats LA or NY or chicago, you'd probably never know the difference because of how narrow they shoot it, they are experts at it.\n\n",
"- For TV productions, sometimes sets are built that look like an actual street. They're then reused over and over, with minor changes (like rotating store windows) to keep them looking fresh. This is what you saw on Seinfeld, and on movies that have really elaborate street scenes like Back to the Future. (If you ever get the chance, try to visit one of these sets. They're eerie, because they're incredibly detailed and real-looking yet everything is empty and built into walls. Feels like an episode of The Prisoner or something.)\n\n- For high-budget productions, they'll actually pay the city to shut down a block or two for a while. This is expensive as hell.\n\n- In recent years, it's become more common to send a skeleton crew to a city centre -- just one camera, no sound equipment, little to no lighting, bare minimum personnel -- to shoot a 'plate'. They just shoot scenes in the city, 10 minute segments of footage at key locations, with nothing in them, no performers. Then the actors perform their scenes in front of a green screen and are digitally composited onto the plate. This is a lot cheaper than actually shutting down blocks to keep performing scenes, because that tiny crew can shoot the plate quickly, easily, and cheaply without interfering with other people. You'd be surprised just how common this is for non-special-effectsy shows like 30 Rock and Ugly Betty.\n\n- If your show has a *ton* of outdoor content, you pay to shut down blocks and streets -- but you do it in a much smaller cheaper city/town, and edit in aerial shots of the city you're *pretending* to use. Psych, for example, is set in Santa Barbara, USA but is actually filmed around Vancouver and other British Columbia, CAN towns. They sent a helicopter to Santa Barbara, filmed an hour of aerial footage, and just splice it in a few times an episode to make it look like they're in the USA. (If you ever watched The X-Files, they shot the first half of the series in small Canadian towns and the second half in Los Angeles, which is why there's a sudden stark shift from overcast gloom and foggy villages to sundrenched suburbs about halfway through.) It's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to shut down a few blocks in Ashcroft than to shut down 5 metres of Brooklyn.\n\n",
"Most of the time, they fake it: _URL_0_",
"Captain America is being filmed in Cleveland Ohio because it looks like a small New York, \n\nMeaning that they can block of roads with a smaller traffic jam. ",
"There's plenty of real film operations that go on in New York. There are several film studios, and the city gives tax subsidies and additional help to production companies that want to film here. A lot of productions end up taking over a ton of space wherever they need to set up. There's been filming in my neighborhood a few times since I moved here and I hate it.",
"Production companies will often close streets for complex shots, usually in parts of the city that look appropriate, but aren't actually busy.\n\nAs well, they might close a street in the morning or evening when there's less traffic. The scenes for deserted London in 28 Days later were shot just after sunrise (which still pissed off a mess of commuters).\n\nOf course, famous landmarks can be shown in an establishing shot, then the film might cut to a scene shot in a particularly urban area of Podunk, Ohio to imply that it is the same location. This is much more cost-effective as a smaller city will charge less for a longer shutdown.\n\nOf course CGI can do anything!",
"I've seen parts of streets blocked off in downtown LA, the public can usually still pass though, as long as they're not in the middle of a shot. I've also seen lots of NYC taxi cabs in LA, as well as Wilshire being redressed to look like Tokyo for one of those Fast and Furious movies.",
"Check out this video _URL_0_",
"Glasgow has been used in a couple of movies lately and made out to be another city. I know World War Z had a few scenes recorded in Glasgow and was made out to be a US city, and I'm sure the latest Fast and Furious movie had some scenes recorded in Glasgow but made out to be London."
]
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1k3513 | the proof behind the existence of black holes. | The proof used to know about their existence before they were captured on camera. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k3513/eli5_the_proof_behind_the_existence_of_black_holes/ | {
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"To understand it, first you have to understand escape velocity.\n\nIf you throw a ball straight up, depending on the velocity the ball it has some velocity. It will be dragged on by the gravity of the Earth to slow it down and eventually it will stop and then fall back. However, the farther the ball gets from Earth, the weaker the gravity. If you throw the ball fast enough (faster than you can throw) gravity will get weaker faster than it can slow down the ball and in that case, the ball will never stop and fall back, it will just get slower and slower and slower forever. The minimum speed to achieve this from some distance from a gravity well is the escape velocity. The stronger the gravity, the faster the escape velocity.\n\nWe already had evidence for super-dense stars which we would later call neutron stars. The question just became, what would happen if a star was so heavy and so dense that the escape velocity from its surface was greater than the speed of light? Even light would be unable to achieve escape velocity, so anything which passed this 'event horizon' would be lost from the rest of the universe forever.",
"I don't know if we actually had any proof before we finally captured them in action. I think before that they were mostly theoretical.\n\nHowever, I believe there was a good amount of evidence based on observations of objects that are visible. I'm not a cosmologist or anything, but I believe that they were better able to make sense of galaxies by assuming a super-massive black-hole in the center. Without it, I don't think that the movements or shapes that were observed made sense.",
"Well, before we actually found some, we just figured that if you put enough mass in one spot, there would be one."
]
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6n1i51 | how does after shave work and why is it important to use it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6n1i51/eli5_how_does_after_shave_work_and_why_is_it/ | {
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"Aftershave (one word) is a liquid compound that generally contains an antibacterial agent like denatured alcohol (to disinfect any cuts/microabrasions), an astringent like witch hazel (to reduce skin irritation), and a numbing agent like menthol (to reduce pain in cuts/microabrasion or from the alcohol). They also often contain fragrance or essential oils (to create a unique scent). \n\nIt should be noted that aftershave is not a necessary or even recommended for use after a shave."
]
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||
5jg181 | how do pharmaceutical companies ensure each pill contains the right dosage and that none randomly have more or less than others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jg181/eli5_how_do_pharmaceutical_companies_ensure_each/ | {
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"They design the mixing apparatus and procedures to blend properly and they test to make sure there are no spots in the mix which are not properly blended. Ingredients are chosen to be compatible in the blending process.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"I work in a soil/water lab where we use a Malvern Mastersizer 3000 which is a laser particle size analyzer. I learned these are often used in the food and pharmaceutical industry to test whether the particles are evenly distributed, determine size, shape, etc. The machine allows companies to analyze if an ingredient is evenly distributed/blended properly within the pill. If a pill has 75% of the active ingredient on one half of the pill, it will often be recalled due to the risk of people cutting them in half and expecting the same dosage. ",
"I worked in the industry before, although not in manufacturing. The other replies pointed out using certain instruments in the process.\n\nEven before they start manufacturing, a formulation (you could say recipe) is developed. This formulation gets tested for things like homogeneity (even distribution of all the ingredients) and stability (how long it will last). After they determine the correct formulation, they can manufacture.\n\nDuring the manufacturing process there are various people involved in testing and ensuring that the drugs meet various standards such as homogeneity. If a batch or lot is found to not meet standards, those won't go to the market. Also, there are audits of the process by internal QA, external QA, clients, and regulatory agencies.\n\nOf course it's a little more complex than this, but the important points are:\n1) the correct formulation is developed\n2) countless checks during manufacturing help ensure a product meeting proper standards"
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||
9ok3rj | how is this new camera that captures light at 10 trillion fps able to do that? | And wouldn't you think that 10 trillion frames per second would warrant faster than light speed? What sort of method is this camera using? [Here is a link](_URL_0_) to one of many articles about this camera. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ok3rj/eli5_how_is_this_new_camera_that_captures_light/ | {
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"Can't say I know how many photons hit an area the size of the sensor per second, but I'd imagine it's more than the FPS of this camera by a long shot. All its doing is measuring photons hitting a sensor at a faster rate than normal. It just so happens that the speed is unimaginably large",
"Short answer: complex math. Long answer:\n\nThere is an ultrafast imaging technique called a streak camera. This captures a pulse of light as a streak across a sensor, with time. Various ways to do this, from a mirror across a fairly normal sensor to a simple photodiode that controls the output of a cathode ray tube that scans across a sensor.\n\nThis is combined mathematically with a more normal image taken at the same time. Because the position of the streak camera’s focus is known, it’s possible to use the same math as what a CT scan uses to determine what made that light pulse show up on the streak camera in that way."
]
} | [] | [
"https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/10/time-freezing-camera-at-10-trillion-frames-per-second.html"
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[],
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24r6c9 | who is paying for the search for malaysia m370 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24r6c9/eli5who_is_paying_for_the_search_for_malaysia_m370/ | {
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"Primarily China, Australia, and the US, the three wealthy countries with citizens on board.",
"Generally the expense (and primary responsibility for coordination) is borne by the closest country to the crash site, in this case Australia, although other countries are lending both financial and practical aid.",
"Probably not Malaysia"
]
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61zkyk | why is 36.7 degrees celcius the perfect temperature for a shower, but 30 degree weather is too hot? (if you're irish like me that is) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61zkyk/eli5_why_is_367_degrees_celcius_the_perfect/ | {
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"You shower for maybe twenty minutes at a time, which is enough to warm your outer body temperature and it feels warm and comfortable but not enough time to hugely affect your internal temperature. If you spend too long in the hot water, you might notice how you'll start feeling tired and weak. That's because your body is overheating, and you might even feel a little dizzy if you overdid it too much. That's one of the very first signs of heatstroke, and if you stayed in hot temperatures too long you'd start seeing more serious signs too.\n\nBut if you're outside, you're spending longer periods in hot weather and breathing in hot air, which itself raises your internal temperature faster. Your body will start sweating to cool itself down, which can leave you feeling dehydrated. This makes it harder for your body to cope with the stress of heat, and your body will start making you feel uncomfortable as one of the first warning signs to tell you to get to somewhere cooler."
]
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||
3zoirr | why was the 6th commandment often ignored by christians throughout history? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zoirr/eli5_why_was_the_6th_commandment_often_ignored_by/ | {
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"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. Romans 3:10-11 \n\n\n",
"Well, other parts of the old testament call for execution for certain crimes. The general interpretation of the \"thou shalt not kill rule,\" is that you shouldn't murder, you shouldn't unjustly kill. Killing in war? OK, at least sometimes. Killing someone because you had an argument with them? Not OK, that's murder.",
"The Qur'an also prohibits the enforcement of Islam or the use of force to spread its ideals, but we have ISIS and Al Qaeda. People as a group are terrible regardless of religion or lack thereof. Only as an individual can anyone truly be good.",
"Hypocrisy is probably the easiest explanation. Christians follow the Bible and it is riddled with contradictions, there are enough passages urging followers to kill one another to appease God who/which I strongly believe is actually a strict adherence to a particular set of norms that hopes to make life peaceful but ends up enriching some and disadvantages a lot more in a most brutal way. I like George Carlin's breakdown of the 10 commandments. He gets to the 6th around the 4:50 mark. Its comedy but I like his way of getting at it.\n_URL_0_",
"The commandment is not \"shall not kill\" despite often being inaccurately described or translated that way. The most accurate English translation of the commandment is \"shall not murder\", and murder is slightly different from killing."
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3e8ymk | if your mail can't be searched without suspicion how do most people get caught shipping drugs? | If someone was sending pot, or cocaine, or whatever and there was no smell or visible evidence how would they be caught? Is there a process of screening packages that is legal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e8ymk/eli5_if_your_mail_cant_be_searched_without/ | {
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"because the drug sniffing dogs or the xray machines detects what could be drugs, so that gives reasonable suspicion. ",
"People who are caught shipping drugs are caught because there is reasonable suspicion their package contains drugs. Keep in mind that while a human can't smell or detect the presence of drugs within a package, a dog may be able to, and if a drug dog alerts the handler that there is a suspicious material within that package, that's reasonable suspicion to search the package. \n\nAdditionally, the DEA frequently investigates suspected drug dealers. They will have evidence that suggests someone is dealing drugs that is independent of what they mail or ship, and intercept packages that they suspect are filled with drugs. Once this package is intercepted, they will dress as a delivery person and attempt to deliver the package, then taking down the recipient and arresting them."
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37jar5 | why vevo is like a "subreddit"' on youtube? why don't they just make their own website and feature the artists there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37jar5/eli5_why_vevo_is_like_a_subreddit_on_youtube_why/ | {
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"I'd imagine it is much cheaper to piggy back on someone's established work(coding, marketing and of course it's established name in popculture) than to venture into a competing website starting from scratch. ",
"Why reinvent the wheel? Youtube has a lot of exposure/publicity and is willing to handle all of the technical aspects (hosting, support, Q & A, etc.) of the website in exchange for a cut of the ad revenues (more likely, the other way around; Vevo gets paid part of the ad revenues earned on their videos by Youtube). This arrangement makes Vevo's job very easy. All they have to do is sign the artists and upload the music/videos.\n\nSetting up their own website would simply force them to compete with Youtube, which is a losing proposition for both parties."
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2o9pwg | what are the pros and cons of s free trade agreement between the eu and the united states? why are some people opposing the deal? | I've been under the impression that free trade agreements are usually good for everyone involved. Why wouldn't people want this deal to go through? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o9pwg/eli5_what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_s_free_trade/ | {
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"Free trade agreements are absolutely not good for everyone, though many economists agree that they're better for most people. \n\nThe main two pros of a free trade agreement are that they reduce regulatory burden/arbitrage, and that they ensure better allocation of resources. The first one is hard to explain, but the basics of it are this, if the US requires you to label your product one way, and the EU requires you to label your product another, you need to have two labeling facilities, and estimate how much you'll need for each jurisdiction. Under a free trade agreement, the US and EU would attempt to make their labels conform, so you'd only need one labeling facility, and you'd only have to estimate total demand. \n\nThe second is best explained through an example. Imagine there are two countries, country A and country B. In A, they have lots of good, high quality sand with which to make glass, but their only heat source is wood, which means they have to use a lot of inefficiently burning wood to get the temperature hot enough. In B, they have lots of oil for heating, but only poor, low grade sand for making glass, which means they have to expend a lot more oil to get the temperature up and purify everything to make glass, 5 times more than if they had A's sand. If A and B charge tariffs on trade, they're going to be more incentivized to use their own inefficient resources to make glass. If there's free trade, the A will trade good quality sand to B in exchange for oil, and A can save it's wood for things wood is better-used for, and B can save significantly on oil, even though it's trading some away, because it can make so much more with glass.\n\nNow, for the downsides. The traditional downside is that A's woodchoppers now have fewer jobs, and B's oilmen and sand diggers now have fewer jobs. In addition, with current trade deals, there are huge concerns about how those deals will impact the ability of countries to regulate there own markets and resources. For instance, the US once agreed to open up its service sector, including its digital services sector, and ensure that foreign companies had equal access to the US as domestic ones. The US then got sued, because some states allow online gambling, but only by companies regulated in those states. Antigua and Barbuda, which is home to a lot of online gambling sites, said \"hey, there's US companies offering these digital services to US customers, why cant our companies offer them? This is unequal treatment. Antigua and Barbuda went to the WTO and won. Of course, nothing really happens when they win, they get to put tariffs on some of our goods to them and the like, but that's it. \n\nThe real new concern is about what's called, \"Investor-State Dispute Settlement.\" This legal structure, a part of some of the ongoing negotiations, allows for a private individual to sue a country for violations of international trade law, rather than it being limited to just countries suing each-other. The target is to get at when countries tell investors \"hey, come build factories and power plants on our soil, then you can sell to our people and make lots of money\", then when the investors build it, saying \"sorry, we've decided we don't want this industry here, we're making it illegal to own this stuff privately\" and takes all the stuff those investors brought over. ISDS will allow those investors to sue that country and get paid for the stuff it brought over and the work it did. Sounds ok, right? The fear is, what if those investors buys up a bunch of land to do something that's currently legal, like, say, hydrofracking. Then, lets say the science finds conclusively that hydrofracking is really really bad, and for legitimate environmental reasons, the government decides to ban it. Will the government have to pay all of those foreign investors in order to make what is a legitimate regulatory decision? Suddenly, instead of congress just being told \"in order to ban this, we'll have to accept x economic loss from the activity\", they'll have to be told \"in order to ban this, we'll have to accept x economic loss from the activity, and we'll have to pay out y to foreign companies that are in the industry here.\" That has a lot of people concerned. "
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8x28wz | why do heights feel taller when looking from the top down than from the ground up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8x28wz/eli5_why_do_heights_feel_taller_when_looking_from/ | {
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"It's a lot more than just the height differences. It's your sense of danger kicking in coupled with your enhanced ability to actually perceive height because there's more to compare it to.\n\nWhen you're on the ground, you are not in danger. When you are leaning over a precipice looking down, you are. Your brain instantly kicks in with a big \"Do not go any closer!\" message that some people can easily overcome due to being accustomed to it, and others can never handle. That sense of fear makes the distance look enormous.\n\nThen there's the ability to comparatively measure. When you're up high looking down, you can easily tell that you're relatively high by comparing the size of stuff at ground level as you see it from your perch versus what size it is when you're down there next to it. Climb a radio tower, look down and see ant-sized people, and you instantly know you're REALLY high. But when you are on the ground looking up, there's nothing to compare it to, only the sky (or ceiling if indoors)... and so it's really hard to gauge distance.\n\n(Sidebar note: this is also why full moons on the horizon look enormous compared to how large they appear when up in the sky. The horizon gives you something to compare the size of the moon to, but the open sky doesn't, so the moon appears much smaller.)\n\n",
"Not to mention, let’s say you’re six feet tall. From the ground, the diving board doesn’t look that tall because your eyes are nearly six feet off the ground. When you’re on top of the board, the ground looks that much farther away because your eyes are nearly six feet above the board. That’s a difference in perception of almost 12 feet there!",
"Because when you are at the top you adding you own height and the contrary when you are at the ground just my two cents "
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35oi55 | how do people intercept data when you're using public wifi? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35oi55/eli5_how_do_people_intercept_data_when_youre/ | {
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"I would say it's more like they eavesdrop on it than intercept it. Your data is still reaching the router like they weren't there. \r\r\rThe WiFi router and your device just broadcast the data out there in all directions. It's freely out there. Now that said, it is encoded so you need to know how it is encoded. That's why with secure networks you cant access the data.\r\r\rBut when you are on the same WiFi network, all the devices know how to encode it. They all receive all the data from each other, they are all within range. The router and devices just know what data is meant for them by IP addresses. All they have to do is tell their computer to stop ignoring the data with IP addresses indicating it's to/from you. ",
"Everything that is sent over the Wi-Fi is sent over the air, so anyone who is within listening range can \"hear\" what your computer is doing at anytime. This is why encryption is so important; instead of your computer saying \"My username is KillerBoi97 and my password is TotallySecurePassword\", encryption will make it sound like \"FJEOITJEDMNGVOQW$J@)VMNBVN QAO$T)(HGJ2345JOLAJO$T09tjajg\" to other people. They cannot decode the message without your encryption password. Luckily, most computers have to be in a special mode to be able to \"monitor\" the air, and only certain chipsets support this function.\n\ntl;dr everything is sent over the air, so everyone can see it"
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1jkn82 | could a human survive temporarily being swallowed by a large animal like a shark or whale? what would the process of death be like, and could they survive if they weren't bitten/crushed in the mouth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jkn82/eli5_could_a_human_survive_temporarily_being/ | {
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"The first thing that would kill someone who is swallowed alive is probably lack of oxygen. Assuming you're a scuba diver being swallowed by a whale, if you can avoid being forced into the whale's digestive track and stay in the mouth, you can live as long as your oxygen holds out and you aren't crushed by the mouth. As far as being digested to death, just imagine rolling around in acid and letting it slowly dissolve you, starting with your skin and muscles.",
"Yes, but only for a very short time. You've got to think of the environment you'd be in - no oxygen, caustic chemicals, likely poisonous gases. If you survived the mouth my guess is you'd be unconscious and or suffocated within a minute or less.",
"No. There was actually a lot of news stories in late 19th century about people surviving in whale stomachs. \n\nAlso survival depends on the animal. For example, a whale contains more than 1 stomach. The first stomach doesn't secrete any digestive juices, but the pressure inside it would crush a human. \n\nI would recommend reading Gulp by Mary roach. There's a few chapters in it, about this ",
"Man survived being swallowed by a [hippo](_URL_0_)",
"Did you happen to watch \"Sharknado\" before asking this question?"
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8c1xai | why do chinese "lions" not look anything like actual lions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8c1xai/eli5_why_do_chinese_lions_not_look_anything_like/ | {
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"Here's what I remember from my art history days...\n\nIn Chinese art there is a \"right\" way to do pretty much everything from holding the brush to applying ink to paper. This is easily controlled because artists were all from guilds(forget the Chinese word for it) and the artists that made the most well known lions were all part of the royal artists guild. This leads to highly uniform stylized art. That's why all \"foo dogs\" look the same. They are all emulating the work of an agreed upon master. Also many sculptures are not made by one person so having standards made it a lot easier. The Chinese are by no means unique in this respect. ",
"Mostly because lions are not native to China. Imagine this: one person saw it, and tries to describe it in text, and the artisans tries to create something from the text, pretty much what Chinese lions looks now is what we get. Then newer generations simply copy and add their own interpretations, similar to Burrito is kinda of American food instead of Mexican food.\n\nThis compares to how tigers, which is native to China, are accurately depicted. ",
"i believe you’re talking about sculptures of lions usually seen outside temples and such. i was taught that they weren’t meant to be representations of the animal, but rather as guardians of the location. they are more “stylized” in order to frighten demons or evil spirits. ",
"From my understanding, and feel free to correct me, is that they kinda based them of Tibetan Mastiffs. Which were kinda bred to like lions"
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37wavl | how is it legal for certain movies/mini series to show child nudity? | I am finishing up the mini series based on Herman Wouk's novels "The Winds of War" and the sequel "War and Remembrance." (I HIGHLY recommend everyone viewing these films at the earliest possibility, they are incredibly well produced and very historically accurate.) There comes a point at Auschwitz where the prisoners are forced to strip before being gassed, during this time there are a lot of people naked and the camera shows several little children, some boys and some girls, totally nude. Full frontal exposure. These children cannot be older than 6 years old. It was my understanding that this sort of thing is terribly illegal. How can it be in the film? Please explain!
Edit: I should add, this movie was made in 1988, this could have some bearing on the answer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37wavl/eli5how_is_it_legal_for_certain_moviesmini_series/ | {
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"Child nudity is illegal if it appeals to the prurient interest -- that is, for sexual gratification. Child nudity is legal if it is for a legitimate artistic, educational or scientific purpose.\n\nSo, what you're describing clearly falls into the category of artistic.",
"It's non-sexual nudity. It's not gratuitous. It's relevant to the plot. If someone is getting turned on by naked 6 year olds in Auschwitz, they are the ones with the problem, not the film makers or censors.\n\nAlso, I imagine, the children's parents were on hand at all times, and there a procedures and laws that have to be followed for children on film, even when those children are keeping their clothes on, so I doubt those children were in the least bit traumatized by their experience.",
"Child pornography laws work in a similar way to regular pornography laws, where it depends on the context and contents of the picture. This is unfortunately an arbitrary line which leads us to the whole \"I know it when I see it\" bit when describing porn vs. art, but such is life.\n\nConsider, for example, a parent who takes a picture of their kid in the bathtub, or a picture of a toddler being a toddler and running around naked. I don't think anyone would call that child pornography, despite the fact that it obviously has nudity.\n\nThe idea is that they are not showing nude children for the intent of sexual arousal. While someone who's *truly* fucked in the head could probably get aroused by it, it definitely was not the intention of the artist and free speech says that they should be allowed to do it.",
"so the answer people are giving is that it has to be non sexual, but isn't there still an issue of being able to consent?",
"The depiction of child nudity in a non-sexual context has become as unusual/taboo as it is only fairly recently. The Blue Lagoon (1980, I think) is a good example — the first half hour or so the protagonists are children, and they're pretty much naked all the time. Utterly inconceivable today in a big Hollywood movie. Back then, no one batted an eyelid."
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3iqzi7 | why presidential candidates are never scientists or doctors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iqzi7/eli5_why_presidential_candidates_are_never/ | {
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"There are multiple people from the medical field running in the US presidential election right now.\n\nThe sciences tend to contribute relatively few people to politics because it is a less straightforward path than it is from some other careers.",
"The personality and lifestyle required to be a scientist or doctor are not highly compatible with those required to be a world-leading political candidate. It would be a very uncommon combination of personal attributes.",
"There have been a few, for example Ron Paul is a doctor, he ran for president in 1988, 2008, and 2012. His son Rand is also a doctor and running this year. ",
"That's what advisors are for, it takes a special kind I'd personality to be a winning politician and as for me and a lot (not all) of other scientists and engineers we are not very good at winning over the hearts of people and so it's best for us to give advice from the shadows",
"The presidency, hell, pretty much any elected office, is a popularity contest. The talking head tells us a beautiful story about all the magical things that they will do, if only we'd give them our vote. Then we get strung along just long enough to reelect them and they proceed to do whatever the heck they originally wanted to do for the last years in office. \n\nScience is, generally, a truthful thing. The personality that enjoys discovering new facts and sharing them with the world doesn't mesh well with the give and take of politics.\n\nSure, I'm bitter, probably wrong, but this is the reality I see from year to year.\n\nedit: typos",
"Ben Carson and both Rand and Ron Paul are MD's. Carson was amongst the most highly regarded fetal surgeons in the world. \n\nThough in my experience dealing with MD's, most don't seem like the type of people who would normally be attracted to politics. ",
"Scientists work with truth, objectivity and evidence.\n\nPoliticians work with soundbites, easy answers and good teeth... Fuck, they really are gonna elect Trump, aren't they...",
"People from those specific fields fill the cabinet roles. The president is a leader, she uses the advice of experts to make decisions. ",
"Politics and business are actually incredibly similar fields, though. They both involve a lot of networking, charisma, leadership, and people skills. Think about it, though - politicians don't really worry about their credentials. A lot are businesspeople and lawyers (since I suppose it's loosely tied to legislature), but most of the time it's about the *person* and not what the person *is*.\n\nI, for example, have no clue what Obama did before government. Or Angela Merkel. Or David Cameron. Hell, in my country, our president never even finished high school. But who cares, because we vote them in for their policies and stances. If I were firmly in favour of candidate B over candidate A, finding out that A is an engineer while B was a schoolteacher isn't really going to sway me.\n\nAlso, science fields tend to attract more reserved, bookish people, who don't usually aspire to being in front of crowds or \"acting\" in the way politicians do. They're also usually no bullshit types, which doesn't gel at *all* with politics.",
"Highly educated types might not want to deal with the avalanche of bullshit that being a politician entails. It's a lot of work, lots of stress, people want to kill you for stupid reasons, and at the end of the day half of your constituents or more hate your ass just because you did your job.\n\nFuck that noise.",
"Scientists and doctors are far too busy actually improving the world to spend all their time promising to do it. ",
"This is speculative, but here goes. The kind of person who gets a PhD and the kind of person who is successful in politics are largely different. \n\nFor starters, unlike a bachelor's or masters, a PhD is a career path itself. Most people who get phds do so in order to go into academia or research. So already phds are self selecting away from public service. \n\nFurther, think about the kind of person who is interested in government and law. Those kinds of people usually become lawyers or study government at University. A JD is a terminal degree, so usually no need for a PhD. And in things like government or political science, you often don't need a PhD unless you're going into academia. \n\nLastly, the fact that someone is intelligent enough to get a PhD is a specific field does not make them intelligent in other areas, or good at politics. They are an expert in one very specific field, and you should be wary of trusting them on other matters simply because they have a PhD. Witness Ben Carson, Republican candidate and widely respected surgeon, who IMO has some incredibly stupid views on government and is clearly not a skilled politician. "
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b9skq8 | why do drinks like pepsi, wine and other natural/food colored stuff turn to the same color when we pee? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b9skq8/eli5_why_do_drinks_like_pepsi_wine_and_other/ | {
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"The things you drink are broken down by acid and enzymes in your gut, and the components absorbed in to your blood, which is immediately run through your liver, where further chemical breakdown takes place. There is no \"wine\" or \"pepsi\" at this point - there is water, and sugars, and fats, and proteins, and some other metabolites in small quantities. The blood is then circulated, use made of the various components as required, and then it goes to your kidneys, where some water and unwanted metabolites (including urea, a yellowish by-product of protein breakdown) is pulled out into the bladder, where you pee it. Tldr; the pee isn't the stuff you put in. It's excess water and unwanted stuff. ",
"Remember - everything you Pee - came out of your blood. Not everything you consume ends up in the bloodstream... "
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45a6x8 | why is marijuana bad for your sleep when some people use it to relax/fall asleep. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45a6x8/eli5_why_is_marijuana_bad_for_your_sleep_when/ | {
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"Short answer is it affects your deep sleep, so it's kinda like only taking a light nap, for your entire sleep duration. Sure, you have been resting the whole time, but you haven't effectively been truly sleeping, which is what your brain needs. This is why if you smoke often before sleeping, you'll find you have a harder time wanting to get out of bed, because you did not get \"A good night's sleep\".",
"Well for me personally i began smoking with friends back in high school just as recreational thing, never really got tired from it. as i got older i dont know why maybe it was the kind of weed i was smoking or what but i would just get tired and my girlfriend at the time would get horny. and we would have sex (with her doing most of the work lol) and i would just pass out. after we broke up i would smoke and use it to fall alseep. it wasnt til i stopped because i was looking for a new job and wasnt allowed to smoke because of drug tests i would have to do to get the job, i realized i couldnt sleep. i feel as i became dependent on it to fall asleep so maybe thats why its bad for sleep, but then again i never slept better when i was smoking. So from my experience being dependent on it to fall asleep is the only bad part, not saying thats everyone but for me thats how it kind of went.",
"All I know is after I stop smoking (for two or more days after daily use) my dreams become SUPER vivid and weird. "
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362zpo | why do we have lawns? wouldn't it be better if we all had gardens instead? | I understand it's aesthetically pleasing but it is such a waste of water and space. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/362zpo/eli5_why_do_we_have_lawns_wouldnt_it_be_better_if/ | {
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"Simple reason is that gardens are far more effort. Flowers, herbs, vegetables, etc require far more micro-management.\n",
"This would be good question to ask over at r/historians. Lawns haven't actually been around for very long. They evolved in victorian times as a status symbol of the elite classes. Only in the last 50-100 years did the technology for maintaining a lawn drop in price enough that everyday folk could afford it. Now of course, they're still a status symbol (for keeping up with the joneses) but we've also found recreational use for them, especially families with children. Long story short, lawns are a symptom of western societies many excesses, and yes, of course we'd be better (and healthier) if we all had produce gardens instead. ",
"Gardens take a shitload of work to maintain. Grass is super resilient and just needs water. Also the purpose of lawns is so children can play on the property. Not doable with gardens.",
"Funnily enough we don't differentiate between 'lawn' and 'garden' here in the UK. They're all just called gardens."
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42si8s | why do well call countries spain and germany when they call themselves espana and duetchland | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42si8s/eli5_why_do_well_call_countries_spain_and_germany/ | {
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"Different language origins and culture. \nThe polish name for Germany translates to \"the mute ones\" because Poland could never really communicate with them (as opposed to other slavs). The german name for Germany comes from the old german word for \"people\" so it's basically \"land of the people\". English name \"Germany\" comes from the roman belief of the \"germanic tribe\".\n\nDifferent countries don't care for how the countries call themselves. They create the names that suits them best, which they can use best in communication."
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1wgzy6 | how do stormproof matches work and should i be adding them to my normal survival kit? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wgzy6/eli5_how_do_stormproof_matches_work_and_should_i/ | {
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"Stormproof matches are basically regular matches with a light coating of wax to keep them waterproof. Scratching the match on a surface removes the wax, then simply strike like normal. You can easily make your own waterproof matches by simply dipping regular matches in melted candle wax. Cover the head of the match in a thin but complete layer of wax. Simple enough.\n\nYour survival kit should always include multiple ways to start a fire, especially in bad weather. Waterproof matches are good. Cotton balls with a bit of petroleum jelly (vaseline) on them make for great tinder. Finally, a flint striker is also very easy to include in any kit. Redundancy in your fire starting capabilities (as well as your water collection capabilities) can mean a big difference if you are in a situation where you need to use the survival kit. "
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46v3wv | why do some plants die even though you take good care of them while others grow all over even though you try to keep them down? | How can some be so weak and others so strong | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46v3wv/eli5_why_do_some_plants_die_even_though_you_take/ | {
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"There are so many variables that are very different for every plant. First is type of soil, how well it drains and ph. Second is the ph of the water and amount of water you give it, most plants do not like their roots soaked all the time. Third is what type of nutrients the plant needs and whether its getting needed nutrients from the soil or you have to supplement them via fertilizer. Fourth is how much light they get both in intensity and duration. Fifth is air temperature, for instance cold weather is what makes apples sweet, if you grow an apple tree in a warm climate it may fruit but it will be sour, similarly in you grow a coconut palm in a climate too cool it will not yield any coconuts. Last is pests, I have many plants that were destroyed by insects, grubs, mole crickets and animals; I had racoons knaw off the base of corn stalks until it fell over then they ate the corn, bastards killed 1/2 acre of sweet corn.",
"Factor 1: Soil. Many plants are adapted to very specific soil compositions, including the balance of organic matter, the microorganisms in the soil, and most importantly the way the soil holds or drains water. Some plants are adapted to a wider range of soil types while others are capable of thriving only in a certain area. Grasses, for example, are pretty well adapted to various conditions. A cactus will be much pickier and need soil that doesn't hold water long at all. \n\n\nFactor 2: Light. Some plants come from regions that they are very precisely adapted to. Plants growing in a jungle floor expect different light than those that might grow on a riverbank or a hillside. This is difficult to replicate. Again, this will come down to the evolutionary history of that species and the kind of environmental variance that it's ancestors encountered.\n\nFactor 3: Air temperature, air flow, + humidity - again, this is all about adaptation. A plant that has a varied ancestral lineage might be able to handle lots of temperature or humidity fluctuations, whereas one that has stuck in a single environment (dessert, jungle) may not be able to respond properly to changes in air quality as easily.\n\nFactor 4: quality vs quantity. Some plants are adapted to produce few offspring but to have those offspring be very robust. Some plants have continued to survive by producing thousands of offspring with the chance that a couple will survive. If you are trying to grow a single specimen of this latter type of plant, you might expect that the odds are against you.\n\nFactor 5: Luck. Seriously, sometimes it's just about luck.\n\nTl;Dr - all plants are \"strong\" when they are in the environment that thry are adapted for. Trying to grow them outside that environment will reveal the ways that thry are \"weak\"\n\n\nEdit: fixed font size nightmare."
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6ebx20 | how come we never see ups vehicles at gas stations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ebx20/eli5_how_come_we_never_see_ups_vehicles_at_gas/ | {
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"they have pumps at the distribution center. Fill up when they get back at the end of the shift so the truck is ready to go for the next day.\n\nthey buy enough gas its worth it to buy direct. no reason to cut a 3rd party in on their gas payments.",
"They have their own \"gas stations\" that are privately owned to cut costs. They buy the gas in bulk because it is cheaper.\n\nSame applies to cops, school buses, and other fleet vehicles."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
6njkhs | why some perfumes last for long time while the other dissappear after short time ? | I mean the the smell of that perfume and its strength also ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6njkhs/eli5_why_some_perfumes_last_for_long_time_while/ | {
"a_id": [
"dka1dr6"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Perfume is a complex substance made up of essential oils, extracts, alcohol, water, wax, and other complex molecules and they all evaporate at different rates. \n\nIn general the more volatile a molecule and the lower it's vapor pressure, the quicker it will evaporate, creating a strong scent, but not lasting as long. The lighter the molecule the faster it will evaporate and bring scent with it. The heavier and more resinous or oily the molecule, the longer it will last but the slower it will give up it's scent.\n\nThe scents usually come in one of 3 forms, water based, oil based, or alcohol based. Some extracts result in essential oil like rose oil. Others are extracted by soaking in fat to extract the scent, then using alcohol or ether to separate the fats from the scent, and these are usually the alcohol based ones. Still others like rose water are pretty much adding the natural substance to water and letting it steep, then filtering the resulting elixir. \n\nMost perfumes are made up of different chords of scents which are mixtures of individual scents or notes. The most volatile are the head notes, which are what you initially smell the most when you apply a perfume. These last a few minutes up to an hour usually.\n\nNext are the heart notes which are slightly heavier and less volatile and these are what you tend to smell a few minutes to a few hours after applying it. \n\nAn the very last are the bass notes which are the heaviest, most resinous scents which are less volatile, give up their scent very slowly, but may last for hours or days. \n\n\nThese differences in evaporation and volatility are the reason why many perfumes change scent over time or \"develop\". The amount of perfume oil or concentrated scent in proportion to water and alcohol also affect the strength of the scent and it's longevity. Eau de parfume (perfume water) tends to have a higher concentration of fragrance to alcohol and water than eau de toilet (bath water) for instance. So the parfume versions are more expensive as there is more scent in them, but they also last longer than the more watered down eau de toilet which in turn is stronger than the super weak aftershave/body lotion versions. Some perfumes are also available as oil, which is pure scent with maybe a little oil to water it down. These tend to be very strong and are applied sparingly. The word perfume itself comes from par fumer which means \"through smoke\" as in walking through incense smoke, which was one of the earlier ways people experienced scent. Smelling as if you walked through incense or perfume is a way of saying the scent lingers on you. \n\nFor instance if you mixed lemon grass, cedar oil, and patchouli together, the initial scent would be very citrusy, followed by a more woodsy smell for a few hours, and finally ending in a more dry and dark earthy smell. \n\nA persons body heat, body chemistry, the local temperature and humidity all will impact the longevity and sillage (how strong the scent is). Some scents are better suited to cold climates and winter time and others are more of a summer scent for use when it's warmer. For instance a scent which smells great in the winter, may be over powering if worn in the summer because it flashes into scent at a high rate making your eyes water. (Angel for men I'm looking at you!)\n\nSource - Im a grown man that loves perfume and cologne, has read many books on them, makes their own scents for fun, and is afraid to reveal how many bottles he owns. "
]
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[]
] |
|
2g8gky | what does the fluffy thing on my microphone do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g8gky/eli5what_does_the_fluffy_thing_on_my_microphone_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckgmf74"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Microphones measure pressure waves by responding to moving air. Wind also moves air. The fluffy things reduce the amount of wind noise the microphone picks up. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
cf0gti | why does decibel level multiply way past the point of the source when there are multiple sources even though they all have the same decibel. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cf0gti/eli5_why_does_decibel_level_multiply_way_past_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"eu6a5wp",
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"text": [
"Throw a pebble in a pond, and it will make waves. \n\nThrow two pebbles in that pond and when their waves meet, they'll make extra big waves and extra big troughs. \n\nThe bigger waves in this case and troughs are bigger pressure differences we hear as sound. \n\nSame idea. \n\nYou can actually align the speakers to cancel each other out which is how noise cancelling works (trough meets wave and they sum to zero)",
"Sound acts as a wave of energy. This is a logarithmic function which implies that as you add sources of sound (at the same volume) they add onto one another but as you increase the number of things, the addition of sound lessens off with each additional item. \n\nExample: person claps their hands. This is as loud as a single clap, repeating. Another person joins in. This is not twice as loud but it is louder than one! Now an audience of 2999 claps in unison for a concert. The concert has one more person join to make the claps of 3000 people, but no one noticed, even though there was an increase in volume."
]
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[],
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||
4gceqa | why are there no universally agreed on classic albums anymore? | When people look back upon the music of the 60's everyone can seem to agree on a few "classic" albums. "Sgt. Pepper", "Pet Sounds" and "Blonde on Blonde" just to name a few. In the last 20 years or so it seems that no album can reach a consensus like the ones I mentioned. The only recent albums I can think of that might be universally well received are "Kid A" by Radiohead and "To Pimp a Butterfly" by Kendrick Lamar.
Has nostalgia inflated the quality of "classic" albums or are music listeners more picky these days? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gceqa/eli5_why_are_there_no_universally_agreed_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2gbw1u",
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"text": [
"I don't think it's a matter of nostalgia. Rather, it's a consequence of how music distribution has changed the fandom.\n\nFrom the 1920s to the 1970s or so, a great deal of people's exposure to music was through radio. And the radio stations aired certain songs, so those songs were heard by millions of people, and the best of them became insanely popular.\n\nBut in the 1980s, cassette tapes became widespread, allowing people to seek out music more closely associated with their personal tastes. And in the 1990s and onwards, the rise of the Internet and portable music players made this *ridiculously* easy. We're no longer all exposed to the same songs, because the distribution channels we get our music through now allow us to select precisely the kind of music we want, and ignore the rest. Jazz fans listen to jazz, metalheads listen to metal, people who like country or techno or rap find themselves country or techno or rap and listen to that, after their own tastes. As a result, the fandom is now *vastly* more heterogenous, with the best songs in each genre getting exposure among fans of that genre but not so much among the general population.",
"The newer music is the less time it has had to fully mature. Plus what I think is more important to consider is that tastes and accessibility have broaden considerably. So many sub-genres have emerged. There still certainly are classics in every era but instead, lets just say 100 people like 10 albums back then, now we have 100 liking 50. There are still Circles who praise an album, they just merely shrunk and spread out.\n\nSome \"Classics\" that appeal to my personal taste staring from the 90's:\n\nRust in Piece\n\nAeroplane Over the Sea\n\nNevermind\n\nIn Utero\n\nLowend Theory\n\nElephant\n\nAutomatic for the People\n\nPinkerton\n\nGrace\n\nDookie\n\nIs This It\n\nLift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!\n\nLoveless\n\nWhatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not\n\nRage Against The Machine\n\n"
]
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[],
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|
91xq7s | what does the saying have your cake and it too mean? hell yeah i’d want to eat my cake. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91xq7s/eli5_what_does_the_saying_have_your_cake_and_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"e31jkfa",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"If you eat it you don’t “have” it anymore. Things meant to be used, should be used and enjoyed without remorse. ",
"I've heard that in Italian the phrase is \"he wants his wine unopened and his wife drunk.\"\n\nIt means you're gonna have to let go of one side of whatever you're talking about. You can't have both.",
"You can't have your cake and eat it too.\n\nIt means that life is not fair. You can't always get everything you want. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get what you want.\n\nYou want to get into a good college and you want to party every weekend. \nIf you party every weekend, you don't study. You don't study, you get bad grades. You get bad grades, you don't get into a good college. Now you have great social skills but no education so no great future.\n\nIf you dont go to parties, you study a lot. You study a lot, you get good grades. You get good grades, you go to a good college. But since you never partied, you never developed social skills. Now you have a great job but no family, or friends. So no great future.\n\nBasically it means that life just sucks all the way around."
]
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[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5yfhqc | why do football team supporters fight each other? (uk) | I don't know if this is common in other countries, but in the UK the supporters of football teams fight each other. Usually it's planned, like they go to a certain location and get into a massive fight... But why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yfhqc/eli5_why_do_football_team_supporters_fight_each/ | {
"a_id": [
"depjkhz",
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"text": [
"It is also a problem in other countries. I think that these people take things to serious.\nI mean, at the end of the day its just a sport and you won't have any disadvantages if your team loses. Just calm down and enjoy the sport.",
"I did this once, and to try and explain it - there is no where else in society where violence and aggression is tolerated. You cant just yell and scream at work, and if you do a meeting will probably be scheduled with the HR lady. \n\nGoing to football, you can pay 50 pounds for the right to hate those fuckers rights there. God every thing about them is horrible, and a nice song has been made about it wankers. \n\nIts an extension of these, a place where both hate and violence is tolerated in a fixed setting, and everyone there is \"not civilians\" \n\nThere are rules, no weapons or stomping on peoples heads. And lastly, when you do get hit in the head really hard - you suddenly know exactly what you want. - its a strange feeling of clarity. \n\nAfterwards you go have a beer with your WAR BUDDIES, and you tell stories of valor and glory - or it looked funny when mike got hit in the face. \n\nIts primitive as fuck, and the only reason where this sort of caveman behaviour has a place. ",
"These days genuine football violence is much more common in e.g. Brazil or Eastern Europe than in the UK - see [here] (_URL_0_) for a global overview from 2013. In some parts of the UK, the team rivalry is inextricably linked to cultural and ethnic divisions, most famously in Glasgow where Celtic = Irish/Catholic and Rangers = Scottish/Protestant. In other parts of the UK the rivalries have subsided over time e.g. Edinburgh (Hearts vs Hibs) or Liverpool (Liverpool vs Everton, where the rivalrly was [debateable] (_URL_1_) ). "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/dec/19/football-violence-view-around-world",
"http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/english-soccer/question-of-religion-as-basis-for-support-still-contentious-1.1655070"
]
] |
|
6ow229 | why are "special forces" and "special operation forces" considered different unit types? | I was reading about NATO field symbols, and according to wikipedia, "Special Forces" and "Special Operation Forces" have distinct symbols, but their respective links lead to the same page (Special Forces).
[The Wikipedia Page](_URL_0_)
[A picture of the table itself](_URL_1_)
Is this just a localized language thing? If so, why would it be represented in a universal military code? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ow229/eli5_why_are_special_forces_and_special_operation/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkkos09"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Special forces are people with an elevated level of training and skill. They can be embedded within normal troop squads (for example, a sniper in overwatch of a squad or patrol area).\n\nSpecial Operation Forces are a team of Special Forces who are used with a specific mission (for example, go take this water pumping station behind enemy lines).\n\nedit for clarity: The question was not about US Special operation force types. The question is about NATO map marking symbols."
]
} | [] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Joint_Military_Symbology",
"http://i.imgur.com/pbLxHDm.png"
] | [
[]
] |
|
3u13ke | when you open your mouth really wide to yawn and it feels like your eardrum pops, what is actually happening? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3u13ke/eli5_when_you_open_your_mouth_really_wide_to_yawn/ | {
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"cxazop6",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Your sinuses and ears are connected via a thin tube called the eustachion tube. Sometimes the tube gets kinked like a hose and the free flow of air is blocked. A change in pressure outside your head, like flying in a plane, can make the air stuck in your head seem pressured. Yawning aligns the tube, allowing the extra pressure air in your head to flow out via your ears.",
"Did anyone else yawn when reading the title? you probably yawned now",
"Some of us can \"pop\" our ears on purpose and on demand. It's a tremendously useful ability, especially if you fly a lot.",
"If you have jaw / ear pain, TMJ, see an Osteopath ( like a chiropractor), a chiropractor that performs Graston tissue remodelling or a chiropractor that performs NUCCA, an adjustmennt to the neck. Treatments and 1x adjustments will get you out of pain permanently.\n\n\nAlso, Dentists can perform prolotherapy for TMJ though I haven't had that done."
]
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[],
[],
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||
61mf1y | how do the eggs we get from the grocery store not have baby chicks in them? or if the baby chick is the yolk, how does that transformation happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61mf1y/eli5_how_do_the_eggs_we_get_from_the_grocery/ | {
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"text": [
" > if the baby chick is the yolk\n\nIt's not. The yolk is *nutrients* for the baby chick as it develops inside the egg. Mammals get the nutrients they need from their mother's blood via the placenta, but for birds, they need a way to get those nutrients while inside an egg, and that comes from both the egg yolk and egg white.\n\nThe actual baby chick starts as a tiny clump of cells attached to the yolk.\n\nThe eggs we buy at the store were never fertilized by a rooster, so there's no embryo inside it. Just the yolk and white that would have been used as nutrients for the embryo if it had existed.",
"The eggs we get are unfertilized. The white would be the chicken. The yolk is the nutrient the baby chick would eat. Chickens lay eggs whether they are fertilized or not. They ovulate just like we do but more frequently. ",
"Chickens lay eggs regardless of being exposed to a rooster... so if there isn't a rooster with the chickens (which is the case in supermarket eggs).... then the egg is never fertilized therefore it will never result in a chick. So no worries!",
"If the eggs *are* fertilised then the embryo will be killed by the low temperatures and not develop into a chick. You won't see or taste any difference. The embryo only develops if the egg is kept warm (in nature by the hen sitting on it).",
"In many females species eggs are formed and need to be flushed for fresh eggs. In humans, this happens when a women has her period. In birds, it happens when they lay an egg. The yolk is not a baby bird, the yolk is the \"food\" that the baby bird would utilize if the egg had been fertilized by a male.\n\nThe eggs you get at the grocery store are generally from female chickens, no males to mate with, and they are all unfertilized. "
]
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||
3ga346 | why do updates for computers come straight from microsoft or apple, yet i have to wait months for cell phone updates to come from google/apple and go through my service provider? | I just had to wait 3 fucking weeks for an important security update for Android make it through AT & T, why is this allowed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ga346/eli5why_do_updates_for_computers_come_straight/ | {
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"text": [
"Google is now trying to change that and force updates regardless of the carrier.\n\nThe problem is that many carriers include custom programming on their handsets, which may include custom apps, configurations, themes / user interface elements, etc.\n\nSome of these custom (carrier-specific) features may break upon updating the phone's Operating System so the phone/OS manufacturers often give carriers time (or the right to decide when) to push the update to their customers' handsets to make sure it doesn't break functionality or cause bugs etc. that may hurt the customer experience.",
"Updates from Apple never go through your service provider. Apple controls the software and hardware of the iphones. Service providers are not allowed to make any changes to ios so you get your updates directly and immediately when they are out.\n\nGoogle, on the other hand, allows service providers to add their own programs and applications to android. You need to wait for updates because your service provider also first needs to update any additional programming they have added before they can role out the complete update.",
"Specifically for Android.\n\nAndroid is open source. Which means that in simplified terms, Google will produce a \"base\" version of Android that cell phone makers then can modify and put on their phones. So this provides a first layer of variance. Then carriers will often modify the OS further before actually selling you the phone which creates a second layer of variance.\n\nAt this point if you were to create a blanket update to be applied to version X of android it likely would not be fully compatible with version X of cell phone model Y of carrier Z.\n\nSo essentially when Google identifies a weakness on Android OS, they can't simply create an update and force it onto your phone. They first have to present a version of the update to the cell phone makers and get approval for that update to be applied to a certain model of phones. Then they have to contact your carrier and get an even more specific version of the update specifically for that model and that carrier.\n\nThis layer of variance and of required bureacratic approval is why once a vulnerability has been identified it can take weeks for the update to actually be on your phone."
]
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|
1y9x72 | why does a wireless internet connection provide worse results when videoconferencing (skype, etc.) as opposed to using a wired internet connection | Hi,
I was testing out how the video quality of videoconferencing is affected when you are connected to the video call via wired and wireless connections. Clearly, the wired connection is smoother and has less video stutter, but I don't really understand why. Everyone says a wired connection is more stable and faster, which I can see firsthand, but could someone explain WHY this is so? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y9x72/eli5_why_does_a_wireless_internet_connection/ | {
"a_id": [
"cfim56k"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Wireless Internet is transmitted via radio signal. Radio is easily disrupted, by microwaves, tvs, hell, even Christmas trees. It's a fickle thing. The second part to this is how this information is sent and received. It is transmitted via small \"packets\" of information. When the signal is disrupted, these packets can be lost, and you will end up lower via quality because it's missing some of the data. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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Subsets and Splits