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6sz553 | conjoined twins with only 2 legs between them, where each twin controls one leg, who gets the legs if the twins get separated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sz553/eli5_conjoined_twins_with_only_2_legs_between/ | {
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"I believe that if the twins are that closely combined, separation without killing at least one (more likely both) is not possible. Separation is generally only possible if it's mostly a superficial attachment, like being attached at the shoulder or at the waist.",
"If the attachment is superficial and able to be separated, but for some reason, each leg is connected only to one brain, you pretty much have to give the leg to the brain that controls it. You can't just reattach neural synapses so that one brain can control both. \n\nI have no idea how a surgical team could separate two bodies connected at that level, though.",
"They would separate them in such as way as to have the twin that controls that leg, get that leg. If the right twin doesn't control the left leg, then there's not much they can do with a left leg, so there's no reason to separate them in such a way. Likewise you'd be depriving the left twin of a working, healthy leg by separating the twin from it, so that's not a good idea. \n\nIn any case, such situations are extremely rare. There have been only 4 sets of such twins who have survived to adulthood. If they're that connected, then separating them might be too dangerous. Like in the case of Abby and Brittany Hensel, each controls half of the body. They can't use the other's limbs. Their parents decided when they were young to not separate them, as together they are a healthy, mobile, strong pair of twins. Separated, they'd have health problems and have to be in wheelchairs."
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5a7gyu | why are some chicken mcnuggets shapped like boots, some like fish, and some are round? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a7gyu/eli5_why_are_some_chicken_mcnuggets_shapped_like/ | {
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"**Short**: Because McDonald's Inc thought that those shapes would make them look more \"natural\" than all being identical lumps.\n\n**Long**: Before the get nugget'd, the chicken used in McNuggets first gets ground up, like beef is for hamburgers. They do this so the flavor and texture is consistent...and so they can use cuts of chicken meat that aren't the prettiest, not everything that comes off the bird is a nice slab of breast meat. This meat then goes into molds to make the nugget shape, then gets fried. \n\nThe issue though is that if the molds are *the same*, it makes the nuggets look fake to customers. When you get some nice chicken breasts from a butcher, they're never the exact same size because every bird's a little bit differently shaped. So in customer's minds, inconsistent shapes equal authenticity. So by having a few different possible nugget shapes, it makes it more visually appealing than being a bunch of identical balls."
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34jaks | the nasa em drives | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34jaks/eli5_the_nasa_em_drives/ | {
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"Supposedly they produce a thrust without propelling anything out the end. That's huge, if it's true, because it means that it's thrown a whole lot of theory into the trash and a whole lot of assumptions are now in question again. And the best part: nobody knows why it does what it does.\n\nThere's also the slight possibility that they are creating a \"warp field,\" which means that space is (possibly) actually stretching and/or squeezing inside the device. This has been known to be possible for a long time, but nobody has any clue how to do it. It would revolutionize space travel, pretty much instantly. ",
"Photons—the particles that carry everything from radar to visible light to X-rays and beyond—have no mass, but they still have momentum. This means that light exerts a little bit of pressure on anything it hits. This pressure is pretty negligible, but it still exists.\n\nThe Emdrive is designed to work off of that fact by bouncing photons (microwaves, in this case) back and forth inside of a metal cavity. If this cavity were symmetrical then there would obviously be no net force on the drive—the photons hit both sides equally hard and equally often. The Emdrive tries to get around that by using a somewhat conical cross section, thereby increasing the size of one end to increase the amount of pressure on that side. The goal of this whole process is to get a net force on the drive without anything leaving it. This would allow a spacecraft equipped with solar panels to produce thrust indefinitely in space without expending fuel and would be *huge* for space flight.\n\nThe approach as I described above is nonsense, though, and can easily be dismissed as the ravings of a madman, which is exactly what happened for the first ~10 years after it was claimed to be a viable approach. The problem is that in order to design a tapered chamber like this you wind up with a force on the tapered walls which opposes the net force you get when you only consider the forces on the end plates (this would be a mostly-horizontal-but-slightly-down force that is suspiciously absent in the diagram on [this](_URL_0_) page).\n\nSawyer, the man pushing this drive, was not to be dissuaded, though. He paid a lab to test the drive, but with limited money he only got a weak test. However, surprisingly, it showed that it worked! This is highly suspicious, though—the drive contradicts a lot of very fundamental physics and would require reworking much of our understanding about the universe in order to explain how it works. Thus, a lab in China decided to also take a stab at testing the drive—showing a previous, flawed test is low-hanging fruit. However, this lab also didn't want to devote too much time or money to testing an \"obviously flawed\" design, so they also performed fairly weak tests. Surprisingly, though, it worked again!\n\nThis leads us to the NASA tests performed at Eagleworks at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Two incredible test results were enough to convince the lab to make tests under a little bit better circumstances, but this was still \"disprove the obviously wrong theory\" mode. I believe this was the first time they tried the tests in a vacuum, and surprisingly it worked again! This was about a year ago.\n\nIt's easy to get excited about this result, especially with some of the articles that have been written about it. However, it is still much too soon to come to the conclusion that the device works. The original theory from which this device was designed has been discredited, yet the device still seems to be producing inexplicable forces, so *if* it works then it is something *else* that happens to also work with the same design. Furthermore, *if* it works then we have to throw out conservation of momentum and conservation of energy (that's right, it's also a device that produces free energy). The testing that everyone is excited about was just a few day test and lacked a lot of rigor that would be crucial for proving something this improbable works.\n\n*****\n\nEdit: a lot of people are objecting to the claim that this device would violate conservation of energy and I'm tired of addressing this on an individual basis. This violation is more subtle than the violation of conservation of momentum.\n\nThe device would consume energy at a constant rate. This energy consumption could be objectively measured. Meanwhile, it is producing thrust and therefore accelerating. This means velocity goes up linearly in time. Kinetic energy goes up with the square of velocity (or you can use relativistic equations if you want to work harder for the same result).\n\nThis means that eventually the drove is picking up more energy than it uses, or you could choose a reference frame where this happens immediately upon switching the device on. \n\nThe inventor tries to avoid this by claiming that the engine produces less thrust at high speeds but this just betrays his lack of understanding of relativity: in what reference frame does the drive have to be moving fast for the (objectively measurable) thrust to decrease?",
"While not an ELI5 response, a redditor has meticulously combed through the facts to produce an [amazing, multi-gilded explanation of the EmDrive and its sister, the Cannae drive here](_URL_0_).",
"Someone claims to make a rocket engine that runs on microwaves. \n\nFor this to work it would violate everything we currently know about physics. \n\nNormally this puts this into the 'tin foil cap' category and dismissed by the real scientists. \n\nHowever, a few labs did some testing and got it to work. \n\nEventually the real scientists started taking notice and decided to test it themselves. \n\nThe real scientists did some initial work and surprisingly got it to work as well. Now they realized they needed to do some serious testing. \n\nThey just did one of their first serious tests and the initial data shows the device still worked. \n\n\nThere is a lot that could still be wrong(including making sure the experiment itself isn't flawed), so a lot more tests are needed. At this point speculation or real excitement is *very* premature. However, the fact that real scientists are looking into this should be noteworthy. ",
"In the tests that they've done already, is this thrust something one could feel? Or is it too minute at this point?",
"If I was in a sealed box and I jump against one side - the box will move in that direction. It'd be tiring but I could probably shuffle some distance in this fashion.\n\nIsn't that what's happening here? Or would this not work in a vacuum?",
"Magic contraption appears to produce thrust.\n\nNobody really knows why.\n\nPhysicists will figure out whether it's real or not.\n\nIf it's real, we learn something new, and it's a big deal.\n\nIf it's not real, we learn something new, and it's less of a big deal, but still interesting.\n"
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1dh9tz | does the space-is-like-a-balloon analogy mean the 'middle' of space is essentially empty? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dh9tz/eli5_does_the_spaceislikeaballoon_analogy_mean/ | {
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"No. It's just an analogy, don't take it too literally. The idea of the analogy is so that people can make sense of the idea of space expanding, but it doesn't literally mean that the universe is shaped like a balloon. Focus on the \"expansion\" part, not the \"balloon\" part.",
"I'm not entirely sure what the space-is-like-a-ballon analogy is, but I am guessing it refers to the expansion of space rather than what is in it. Space itself is infinite, our view of the universe however is blocked by something called the [cosmic microwave background](_URL_0_), which in some sense would be like the skin of the balloon in your analogy. This does not mean there is nothing outside this \"balloon\" though. If we were to travel in one direction, we would merely see more of the universe, but the edge of what we could see would always be just as far away. This leads to the idea that the universe is infinite, and if it is infinite there can not be any 'middle'. We also take the mentality that we are not in any special position in space. That is to say that if we were to go anywhere else in space, it would look exactly the same as it does here. The distribution of \"stuff\" over very large scales would be more or less the same wherever we go.",
"Forget about balloons - it's a _terrible_ analogy. Also, reading more on the other replies here, there is a _lot_ of misinformation out there.\n\nLet's simplify it. Imagine a rubber band. I'll mark down, at regular intervals, distances like a ruler:\n\n...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...\n\nNow those numbers represent distance from an arbitrary point 0. For the purpose of calculating distances, I could just as well have written the whole thing as:\n\n...-2...-1...0...1...2...3...4...5...\n\nNote that I only shifted the origin. The distances between each point is still 1 - this is still the same rubber band.\n\nNow imagine we stretch this rubber band so it's twice as long:\n\n......1......2......3......4......5......6......7......8......\n\nThe distance between each point has grown further apart - so those numbers no longer correctly reflect the actual distance. If I update the numbers to reflect the correct distances, I get this:\n\n......2......4......6......8......10......12......14......16......\n\nNow the numbers correctly show the distances. This is expansion. The only difference is that, instead of a rubber band that we pull, it is _space itself expanding_, and instead of one dimension, this is occurring across three dimensions. Space is being created in between the points, to push the points apart. There is nothing _beyond space_: space is not expanding to occupy something else it wasn't occupying previously.\n\nSo if you understand this analogy, you'll see that the the balloon analogy is very misleading. As far as we know, space is not curved, and it isn't encompassing larger and larger volumes of... _whatever_ when it expands. There is also no movement _in space_ - that is, you'll hear the common explanation that things are moving away from some point - that is _wrong_. There is no \"center\" that everything is moving away from. All you need to do is do the same coordinate change as I did above (i.e., moving the origin) to see that no matter where you set the origin, it would appear as though everything is moving away from that origin.\n\nEdit: This analogy also addresses the whole \"singularity vs infinity\" thing. Note that everything in the analogy works if the rubber band was of finite length or infinite length. While I showed the _expansion_ part, you can rewind the whole thing to show contraction. If you rewind it far enough, you'll get to the point where the distance between any two points is zero - regardless of whether there is finite or infinite length to begin with."
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6ubr3o | why do professional athletes get a 'pass' when it comes to their job security after committing a crime? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ubr3o/eli5_why_do_professional_athletes_get_a_pass_when/ | {
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"They keep their jobs because their employers' customers want them to keep their jobs. If fans stopped supporting criminal athletes, then the teams would fire them.\n\nThat said, it's not unique to keep your job after a DV/DUI/drug conviction. Often even in sensitive work, like medicine, education, or law enforcement.",
"Pretty much across the board if you're good enough at your job (ie you make the company money), it'll go a long ways towards cutting you slack.",
"There are a few things to unpack here.\n\nFrom my understanding, when this is the case for a pro athlete, they don't get to \"keep\" their jobs; they get to try out for the team again. Similarly, I can interview for my job again after serving my sentence. However, if my job is something that isn't in the category of \"only a hand full of people in the world could perform to the level needed for this job\", then the employer can afford to be picky and not hire me. \n\nHowever, if I have a skill set that will, as you put it, bring millions of dollars in revenue to the company, and that skill set is rare enough that they're willing to overlook my domestic violence charge, then I very well may get my job back. I've personally worked with people who have had some horrible shit on their criminal records, up to and including homicide and gang affiliation, at some of my jobs, because they had an in-demand skill set.\n\nYou're also leaving out politician as a job that allows this; there isn't a sitting member of Congress, to my knowledge, who doesn't have an outstanding criminal conviction, some of which are of the types you listed.",
"There are plenty of jobs where you can get charged with all kinds of stuff and not have to worry as long as you don't have to miss too many days. Football players are grunts that know how to play a game well. They fall into that category. \n\nThere's also the issue that the owners pay a shitload of money for them and they aren't exactly replaceable at the drop of a hat. If a lead QB gets taken out mid season because he hit his wife it screws a couple hundred people and the tax income of a major city.",
"Finding a suitable replacement for them is difficult. If Janice in accounting gets arrested for Domestic Violence and consequently fired, a new replacement is found and production of the company goes on largely unchanged. If your Quarterback who throws 4,500 yards a year, 35 TD, and 7 Interceptions gets fired and replaced with a guy that throws 3,200 yards a year 20 TD with 14 Interceptions, your companies work productively has fallen drastically. Now you're making less revenue from merchandise, because the team sucks. If Janice from accounting had that affect on her employer she'd keep her job too, and likely without the suspension because she's not a public figure.",
"Lots of people get convicted of crimes and keep their job. It's not as uncommon as you think. "
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3cji36 | why are americans so much stricter about drinking laws than any other country? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cji36/eli5why_are_americans_so_much_stricter_about/ | {
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"Young people in America drive more than young people in other countries. The change from 18 to 21 came in response to a rising number of high-school (14-18) age children dying from drunk driving accidents.\n\nThere are also more people in the U.S. who oppose alcohol consumption on moral grounds. Some states still have laws limiting the time that alcohol can be sold and some counties today are completely \"dry\", meaning that no alcohol is sold at any time.\n\nLastly, it does depend what state you are in. Some legally allow children to drink if they are with their parents, at home or at a restaurant.",
"In general it is because the USA are much bigger of a country with less convenient public transportation (outside of the bigger cities). Because of that teenagers are already allowed to drive on their own at 16, even with a shorter education and much less effort put into the latter. In Germany for example one has to do at least 16 hours of driving theory and about 20 hours of driving experience with your instructor (special trips like night drive, highways/Autobahn, included). Then the teens may drive with one of their parents or another supervisor and finally at 18 drive on their own. By that time they have already experimented with alcohol and most likely know their limits and have realised how dangerous it is to drive under influence. \n\nBecause teenagers are already allowed to drive so early in the USA they must forbid alcohol use before they are reasonably experienced and matured. \n\nIt can all be a consequence of Henry Ford putting down the public transport means to further his own business that alcohol is not allowed until you are 21 now ;) ",
"Because we are, largely, a superficially puritan group.\n\nBecause of this, we withold things completely causing a \"dog off the leash\" reaction to them when exposed.\n\nSure, alcoholics happen in more open societies, but part of our problem is brought about by good intentions."
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1czzhe | what is it about the red dot that makes my cats and dog go insane? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1czzhe/eli5_what_is_it_about_the_red_dot_that_makes_my/ | {
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"it's not the color, it's the movement.",
"Basically, it's because of the movement. And the fact that your pets are predators by nature. You'll often see people say that their cat brought them a dead mouse or something, for example.\n\nMovement gets attention, and something moving on its own is also a good way to determine if it's alive.\n\nThey see this small, rapidly moving thing and think it's alive and worth catching. Just like a mouse, or a bird.\n\nIt satisfies their hunting instincts."
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8kbuio | why are arrest records and mugshots made publicly available before a guilty conviction is determined by the courts? | Wouldn't this paint a picture that the person is guilty before proving his innocence? It's possible that the wrong person was arrested and there is supposedly a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Also, wouldn't it just create a mob mentality and skew public judgment from a jury perspective? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kbuio/eli5_why_are_arrest_records_and_mugshots_made/ | {
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"An arrest is a factual event, anyone facing a trial at a later date would by the very definition have to have been arrested at some point in order for them to be put on trial.",
"This may sound strange, but it's actually done that way to protect people from the government. You may have heard of secret police in other countries throughout history 'disappearing' people in the night, or arresting them and keeping them locked up for years without trial. The US strives to avoid this by making arrest records and courtroom proceedings open to the general public with very, very rare exceptions. This essentially allows the public to audit the government - check why someone was arrested, check that they're not held without trial, check that the trial was fair, etc.\n\nEDIT:\n\nI want to address some of the common replies I've received.\n\n1. It's not a foolproof system. I don't know of any system that has zero flaws. But by having the rules in the first place, it makes it that much more likely that someone along the line won't break them or will report it. It takes a lot of people and money to run secret prisons, to transport people there, to cover up missing persons reports, etc.\n\n2. It's meant to protect you from the government. Most of the abuses of it are coming from private companies or individuals, particularly in the media.\n\n3. While I think it's a good system, there's nothing saying it's the only system or the best system. But just because you find flaws doesn't mean the entire thing is useless. It means that when weighed against the flaws of other systems, we had decided this one had the best trade-offs.\n\n4. As with most systems, there's nothing saying it can't or shouldn't ever be changed. However, we should make sure we understand why it exists in the first place before we look to tearing it down, if only to fully understand the trade-offs that may be made by adopting a different system. ",
"In which countries is it even done this way, except the US?",
"Innocent until proven guilty is just the evidentiary standard applied during the criminal prosecution -- meaning what the mindset of the jury or judge should be with respect to the prosecutions case. The system does not, nor really anyone else, actually treats accused in that respect... ",
"In some cases e.g. sexual assault and rape advocates of non anonymity say it encourages others to come forward which helps build a case. Essentially rape cases are normally one person's word against another often in impaired situations. Adding a few more people with similar accounts can add weight to the allegation. Not sure I agree but the people doing me too does happen.",
"1) Public record. \n2) It helps bring witnesses forward.\n\nIf someone is a known gangster, they may make\npeople afraid to testify, but if they are known to be in jail,\nwitnesses come forward.",
"So I was arrested for a DUI and convicted months later. Why is it I never had a mugshot? I live in the US",
"Just a little nugget to add to this: innocent until proven guilty only applies to the judicial branch. The police are executive.\n",
"The fact that a person was arrested is public record. They're not being posted as guilty of a crime. They're being posted as having been arrested, which is true.",
"Arrest records and mugshots are public information but the police report involving an open case is never released until the case is finished. Mug shots can paint a defendant in a bad light, but innocence until proven guilty is a fundamental aspect of the CJ system. A jury is supposed to judge solely on the evidence provided. Not on past behavior of the defendant. ",
"Mugshots are starting to be kept private until after conviction in a lot of places. My area has arrest records available to the public, but the mugshots, as of 2016, are not to be released to the public for any reason until after a conviction.",
"Another reason is that it alerts other witnesses for either side of the case.\n\nA previous victim can volunteer their story to the prosecutors.\n\nAn unaware alibi can volunteer themselves to the defense. ",
"It prevents anyone in the government from detaining someone without telling other people about it. \n\nThe ability to detain someone without telling the public has an extremely high chance of being used for doing bad things.",
"To add, why are mugshots and arrest records still available online years after the fact? If I Google my name, my mugshot shows up. I was arrested years ago for a non-fingerprintable offense (that's how minor it was) and my mugshot is still online for all future employers and business partners to see :/ .",
"Because where I’m from (Nigeria), the police can arrest you and you will never be heard from again.\n\nThere are people who were just arrested and awaiting an indictment let alone a trial who have been in prison for 20 years.\n\nAnd quite often when the prisons get too full they just take an unlucky bunch outside and shoot them.\n\nAnd the arrest cycle starts all over again.\n\nTrust me, if you’re arrested it’s better everyone in society knows what happened to you than vanishing without a trace off a simple police stop.",
"The entire criminal justice process has to be done in the open, so the people can make sure it is fair. \n\nFor example, in most places sheriffs are elected officials. If they are arresting people who haven't committed any crime, the voters need to know about it so they can vote for someone else.",
"Here in France, that is very illegal because it violates our \"presumption of innocence\" laws. Unless there is a very compelling reason in the public interest to publish names and photos, you can't do that. It's even normal to read court cases against alleged terrorists where the alleged are not named.\n\nMeanwhile, back in the US, I've a good friend (who I will not name) who was accused of a serious crime. He was fairly well-known and his mugshot made the rounds in the industry he worked in and it destroyed his career. The charges against him were dropped and he had fairly damning evidence to show that the charges were due to malicious intent by his accuser. However, it didn't matter. His career was destroyed and today, many years later, he still has trouble finding work because even a quick search on your favorite search engine pulls up those dropped charges.",
"It sounds like everyone else pretty much covered it, but I thought I’d throw in my two cents. (Not a lawyer, but studied the issue to some degree). \n\nUsually those kinds of things aren’t admissible into court (and being allowed to influence the jury) unless they’re somehow relevant to the trial. \n\nAdditionally, some (maybe many?) states have removal statutes that allow for the individual to petition to have the mugshot removed from public record. Unfortunately, there will usually need to be some compelling reason in my experience, usually safety-related. \n\nThere are shady websites that publish the mugshots and ask for payment in exchange for their removal. This is (oftentimes) illegal, depending on your state. "
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3nnepl | how hard is it to violate another country's airspace? | In light of recent events in Syria I was wondering how hard it is for a military pilot to violate another nation's airspace? Is it like slipping when walking a fine line, an accident? Or is it a deliberate action that could not be mistaken for an accident? I have no idea how fighter pilots can not know they are breaking the "rules", so to speak. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nnepl/eli5_how_hard_is_it_to_violate_another_countrys/ | {
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"It's pretty easy. If you don't pay attention to where you're going, any pilot, military or civilian, can accidentally cross a border they didn't mean to. It's like accidentally drifting out of your lane while driving. You didn't mean to cross into another lane, you just didn't pay close attention and accidentally crossed a border."
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2wmomz | why don't games load during the intro screen? | After the intro is over (or skipped) in most games we need to wait until the game loads (both on PC and consoles).
Why can't it use the time the user is watching the intro to load the game in the background? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2wmomz/eli5_why_dont_games_load_during_the_intro_screen/ | {
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"If you want the game to load during a video cutscene, then the video needs to be stored onto temporary memory while the CPU requests loading files from the same hard drive to be processed. This would also need to be stored in temporary memory, so a large amount of RAM would be needed that many consoles don't have. The other solution would be to use a random access drive, such as an SSD. Information can be retrieved at any time wherever it is on the board, so parts of the video file can be prepared while parts of the loading file can also be prepared for the CPU to process together. \n\n*tl;dr Games are able to do this but most likely the consoles or computers hardware need upgrading. "
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ewvsxp | why isn't the aenied as popular (culturally significant) as the odyssey or the illiad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ewvsxp/eli5_why_isnt_the_aenied_as_popular_culturally/ | {
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"The Aeneid wasn't written by Homer, nor was it Greek, and was written later than the Odyssey/Illiad",
"The Aeneid was actually studied near as much as Homer throughout the Renaissance and into the early modern period, though this was partly because an education in Latin was expected of scholars and it's considered one of the absolute classics of Roman lit.\n\nBut as a story, the themes and characters are a little less universal than those of the Iliad, and the adventures a shade less colorful than those of the Odyssey. This is partly due to its purpose - the Aeneid was written in the aftermath of the Roman Empire under Augustus taking over from the Republic, and so it can be read either as a celebration of the new regime or as a subversive critique of it. But in either case, its most important themes were relevant to that specific time - the new Empire and its implications. While Aeneas's piety is an interesting character trait that's been studied for 2,000 years, the wrath of Achilles and the hubris of Odysseus have interested scholars more over those times; they're a little more universal, and they aren't as closely tied in to current events for their meaning.\n\nAnd as an answer to your question in another comment thread, Aeneas was a character in the *Iliad,* probably the bravest of Troy's heroes behind Hector himself. His most important moment came in a fight against Achilles, where Poseidon saves him, as Aeneas, from a lesser side of the royal household, is destined to become the ruler of Trojans after the rest of the royal family are killed in the war. Virgil takes that and follows it, showing how Aeneas led his surviving Trojans to found Rome.",
"One thing to consider is that the Odyssey and Illiad pretty much *are* the cultural legacy from that era and region. Little else survives from that civilization. We have more surviving information from later-but-still-ancient Greece, like the works of Plato and Aristotle and Herodotus and Aristophanes. But there's a part of our cultural legacy that derives from that older period, and those two works are almost the totality of what we know about them.\n\nThe Aeneid was one work from a society that wrote a bunch, and from which many of those writings survive. While Virgil was well-known, and the Aeneid was a great and influential work, we also the writings of contemporary poets like Ovid.\n\nPlus, the legacy of Rome is more than just poetry. There is also philosophy, civics, and military theory from Virgil's time period that remains relevant to this day. Compared to those influence, poetry seems less relevant. And along those lines, we have writers of other genres from the same time period whose works survive, such as Cicero, and even Julius Caesar himself. Virgil has to share his glory with those other writers, several of whom have fame beyond their writing."
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3immcs | why is it taking them so long to come out with the oculus rift consumer version, when they developed it nearly a year ago, and came out with the development kits nearly two years before that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3immcs/eli5_why_is_it_taking_them_so_long_to_come_out/ | {
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"Because they needed to launch with a decent software library, and find a cocktail of specs that they could scale production up to no problem and without issue.",
"My thoughts are because it is supposed to be a game changer(literally) and to release anything sub par could potentially hurt the concept and make it take even longer for people to get interested in it again, I for one would be extremely disappointed if it was clunky and didn't work as good as I'm imagining it will.",
"Because after 2 years, it's still very difficult to even get it to run many of the demos properly. The programming API is still quite immature.",
"It has some pretty hefty hardware requirements. The more time that goes by, the more widespread and affordable a consumer release will be. ",
"It takes a long time to prepare software (drivers and SDK's), A good factory line, a good user experience, and hell, games to play on it. The purpose of the development kits was to get people making games for VR, as the name suggests. Its working (see _URL_0_)\n\nCV1 release date is the first quarter of 2016\nThe HTC Vive (Really the Valve Vive) comes out at the end of this year.",
"In my opinion, I think they are waiting for two things:\n\n1) Developers to create enough VR compatible content so that people don't get bored and give up on the medium too quickly.\n\n2) Hardware to catch up. The rift requires some pretty hefty hardware to run optimally. My good-but-not-great gaming PC could juuuust barely run it when I got my developers kit. I had to upgrade my machine just to run some of the beefier demos. Basically, in order to run the rift well, you're looking at a about $1000 (at least) homemade PC or about $1500 to $2000 for premade, plus the cost of the rift itself. Eventually, as the technology progresses, adequate hardware for the rift will become cheaper and cheaper, therefore making the rift a much more viable product to sell.",
"If it was easy, people would have done it already. Occulus is trying to pull off some cutting edge stuff, and that takes a while.",
"Most AAA games take longer then 2 years to develop. You don't launch a product without products. It would be like launching a iWatch that has no apps yet.",
"They want it to be good when they release it. I would guess there are still a few bugs and problems with it right now. Not anything huge, but if they want to really change the market, it has to be perfect. ",
"Well...\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSeems to have \"Q1 2016\" plastered all over it so expect it to come out Q1 2016?\n\nThats only a few months away.",
"1. Google Glass \n2. OUYA games console \n3. Lytro camera\n\nAll potential game changers ruined irreparably by shitty 1st generation products. \n\nThey need to get it right before they launch it. ",
"I think they're waiting for software.\n\nMy old work was one of the first third-party studios to get a Natal, before it became the Kinect, and even with being on the ground so early, we didn't really have time to do... anything, with it. I think a lot of people were in the same position, which is why there were really no third-party games that used the Kinect well on launch.\n\nDevelopers need Oculus kits like... at minimum, 2-3 years before they can put a really great game on that hardware.",
"It's bleeding edge.\n\nYou wanted it released with absolutely no games or demos to be used on it? You want it released when the major of people who *built* their computers can only handle it at minimal specs? You want another Crises release where no one can run it at it's potential?\n\nTwo years isn't a long time for Devs to produce something meaningful with brand new tech in it's infancy that already requires a system that borders on \"Enthusiast\" level to run just *okay*.\n\nThink about it.",
"Lets change it from \"oculus rift\" to \"3D immersion\" and the from what I can discern, the issue is support and usability.\n\nSony has Mobius and Facebook has the Oculus Rift. Barring the differences the reason they have not come to market is because this is what you would call a disruptive change in product. It will in effect change everything if it is adopted by gamers in mass. It could lead to us not using televisions in the majority of cases for consoles. It is a lot of money on the line so here it goes...\n\n**1) Support**\nWe have seen some developers say they will support Mobius/Oculus, and that is good, but when it hits the shelves and there are 5 games out for they will only convert the early adopters the \"it's new I have to have it\" buyers. There won't be any on-the-fencers buying the OR/Mobius for 5 games. The Kinect and PSEye are perfect examples of failure of support for peripherals, no one supported so no one bought it, no one bought it so no one wanted to support it. [It's a vicious cycle.](_URL_0_)\n\n**2) Usability**\nLittle fact, the Oculus rift made first time participants throw up often. Littler known fact, when video games that showed movement was introduced older people, think 18+, tried playing games like Zelda OoT would make them sick due to motion sickness. Oculus Rift had to combat the problem where it actually made the participants sick / headachy due to motion sickness. From what I understand they have wrapped that up and the current weight is just under a pound or less than 380 grams. It's wearable technology if its not comfortable it's not usable. \"mild irritation while playing\" becomes \"i will not use that thing because it hurts my ears / eyes / neck\" and with long play sessions it won't be an option it has to great.",
"Even if the rig actually comes out, you won't get widespread game adoption. Most games won't support it due to the high cost of integrating something like that in. The best you'll get are ports of existing games which would mean hooking up free look to the goggles. And even then, existing games will break, how do you handle separating the gun from the view? A lot of FPS games actually use the camera position to shoot, so you would have to de-couple that and integrate it somehow. The answer is, get used to waiting.",
"*The last 10% takes as long as the first 90%.* That's a quote I heard about engineering development. And it seems to apply to most every type of dev work.\n\nCombine that with a lack of hurry. There is no need to rush things. They have the money to work on it and do it properly.\n\nI bought a DK2 and although it worked great. it was very clunky to install and work with. It was simply not possible for a lot of people to install and get working properly. Let alone would most people be willing to do the research to get it up and running. It needs to work out of the box with no more than a simple program/driver install. And that's not a simple thing.\n\nThen there is also their control system they have hinted at. I'm out of the loop, but there was talk about developing their own controller as well.\n\nAnd software. DK's were for developers. They had sub par hardware so that software development could start. Just because the DK1 with it's crappy screen and motion sickness inducing screen was out 2 years ago, doesn't mean ti was anywhere near ready for the public. Now newer and better screens are cheap enough to be used.\n\nBy waiting they give time for all these things to come together. \n\nVR already has a stigma attached to it that it's a gimmick. Virtual Boy is an obvious failure, but 3D movies and the 3DS and old 80's red/blue glasses have given VR, not a bad name, but definitely not a good one either. Most the public thinks of VR and 3D as the same thing. So if it doesn't work right off the bat, it's done. It will just get laughed at and dismissed. It will never get any traction for another 10 years, until another company tries again.",
"A few reasons:\n\n-They need compelling and complete games and software. Great hardware means nothing without great software to use with it.\n\n-It is gonna take a pretty beefy PC to run the consumer Rift. The longer they wait the more affordable the parts will be.\n\n-Facebook's acquisition allowed them to make less compromises for the consumer product. So what they originally had intended for a consumer product was probably delayed do to redesign and additional/substitution of parts.",
"As someone who has tried DevKit 1 and 2, there is a very simple answer to this question: Oculus isn't ready yet. \n\nIt is close, but the so-called \"screendoor\" effect from the pixel magnification is still noticeable. I found first person shooters like TF2 fairly easy to play with Oculus, and LOTS of fun. \n\nDigital Combat Simulator (DCS World) is my go-to flight sim, and it also supports Oculus. Here is where the real pre-prod weakness of the Oculus was apparent, IMHO. Basically, due to the screendoor effects, seeing terrain details and landmarks in the flight sim was next to impossible. \n\nTL;DR: Oculus is close, but for consumers, the team is (rightfully IMO) waiting to release so that they can fine tune the configurations for various *types* of games. Anything \"far away\" just disappears, even in Devkit 2.",
"Windows 10 has built in support for VR headsets. Both Nvidia and ATI have built in support for VR. Oculus's SDK works with both these new graphics drivers as well as new Windows drivers/features custom designed for VR. There's also the games themselves which take years to develop.\n\nIt took this long for everything to fall into place. There's the hardware, software, drivers and OS support. Had they released a retail product earlier, it would have been a far inferior product.\n",
"What i'm mostly curious about the Rift is what about people that need glasses? I have moderate to high astigmatism and some hypermetropia and i need them constantly. Is there a way to use the Oculus while wearing glasses at the same time? ",
"It's because they are waiting for the developers to create quality apps and games, and tweaking the gear while they wait. Some great AAA games take up to 5 years to develop, and this is brand new technology. They know this will be a game changer and don't want it to flop due to limited games and crapware. ",
"I've gotten to try on out. The DK2. \n\nIt was a dreaming awesome experience. Something I'll buy when the consumer version is out. But you could easily see the pixels within the unit itself but it was nice also because the unit I didn't find heavy or anything. But the demo of it was unreal. As long as they take their time to release it properly I think it'll be a fucking blast. ",
"Three main reasons, as I understand it:\n\n1. Bugs. Wouldn't want to release something that doesn't work at a very premium feeling level because:\n\n2. Software has to be developed for it, and it isn't cheap to do R & D, especially for a new 'revolutionary' kind of tech\n\n3. Only a small percentage of PC owners actually have the raw capability to run the programs at the required framerate and resolution to make the 'game' or whatever simulations, feel immersive. For reference, the current generation of consoles (XBONE, PS4) don't have the power to drive those programs. In short, there will be a limited consumer base, unless you plan on everyone who buys an oculus to also drop a grand on a PC powerful enough to run it",
"I don't even care about the rift anymore. Especially as its being developed under Facebook. It's all about valve's version now, if that is implemented well with steam then the rift won't be able to compete. ",
"My father is actually in samsung, working on vr goggles. \nThe problem is that videos such as live ones come with such crappy quality that there needs to be better quality for people to enjoy, while computer generated ones are great, but they take alot of time. There is still too much unknowns, with companies not supporting their development teams to actually accomplish something fast. However looking at my dad working on this for like 6 years is really cool, seeing how things transitioned and became much better",
"Just a hunch, but I think they need to do more research on the negative long term effects of using VR. Most people complain about headaches after 1-2 hours of continuous use. Doesn't sound like something I'd want to bring to market until I was 100% sure I wasn't going to get my pants sued off or need to recall 100,000 units.",
"TrackIR and friends have been around since 2001. If you are still using a joystick to look around you might want to check out some of these:\n\n* _URL_4_\n* _URL_3_\n* _URL_1_\n* _URL_2_\n* _URL_0_\n\nedit: formatting",
"There's a really obscure problem that [Wired did a story on](_URL_0_) called the \"vergence-accommodation conflict\". \n\nBasically your eyes will get really tired and start to hurt after using the current VR technology for longer than a couple hours. They might have to start over with the tech to find a solution.\n\nI think that's a big reason they're still delaying the release. ",
"they want to make a perfect product. but they gotta hurry too, because the hype is dying down fast. im nowhere near as interested in the product as I was 10-12 months ago..",
"Honestly I feel like Facebook acquiring them slowed down their progress. They would likely have a Beta consumer version out by now if they weren't swallowed up by the Zuckerberg machine. At this point they run the risk of getting out done by competitors who have quicker turnaround time. If the first legitimate VR headset to market is made by Apple or Samsung, you can bet your ass Oculus Rift will be an also ran in this industry. The only thing they may have a leg up on is the proprietary software for movement control, but even that can be replicated.\n\nEdit: Relevant news today; _URL_0_",
" > I still need to move a joystick around to change my viewpoint in games.\n\n[Someone already made a fix for this](_URL_0_)",
"Software\n\nImagine someone came out with the greatest gun of all time but no one sold bullets for it.",
"My input as a developer and owner of both development kits: they're still perfecting it. There are two choices to viewing your game on the rift, extended mode and direct mode. Extended mode works with most other developers games but it's a huge pain for end users because the rift is treated as a secondary monitor, which causes headaches trying to get the software to display right. The other mode, direct mode is what is needed but not well implemented. It allows the end user to keep the display in a single monitor configuration and display the game directly to the rift. The problem is, the rift sdk (software development kit) doesn't support it very well. They're releasing a new sdk this week that actually gets rid of extended mode and provides a much improved direct mode for developers to implement into their software. So imo it's taking so long to release cv1 (consumer version 1) because they want everybody to be on direct mode for ease of consumer to run their software, making it a uniform experience for the general public. ",
"It's done. They're waiting for market conditions and available game developers to create the perfect storm so they release it when the market clamors for it, instead of a few fanboys look for it",
"Could be a sales manuver. They're timing the release to build up the hype and increase initial sales. If the initial release is a fail it gives the product a bad name. Also they may be waiting for a specific games to release it with.",
"I actually got to look at an earlier version in early 2014. And while it is an insanely cool idea, the display was at that time not yet nearly good enough. You could still easily make out the little black lines between the pixels. My guess is that they are still tweaking the display.\n",
"Because throwing the Oculus out there without enough content will instantly kill it. I had the DK2 for a few months and eventually sold it again because there just wasn't enough stuff to do with it, except for mostly 5 minute experiences that you try out once and then never look at again.\n\nNot saying it isn't awesome though, it absolutely is!",
"Facebook: Having a tech giant with a broader vision of connecting people across the world buy a virtual reality interface company means the design parameters which would yield a quick to market, quick to profit model of development was not chosen in favor of a more deliberate process with a much bigger scope and longer term goals. ",
"Because only high end computers can run the Oculus Rift properly. The Oculus has 2 high resolution screens, one for each eye, and if it runs a game at less than about 70 frames per second it's like to induce nausea. Right now the PS4 and Xbone can't even handle one of those screens at less than half the frames per second it needs and to build a computer than can handle an Oculus would cost you between one and two thousand dollars.",
"I wondered the same. \n\nCan there BE a more \"shut up and take my money\" product?\n\nThen I realise the implications of Nausea-gate. \n\nIf early reviews are all 'makes people feel sick' it could kill the concept.",
"TBH? Waiting for game developers and graphics card manufacturers to catch up.",
"My friend works for a company creating VR content. He says it's going to change everything if it's done right and I truly believe him. Hoping it's not ruined by a crappy launch. I'm willing to wait",
"First, I'm by no means an expert, but I have experience developing for the Rift and Google Cardboard, as well as the general reaction to a wide variety of industries (warehouse management solutions, gamers, academia, etc.) when I show them the technology. Here is my little summary on it:\n\nAs many have mentioned, it is SUPPOSED to be a game changer, but I think the current problem that Oculus realized a bit late (that I have advocated from the beginning) is that the headset alone is NOT a game changer. Yes, it's neat, yes, it brings some cool things into play, but the majority of people in the industries I mentioned above (obviously with a few exceptions) have been generally unexcited, and really just not interested in the technology. The reasons for this (again, as best as I have gathered) is because it comes off as \"just another screen\". Yes, it's a bit more immersive, but it comes with drawbacks: Games have to be slowed down to prevent motion sickness, universities have to pay for higher powered computers to use the headsets (which, while cheaper, are still relatively expensive if you want more than a 2 or 3), and companies can't find a substantial benefit that requires it since what they have now still works (They don't want to fix what isn't broken). A headset alone just isn't going to provide enough gains.\n\nWhat is needed to sell virtual reality is a new type of input. Something that allows for new ways of controlling the headset outside of your standard Xbox controller. This changes quite literally everything, because if you can track where the controllers are in 3D, you can do the same with the headset, allow you to now walk around instead of \"controlling\" around. This can potentially attract casual gamers like the Wii did, and allows companies to do a lot more with it (Virtual home tours where you can physically walk around a room, training for police, etc.). It might not sound like a lot, but think about how much more interactive a game with a motion controller is, rather than a normal game controller. A menial task like cooking can easily become a full game with this, just look at the Vive demos.\n\nAnd I think Oculus is realizing this. That's why Oculus Touch was shown so soon, rather than keeping it as a secret announcement. It's also why Valve waited so long to show theirs I believe. And the reviews for these demos show too.\n\nAgain, these are just more my speculations, so maybe that's not all there is to it.\n\nTLDR; Oculus wants to add better input for the devices to help it sell better, which has caused some delays.",
"Compatibility testing and optimization is a huge part of any development process in the PC market. \n\nBeyond that, the average home user desktop isn't up to snuff to operate these things at a reasonable framerate. They'll have a bigger market for a more polished product with fewer design compromises if they release during a later hardware cycle than current.",
"Imagine you had a recipe for the best cupcake in the world. moist, flavor packed, with very tasty frosting. Only problem is that you didn't have an oven that was hot enough to cook it. so the recipe goes in the back of your cookbook, until you can get a hot enough oven.\n\nThen, one day, you realize that there is an oven hot enough to cook the perfect cupcake. you get very excited, because now you can make the best cupcake ever. however you realize you haven't ever tried to make it before. There was never a point to, you could never get the cupcake hot enough to cook.\n\nso you try a few, you make a couple and give them to a baker. no frosting, and the cake is flat because it's missing a few ingredients. The baker tell you that it's not the best cupcake, but it is very tasty and they can see with some more tries this could be the best cupcake ever!\n\nso you try again, you make it with some better ingredients and add some of the missing ingredients. then you make more and sell them at a local bake sale. they are still missing the frosting, but they are nice and fluffy and people really like them. people all around hear about these awesome cupcakes and everyone gets excited as well. \n\nso you make more, you add much better ingredients. very good flour, fresh eggs, and frosting but you don't add sugar. you sell these at a large bake sale and everyone really likes them. they want you to sell these cupcakes everywhere.\n\nbut you know that these are not the best cupcakes. they are very good, but they can be so much better. so you go back and make the best cupcakes. with sugar in the frosting and sprinkles this time. but you have to make a lot of them, so it takes time so it takes a bit longer.\n\nbut remember the baker who tried the cupcakes in the beginning? he just kept going on and on about how these cupcakes were going to be the best. telling everyone he could possibly tell, making everyone hungry to at least try one. As more people tried the cupcakes at the bake sales they as well tell us how awesome the cupcakes are going to be when everyone gets to try them.\n\nThis is the point we are at now with oculus: we have heard about this awesome thing before it was anywhere close to being a finished product. we wait and wait, constantly hearing about the awesomeness coming but it feels like a very long time. Eventually we will have the oculus, and it will be up to us to determine if the hype is worth it.",
"The hardware is half the equation. Innovative hardware creators need a \"killer app\" to ensure that the hardware is perceive well, as well as working with major graphics card manufacturers to ensure wide ranging availability and long lasting compatibility.",
"I've played with the prototypes and tried out different intrefaces. The display, even when it gets very good, is not much. It is just a very immersive screen, but after the first weeks is not so special. What actually changes the game is the addition of hand held controls. We did a proof-of-concept game using Kinect & Playstation Move handles with the Oculus DK2. That gets expectionally good and that is where the interesting things start to happen.\nDon't even think about getting a VR display without the hand held controls, you'll be missing alot. ",
"I think they are doing most things correctly to create the best product possible. I think where they have messed up is not releasing Oculus touch as a dev kit to DK2 owners and not increasing the FOV significantly. The killer apps for VR are going to use joysticks like Touch and the Vive controllers. Vive is going to have a head start with potential killer apps out of the gate (e.g. The Gallery, Hover Junkers, and shooting gallery games) and Oculus will have to play catch up and wait for devs to develop apps with Touch in 2016.",
"so what do i invest in to make money off it? plz don't tell me it has to be facebook....",
"Because Facebook is trying to find a way to make money off people using it in every day life. ",
"I own a DK1 and DK2. I try to follow the news of the CV1 as much as possible. \n\nIt is my understanding that many rival companies are coming out with their own versions of the Oculus Rift. Therefore, Oculus is spending a lot of time creating a product that will be far better than the competitors. It did not help things when the co-founder was killed in a car crash 2 years ago. They are also trying to add things that are very difficult to create, such as making it wireless and having your hands shown in-game. As of right now a lot of people are saying Valve's VR headset will be better than Oculus, so I think they are keeping things pretty secret and working around the clock to bring us the best VR experience when it is available at local stores. I believe they are planning on a 2016 product release.",
"I don't know if you noticed, but the internet is vicious with things that perform even slightly sub-par. They are tightening up what it can do, basically. The VR/AR craze is not something they want to be a passing fad, and they are at the forefront of this development. ",
"I feel like they're just holding out until it's totally flawless and all encompassing so it doesn't get bad press and people chalk it up as just a novelty ",
"They need to hurry up and finish oculus rift. I want to bang a virtual anime girl already, dammit!",
"Because the Dev kits still have issues and because devs need it for years before consumer release to actually develop stuff. Otherwise you get a device with no developer support.",
"How many of you know that [you can get an Oculus headset for $200](_URL_0_) *right now* if you have a Galaxy S6 or a Note 4? I sure didn't when I got my phone but after reading some reviews to try and figure out what features they added I stumbled on the fact that you could turn your phone into an Oculus headset.\n\nI originally bought it for 3D video and wasn't excited at all about VR but the VR is simply amazing. It is absolutely game changing. There is no question about it.\n\nThe problem is that the technology isn't quite there yet and for as cool as it is, trying to show off VR is kind of like trying to show off dial up internet. You can do a lot of cool stuff, but it takes some imagination to see how those pixelated videos will one day become youtube and Netflix or how those odd looking message boards will one day become Reddit and Facebook.\n\nAdvances are being made but there are a lot of less obvious problems that need to be solved. Not many of us are impressed with 720p displays anymore but it's not easy to get 2 of those just inches away from your face, mounted in a headset you can wear. Imagine trying to catch up to standard desktop resolutions. Additionally, people were getting sick, viewing angle and peripheral vision still isn't where it needs to be, and media of all types will need to be completely changed.\n\nThe most unimpressive things I've seen so far are old 3D movies like Avatar that were made before VR. Games look good, but there's still a lot of refining to do when it comes to camera angles and controls.\n\nTL;DR: It's getting better and better, but there's a lot of catching up that needs to happen before you give up your current TV or monitor.",
"There used to be a popular term, \"killer app.\" Basically, the game or application that you can't live without, and that justifies the purchase all by itself. Like, when a new console launches (PS4 for example), most people check to see which games are available at launch, and many if not most people wait till something like COD or GTA comes out on that platform before they will buy it.\n\nThat doesn't yet exist for the oculus rift.",
"Two reasons really. One: They needed a screen manufaturer to come up with a 5 inch screen in mass volume with 2x 1080p resolution at 75hz so they could offer 1080p per eye or better. (Hello Samsung Note 5) Two: They needed desktop gaming video cards to catch up and be able to drive two screens of 1080p or more at 75hz at medium settings minimum. Both of these requirements will be met around the end of 2015. ALSO Cake day! woot",
"I've been following the progress of the rift for a year now, mainly because they block reddit at my work. However, I can answer your question - to a point.\n\nThey have set themselves goals for different specs that they have to achieve before they will release it. I don't recall any of the specs or even what they were, but I do remember that their goals were pretty lofty considering where they were at the time (DK1) - the DK2 got them much closer, but they're still trying to get that thing up to their own insane standards before they'll release it.\n\nSo, kind of what the other people are saying - they want to release a good product - however, less about software and requirements and all that stuff.\n\nEDIT: sorry, i don't have any links... I know I got there from going to here: _URL_0_ and just reading articles and interviews",
"This is actually pretty normal especially with new hardware. The time it takes to go from functional prototype to production ready is pretty long and can even take over a year in oculus' case. The product needs to be tested and reworked probably a lot of times and they definitely will want a great product coming out when it hits the market. There are probably a lot of ideas that also get scrapped, which go through the same testing cycle but as consumers we never get to experience.",
"It's like having a lemonade stand on a hot summer day without the ice. Execution is what matters. \n\nThe Occulus Rift is the lemonade stand. The sugar is the hardware and the ice is the software. If you only have a cube of ice, then it's not going to be as good as if you had a few in in it. Same with sugar, not enough sugar and no one is going to really enjoy it's sweetness. ",
"Because they don't have many games that you can play it on. all we have are concepts so far. \n\nIt's not like how when Nintendo made the analog stick for the N64. They launched with Super Mario 64 and then later with Ocarina of Time and other games that used the new technology. Oculus doesn't make games. They need a developer to have faith in the Rift and make a game *for* the Oculus Rift. ",
"I know of a developer working on Occulus-Rift who fainted with a seizure after using it continuously for a few hours! \nThe headsets can cause something called a Cybersickness or Simulator Sickness. The brain gets confused handling all the virtual data and simply shuts down or produces some nasty symptoms which luckily are temporary. \nThe CEO of occulus suffered from motion sickness after he used the headset for the first time and resolved to launch the headset to public only after they solved the problem. You can imagine the bad press otherwise. \n\nHere's a link if you are interested\n_URL_0_\n\n\n "
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[],
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_Oculus_Rift_support"
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"https://www.oculus.com/en-us/rift/"
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"http://www.delanengineering.com/",
"http://www.free-track.net/english/",
"http://www.free-track.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1856",
"https://edtracker.org.uk",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrackIR"
],
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"http://www.wired.com/2015/08/obscure-neuroscience-problem-thats-plaguing-vr/"
],
[],
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"http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/28/consumer-rollout-of-htcs-vive-virtual-reality-system-delayed/"
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"https://i.imgur.com/0tEq9rI.jpg"
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||
ax49pe | are sharks as aggressive as some documentaries portray or as peaceful as others show? | I love watching documentaries, especially ones about the ocean and sharks, but I feel like half are saying sharks are cold blooded killers and the other half say they're not simply aggressive, but rather peaceful and just curious. People of Reddit, what's your take on this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ax49pe/eli5_are_sharks_as_aggressive_as_some/ | {
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"I’d say both are sort of true. Sharks are indeed dangerous, and will hunt a human if they are starving, but most do not like the way humans taste. Most shark bites are from when a shark mistakes a human for a sea turtle or sea lion and takes a bite, then realizes they taste yucky and swim away. Unfortunately this “test nibble” can still hurt a human quite a bit. Some are also more aggressive at certain times of the year. \n\nAlso, sharks are not intelligent enough to be malicious in any way. Everything they do is instinctual, so if a shark bites you it’s not because it is murderous and evil. It’s just hungry and you look like food. So you should be careful around sharks because they can hurt you easily, but they’re not evil things that kill everything in sight because they feel like it. ",
"I'm no marine biologist, but I'm pretty sure there are different species of sharks. Presumably each species varies in aggressiveness towards people. \n\nIt would be like saying all felines are timid and won't attack people vs felines are all murder beasts. Bobcats will run from people, but a tiger will hunt anyone with their back turned. ",
"Firstly there are lots of different types of sharks out there. And their level of aggression varies a lot. But even those who can attack humans do not normally hunt humans but rather hunt other animals. It is suspected that most shark attacks on humans are the case of mistaken identity or curiosity. This may be why most shark attacks do not follow through but rather let go of the human after the first bite. It is not necessarily that humans taste bad but they are not used to it."
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3ffbus | why is the concrete on streets, sidewalks, and bridges different colors? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ffbus/eli5_why_is_the_concrete_on_streets_sidewalks_and/ | {
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"There are different mixes and grades of concrete. Some have fibres, more/less aggregate, different bonding agents, waterproofing agents. There isn't just one type of concrete. Some even have extra lime to help reduce weathering and add water resistance."
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6832n5 | my breath constantly smells awfully, yet i brush my teeth well every day. sometimes it smells even just after brushing. why's that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6832n5/eli5_my_breath_constantly_smells_awfully_yet_i/ | {
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"Here's a list of reasons for bad breath: _URL_0_\n\nThe basic answer is that there are reasons for bad breath that have nothing to do with your teeth."
]
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"http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bad-breath/symptoms-causes/dxc-20192379"
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7dtvc7 | is eating food off the ground in any way beneficial to your immune system? | I'm sure we all know the type: someone drops part of their sandwich on the ground, picks it up, eats it, then claims that they are, "strengthening their immune system" by deliberately exposing themselves to whatever was on the floor.
Is there any truth to this? It seems to logically follow that giving your immune system targets to work on will keep it 'up tondate' and active. But do people who do this get sick less than people who don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7dtvc7/eli5_is_eating_food_off_the_ground_in_any_way/ | {
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"your immune system is like the borg. it is very adaptable. once it encounters one enemy, it'll be able to adapt to it and fight it off next time (assuming, that you survived the first encounter). \n\nbeing exposed to germs, bacteria, and viruses invoke your immune system. once your immune system is familiar with a certain pathogen, it can fight it. but your immune system needs to survive the exposure. there is a \"general strength\" of your immune system, the more pathogens it's familiar with, the stronger it's overall response (ie a higher white blood cell count, which is basically your soldiers)\n\nso someone who has lived in a very dirty environment will likely be much more able to fight off a new pathogen vs someone who's immune system has never been invoked (ie living in a clean room.).\n\none way to artifically strengthen your immune system is by vaccines, which are basically the pathogen but in a much weakened state so the average immune system will have no problem fighting it. ",
"I do believe this to be true. I live in a third world country and most children grow up in dirty environments. For example children of construction labour are left alone in a sand pit while their parents work and most of them roll around in the mud eat food swarming with flies and they have no pants on but those kids are completely fine and healthy as compared to these children that are brought up in rich backgrounds where even touching a dirty rag could trigger a dust allergy . "
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2f6bll | how are breathalysers accurate? if i took a shot and immediately blew into it, wouldn't it read my bac somewhere around ~15%? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f6bll/eli5how_are_breathalysers_accurate_if_i_took_a/ | {
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"The people administering the breathalyzer are instructed not to let the subject be swigging alcohol during the test itself.",
"Yes it would. But then by the time you get to the station and take the second one it would be reading your accurate BAC. ",
"Police model hand breathalyzers force you to blow most of the air in your lungs which greatly reduces the impact of mouth alcohol. After you are arrested, you will provide another breath sample on a machine at the station or jail. You may instead provide a blood sample if you want more accuracy.",
"also sidebar, if you took a shot 15 minutes ago consider waiting a bit before getting in the car. \"i just had a drink 15 minutes ago\" isnt the best defense to be accused of driving over the limit.",
"The breathalyzer isn't measuring the alcohol content of your mouth. It's measuring the alcohol that's gassed out of your blood in the blood/air interface of your lungs. "
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5b2a5o | what is the dark (or deep) net? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b2a5o/eli5what_is_the_dark_or_deep_net/ | {
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"The 'deep web' is a name for all the sites on the Internet that are not available through Google or other usual search engines. They block those sites usually because of the illegal activity that occurs on them.\n\n\nThe 'dark web' is an encrypted network of Tor servers, which is why it is accessed using a Tor client.\n\n\nWhether anything there is good or not is up to the observer. For me there isn't anything there worth looking at or buying. For some others, there are.",
"The normal web is like going somewhere because you have a road to get there (sites linking to eachother, therefore can be found by google). \n\nThe deep web is like going in a forest off the roads based on gps coordinates someone gave you.\n\nThe dark web is like going inside a fenced wooden area because you got the key to get inside ( you can get the key easily but the road builders can't).Once in, you do rely on directions from others to get somewhere. ( dark web access needs tor browser etc. )",
"I once had a free educational web site that contained 160 satellite maps of famous explorer expeditions, climate classifications, biomes, disease outbreaks like Ebola, ancient ruins, sunken ships and hydrothermal vents, etc. I took it down when I found an algorithm that was blocking it and when I tried to go around it the site crashed. The maps still exist online thanks to Jim Lee who placed them on his [ClimateViewer 3D](_URL_0_) site in the \"Other Maps\" folder. If you try to do a search for say *The Travels of Marco Polo* satellite map you will no longer find it when at one time you would have easily have found it on my old site which was very popular. Yet you can do a search for ClimateViewer 3D but not the explorer map [found here](_URL_0_index.html?layersOn=mrm-91) to show it still exists even though search will not find it.\n\nSo I guess these maps of historic and scientific events are a part of the dark web hidden inside the searchable Internet.\n\n"
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ncck3 | why wouldn't indefinite military detentions of us citizens under the ndaa simply be struck down by the supreme court as unconstitutional? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ncck3/eli5_why_wouldnt_indefinite_military_detentions/ | {
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"I think part of the concern of those opposing this law is that it is hard to predict how the supreme court will act. They have a historical precedent where they will not give statements about potential future legislation/cases, and so the only way to know for sure how they will rule is to bring an actual case to them, which requires an actual law to be put into place.\n\nPeople who oppose this are concerned that the supreme court might rule it constitutional, and while everyday bad legislation might be undone by a future congress, supreme court precedent sticks around a lot longer and with a lot more force. It would likely allow states or local governments to try to push similar laws, or encourage the federal government to expand it even more under the assurance that it probably won't be overturned.\n\nThere haven't been a huge number of issues where the supreme court has overruled a precedent (Brown v. Board of Education is one example though).\n\ntl;dr: It's too risky to wait and see how the supreme court rules on it.",
"The Supreme Court could rule like this:\n\nCongress and the President have extra powers in times of war to protect national security, we are currently at war with terrorism, American citizens can join and fight with these 'terrorist', therefore the President and Congress can take extra measures to prevent them from fighting in said war\n\nDo I agree with this? No. But this is the basic logic used by the Bush admin to justify their shit, and the court could just parrot it. ",
"I was wondering this myself. I don't get it, parts of the law are in direct contradiction to the constitution/writ of habeas corpus. I also don't understand how elected officials could bring such a bill to vote, let alone pass it overwhelmingly.\nVote third party! Or at least vote out those who won't stand up against this act.",
"1. It could take a decade of abuses before this is fully heard by SCOTUS...law enforcement often will rather drop charges than risk overturning a law they like\n2. You never really know what the court will decide until they decide it...better to not pass a bad law than hope judges will do their jobs...*Gore v. Bush* pretty clearly showed how politicized SCOTUS still is.",
"It might be. There's a good argument that it is per se not 'reasonable search or seizure'.\n\nThe argument on the other side, though, is going to be that protecting the country from enemy combatants is part of the inherent power of the president. So why does Congress bother doing anything, if that's the argument? Because of this quote:\n\n > \"(1) When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate. In these circumstances, and in these only, may he be said (for what it may be worth) to personify the federal sovereignty. If his act is held unconstitutional under these circumstances, it usually means that the Federal Government, as an undivided whole, lacks power. A seizure executed by the President pursuant to an Act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it.\n\n > (2) When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may sometimes, at least, as a practical matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables, rather than on abstract theories of law.\n\n > (3) When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.\"\n\nThat's a quote from a Supreme Court case in the 1950s which is generally considered to be the basic precedent for this area of law. The way that it applies here is that, if Congress passes NDAA, the indefinite detention of citizens moves from zone 2 to zone 1 ... meaning that, really, to strike it down, the Supreme Court has to say that the state simply doesn't have the power to do it at all.\n\nBut a statement that the state doesn't have the power to detain citizen combatants indefinitely during wartime is a very broad, bold statement that the court might very well shy away from.",
"I think part of the concern of those opposing this law is that it is hard to predict how the supreme court will act. They have a historical precedent where they will not give statements about potential future legislation/cases, and so the only way to know for sure how they will rule is to bring an actual case to them, which requires an actual law to be put into place.\n\nPeople who oppose this are concerned that the supreme court might rule it constitutional, and while everyday bad legislation might be undone by a future congress, supreme court precedent sticks around a lot longer and with a lot more force. It would likely allow states or local governments to try to push similar laws, or encourage the federal government to expand it even more under the assurance that it probably won't be overturned.\n\nThere haven't been a huge number of issues where the supreme court has overruled a precedent (Brown v. Board of Education is one example though).\n\ntl;dr: It's too risky to wait and see how the supreme court rules on it.",
"The Supreme Court could rule like this:\n\nCongress and the President have extra powers in times of war to protect national security, we are currently at war with terrorism, American citizens can join and fight with these 'terrorist', therefore the President and Congress can take extra measures to prevent them from fighting in said war\n\nDo I agree with this? No. But this is the basic logic used by the Bush admin to justify their shit, and the court could just parrot it. ",
"I was wondering this myself. I don't get it, parts of the law are in direct contradiction to the constitution/writ of habeas corpus. I also don't understand how elected officials could bring such a bill to vote, let alone pass it overwhelmingly.\nVote third party! Or at least vote out those who won't stand up against this act.",
"1. It could take a decade of abuses before this is fully heard by SCOTUS...law enforcement often will rather drop charges than risk overturning a law they like\n2. You never really know what the court will decide until they decide it...better to not pass a bad law than hope judges will do their jobs...*Gore v. Bush* pretty clearly showed how politicized SCOTUS still is.",
"It might be. There's a good argument that it is per se not 'reasonable search or seizure'.\n\nThe argument on the other side, though, is going to be that protecting the country from enemy combatants is part of the inherent power of the president. So why does Congress bother doing anything, if that's the argument? Because of this quote:\n\n > \"(1) When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate. In these circumstances, and in these only, may he be said (for what it may be worth) to personify the federal sovereignty. If his act is held unconstitutional under these circumstances, it usually means that the Federal Government, as an undivided whole, lacks power. A seizure executed by the President pursuant to an Act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it.\n\n > (2) When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may sometimes, at least, as a practical matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables, rather than on abstract theories of law.\n\n > (3) When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.\"\n\nThat's a quote from a Supreme Court case in the 1950s which is generally considered to be the basic precedent for this area of law. The way that it applies here is that, if Congress passes NDAA, the indefinite detention of citizens moves from zone 2 to zone 1 ... meaning that, really, to strike it down, the Supreme Court has to say that the state simply doesn't have the power to do it at all.\n\nBut a statement that the state doesn't have the power to detain citizen combatants indefinitely during wartime is a very broad, bold statement that the court might very well shy away from."
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9hy5sg | how does "supply lead" economics work? | From what I've been told, business get tax cuts that allow them to reinvest more money into R & D allowing them to make better and cheaper products correct?
Better and cheaper products would then lead to price reduction and increased availability to the masses as well as a desired improvement upon existing products. Correct?
Increased supply makes a more affordable demand and there for breeds competition allowing for more variations and increased research on a product to make even more advanced versions. Correct?
Lowered prices due to R & D and increased demand due to easier supply which leads to more money spent by more people allowing more money to be put back into the economy. Correct?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9hy5sg/eli5_how_does_supply_lead_economics_work/ | {
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"Lower taxes to businesses and the wealthy. They invest in business, open new factories, hire new low income workers to drive the economy. \n\nThere are a couple inherent issues with this. 1: not all of the money from tax breaks gets put back into the economy and makes it to the people at the bottom. The wealthy buy fancy toys and businesses buy back stock options as a couple examples (not many low income people own stocks). 2: a fundamental principle of supply side economics is that the wealthy know how to properly invest. This may be true but it insinuates that the wealthy know how to handle money better than the poor. \n\nIf the goal is to get the money into the hands of consumers why give it to businesses and the wealthy?\n\nI think the term horse and sparrow is more appropriate than supply side or trickle down.",
"Let's start from the beginning:\n\n\"From what I've been told, business get tax cuts that allow them to reinvest more money into R & D allowing them to make better and cheaper products correct?\"\n\nCorrect. I want to draw attention to a very, *very* specific phrase you used. Giving a tax break to businesses *ALLOWS* them to reinvest money into R & D.\n\nDo they do it, though?? There's a lot of empirical evidence on this: the fact is they don't. They actually put that money into stock buybacks which does nothing for the economy. All it does is line the pockets of people already too wealthy to spend more money than any single individual could. Saving and investing money helped make someone rich but it didn't help the economy at all. None of those dollars hit the country's GDP.\n\nSo let's explore demand side economics instead where we give the cut to people who we *KNOW* will spend it. That generates tax revenue, it's immediately included in GDP, it immediately grows the economy. It's the most efficient way to grow the economy.\n\nDoes this mean supply side economics is always bad? No. It is the most effective measure for countering inflation, but there's currently no demand for products. There's no bottlenecks being created stimulating economic inflation that requires supply side economics to widen those bottlenecks. Kick demand into action.. combat the inflationary side effects with supply side economics."
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1vurup | why are there more benefits to having an active life style versus a sedentary one? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vurup/why_are_there_more_benefits_to_having_an_active/ | {
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"We're built to be active creatures. In nature if you sit down and do nothing all day every day, you end up with a severe case of dead very quickly. ",
"Increased muscle mass/function which leads to less energy required to perform daily tasks.\n\nIncreased vascular health which leads to the heart not having to work as hard, hence increasing its lifespan.\n\nAn increase in various hormones that cause the brain to.function more efficiently.\n\nA decrease in the risk of developing diabetes, heart problems, and numerous cancers.\n\nDecreased detriments from aging process\n\nThese are only a few...",
"From an evolutionary perspective we are nomadic hunter/gatherers. Sitting in a Chair for 8 hours a day is not normal. Looking at a computer screen is not normal. getting 3 meals a day is not normal. never being desperetely hungry for food is not normal\n\nWe are animals that were designed to be active for a huge portion of our day. Alot of the common health problems we have are due to our innactivity. The fact that we are never hungry and always able to eat to our hearts content has left us with diabetes. The fact that we almost never lift anything heavy, run at high intensity, climb, jump, or crouch leads to all sorts of problems. bad joints, arthritis, low back injuries, knee injuries.\n\nwhen the average person slips on ice and blows his knee out, the injury would likely be avoided if he had properly developed quadriceps and hamstrings. Because co-contraction of these muscles are the primary method of knee stabilization in a \"strong\" individiual\n\nthe majority of people that have \"bad backs\" have them because they were extremely under-developed and tried to lift/move something very heavy. They injure their back because they arnt used to doing it. If they were simply active all the time and had a stronger back, these injuries wouldn't happen. \n",
"It's important to mention that having pain does not mean that you are unhealthy, especially if you work out. Living a sedentary life gives the illusion of health because you are constantly comfortable. But the reality is that you're going to have a weaker heart and overall body later in life if you never build up that muscle. "
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2q04qk | why are some subreddits private? and how do you gain access to these subs? | Just really curious
R.I.P inbox, It was nice knowing you
edit: this thread is my highest rated post + has my highest rated comment, nice one reddit! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q04qk/eli5_why_are_some_subreddits_private_and_how_do/ | {
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"Subreddits are not official reddit creations. Instead, reddditors like you or me create subreddits, and then decide what they want to do with them. So, for example, you could create a subreddit that is used solely as a sort of message board for your group of friends, make it private, and only allow your friends to post there.\n\nIf I were to do that, then there's no way that you would ever gain access to it, because you're just some random person on the Internet, and not one of my real-life friends.",
"How do you unsubscribe from them when they go private? I have 2 of them that are on my list of subs I can't get off.",
"Certain private subs have set rules that govern admittance. For example you can get into /r/CenturyClub once you have either 100k link karma or 100k comment karma. ",
"I mod /r/nightaudit and /r/hotelemployees. They're private to ensure that only people who work in the industry can read and post. \n\nGetting in is as simple as messaging the mods with your proof and we add you to the list of approved submitters as soon as we can.\n\n**Edit: I think I've got back to everyone that requested access... If I haven't, it got drowned in my inbox. If all future requests can go to the mod mail at [hotelemployees](_URL_0_) and/or [nightaudit](_URL_1_) that will ensure that your message doesn't get overlooked and that you get added.**",
"So I have a question - is there any kind of policing by the Reddit employees, or volunteers or something to get rid of illegal or immoral private subreddits? Sorry, just imagining some seedy private subreddit that could be operated - kiddie porn or something, out in the open, but also completely hidden from view. ",
"Its simple. A friend of mine and I made a sub /r/legoblackmarket reason being cause he and I are both tired of doing one for one trades with lego. Its pointless once you get quadruple digit set count. \n\nSo we invited the people that we knew had about the same high amount that would like to trade. We also find craigslist ads in our respective areas (flair says where we are)\n\nIt helps us to further our collection much faster. Before we were limited by distance but now we are not. Reason its private is cause we have a few people we dont want knowing our secrets to finding cheap lego in retail as well as it keeps the bots out.\n\n",
"The Harry Potter subreddit has individual house subreddits. Those are private because they're like the house's common room. To get in, you have to be declared a member of that house and message a mod. ",
"Is there a list of private subreddits?",
"/r/gildedgonewild is where it's at. words requirements words requirements words requirements words requirements words requirements words requirements words requirements",
"For example, I'm a moderator (and owner?) of /r/DownVotedRebelsGuild\nIt's a private subreddit, however, I'm always actively seeking new members. The hard part is finding the lucky few.",
"Why /r/fineart ? Seems like a place I would enjoy :(",
"It could be anything from a bot invite, being noticed from a larger sub to join for a specific topic, or just friends chatting back and forth. Private subs are created for many reasons. Getting invited to one usually depends on the reason the private sub exists.\n\n Hypothetical example: TheChickening public sub has subscribers that war constantly over whether the chicken or the egg came first. There is a private sub where only supporters of the Chicken First movement are invited. If you post routinely and passionately about how committed you are to the Chicken First movement, your chances of being invited to the private sub will be higher. ",
"I'm currently passively watching a mod of a private sub that I want. He is just sitting on it and not doing anything with it. Its been over 10 months and he is still the only member.",
"Some people just set up subs and make them private. For example, I was invited by a bot a few weeks ago to a private sub. In this sub, we have to comment or post every week to stay in. ",
"Could someone tell me what's hiding in /r/vikings",
"Sorta related: I got selected by a bot to be part of a 'secret club'. I don't know what the criteria was, but it seemed random at best. It was a nice little community without the circlejerk that seem to plague other subreddits. I was kicked out though, because I couldn't stick to their rules 😦",
"Theres /r/EternityClub where you get invited into if you make a front page post",
"How is karma received? ",
"Create a subreddit with your username as the title. When you first create it you'll be welcome to a panel of options to customize your subreddit. Like the sidebar or the title that appears on the tab thing.\n\nOne option allows you to choose whether to make your subreddit available to be viewed by anyone or only to approved submitters. \n\nI currently have a vanity sub /r/alien122 which is private. I mainly use it to test stuff before actually trying it out elsewhere.",
"In a nutshell: The guys that are into sucking wet farts out of dead chickens just want to be among themselves.",
"So what's the deal with /r/adorablyextreme ? It used to be fine now it's private",
"Another reason I didn't find mentioned here is the inability to delete a subreddit you've created. You just make it private and get on with your life with it forever teasing you...",
"I'm a member of /r/discerning. In terms of Catholicism and Religion it's for those of us who are praying and contemplating a religious lifestyle. It's most often associated with Catholicism. Could you just imagine what would happen if we made it public? lol",
"Some are used to coordinate things for other subs - I know one sub that has a bunch of smaller subs to support it. \n\nThe private one is so only the people needed to organize that specific thing are the ones organizing.",
"no joke about touch_myprivates? :( reddit, i am disappoint.",
"this comment has disappeared",
" For subreddits like /r/expensivemalefashion. You have to fill out a form [here!](_URL_0_) and have to be approved.",
"Some are really freaky social experiments that kinda turn cult if you stay long enough. Sometimes the mods watch everything you do on the rest of reddit. But, uh, I wouldn't know. ",
" > R.I.P inbox, It was nice knowing you\n\nIt is useless anyway.",
"Just looked at my /r/mypornshit, it's fully private but says 3 users here, what the fuck is going on there?",
"Some private subreddits are backroom places for the mods to talk. At /r/subredditoftheday we have a sub for posting our write ups so we can work on them before posting them publicly. There's also a sub for us to discuss issues, claim dates and arrange theme weeks!\n\nThen there are places like /r/lurlur which is my private subreddit for keeping notes and links.\n\nJust another example of private subreddits.",
"Us mods over on /r/tifu have a private sub for general mod related talk and another for testing out CSS for the main sub. Not sure who came up with the idea but it works well.",
"To join /r/gildedgonewild/ all you need is reddit gold. :)\n",
"so i could theoretically create /r/public and make it private",
"/r/ubuntuphone went private. I had been using an app to browse it without subscribing. The page says message a mod for approval. It doesn't list mods. I want my ubuntuphone updates again and I don't know what to do. Any ideas?",
"/r/rich - Private so they can discuss keeping the poor in poverty and lobbying tips and tricks/speedruns.",
"i wonder if /r/centuryclub has a feud between those new karma types vs old karma types. West red vs. east red"
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6948ml | how can we "focus" on a specific sound (i.e voice) just by looking at the object (i.e person)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6948ml/eli5_how_can_we_focus_on_a_specific_sound_ie/ | {
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"Good question. I'm a current university student and my professor that I am actually beginning research with is studying auditory neuroscience and this was one of his areas. This is called the cocktail party effect because even when we are surrounded by a lot of people talking and making noise, we are able to select the noise/speech that we want to listen to. You could focus on the person you are talking to or you could even focus on someone else talking nearby and not listen to the person you are talking to. The latter is more difficult however because watching someone's mouth move with their speech helps us further with understanding and processing that single stream of speech in a loud environment.\n\nWhen our brain processes the sound of speech, it goes through stages. It is not entirely known how this focusing works, but we have been able to see that at some stage, the brain processes what we are focusing our attention on and purposefully cuts out the rest to a significant degree. At first, though, all the sound is processed together until the parts you don't want are filtered out at a later stage of brain processing.",
"So... think of it like this. Your not actually \"hearing\" better. As in, the same information is going into your ears regardless of where you're looking. But when you look at the source of the sound, it's provides your brain with more information to figure out what it is you're hearing. By seeing the way someone's lips move, for example, it sends your brain clues about what those sounds you just heard were. Which makes it easier to identify those sounds as meaningful words, and easier to focus on the sounds themselves. This is why you're probably more aware of my response that your reading right now than you are of your clock's ticking sound. If you happen to be by a clock, did you just notice it ticking when I said that? ",
"You don't, actually. The sound being received by your ears doesn't change at all.\nThat impression is given to you via psychoacoustics.\n\nThe visual information is coherent with the auditory one, and reinforces it.\nThis can do many things, for example some odd illusions:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThe fact you can see someone's facial features and mouth shapes can also reinforce predictive behaviour in the brain when the sound is otherwise indistinct:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nAs a music producer, this can also have other unintended effects in music; a very slick music video can make you think the sound quality is actually much greater than it is.\nClosing your eyes for a few seconds can help counteract most of these illusions.",
"People on the autism spectrum do not have this ability, or it's extremely limited. Imagine having to converse with people while bombarded with full volume sound from all directions. I've gotten good at guessing words, and using neutral responses in these situations. Its very exhausting and can lead to some awkward moments if the words guessed were wrong. \n\nSo if someone seems spaced out in these loud social situations they are likely trying to cope with the overstimmulation. And they likely can't hear what you're saying."
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93clx7 | why can't we just use mac addreses instead of the ip addreses? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93clx7/eli5_why_cant_we_just_use_mac_addreses_instead_of/ | {
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"A MAC address is unique identifier, but it doesn't tell you anything about *where* a device is. IP addresses are structured, routers can infer from the address which way it needs to send the message to get it towards its destination, without needing a giant database of individual addresses.\n\nThink of it like something sent in the mail. The name identifies who the recipient is, but it doesn't help the sorting office get the mail to where it needs to go. They don't know that person, but they do know where their city is, so they send it there. And when it gets to that city, their sorting office knows where the street is.",
"There is no actual (enforceable)standard to ensure that MAC IDs in all devices are in fact, unique.\n\nMAC IDs are also spoofable, etc...\n\nSo it's not automatically good for use on a network, it may or may not actually be unique, and it doesn't provide any actual proof of ID.\n\nThe most important thing about an IP Address is only that nobody else on any other network you can access directly is using it right now. That's how we've gotten so far with IPV4.\n\nSo, a MAC ID is a lot like a SSN or state ID, it purports to identify you uniquely but it's easily forged, spoofed, or otherwise misused. You can declare yourself to be anybody.\n\nAn IP Address is more like, well an address. It's assigned to your location and so doesn't actually claim to identify you, just the path to where you currently are. Just as a street address doesn't necessarily indicate who is living there.\n\nIt's not 100% as cut and dried as the anology but, that's the reason that one is called an ID and the other an address."
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5cpxqv | why does smoking cigarettes make my hangover seem a thousand times worse? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cpxqv/eli5_why_does_smoking_cigarettes_make_my_hangover/ | {
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"You need water and salt to replace what you lost metabolizing alcohol, instead you put nicotine in your system, further dehydrating you and causing your metabolism to kick in to high gear again. Eat some bacon, drink a gallon of water.",
"EDIT2: I see I may have misunderstood the question. Perhaps OP was asking why smoking while hungover makes the hangover worse. Perhaps they were asking why smoking while drinking makes the hangover worse. I answered the second question. The answer to both is the same: unknown.\n\nDoctor here. This is the type of question that invites a lot of speculation based on various popular myths about what causes a hangover. Since the process underlying a hangover itself is not well known, an explanation on why it would be exacerbated by nicotine is going to be even more speculative. \n\n However I want to offer something more than just \"nobody knows\". One likely explanation could be explained by the phenomenon of the date rape drugs. In the emergency department it is not uncommon for young women and sometimes men to come in complaining that their drink was spiked. What we find after a toxicology screen is typically no evidence of any of the date rape drugs but rather a very large amount of alcohol. What happens is that people lose count of the number of drinks but they've had and when they are more intoxicated than they expect, they blame a date rape drug that never existed. \n\n I expect a similar phenomenon is happening here. Simply put, the nights that involve both cigarettes and alcohol are probably nights with a greater amount of drinking or staying up later or partying harder in general. Could nicotine and alcohol have some synergistic effect leading to a greater hangover? Sure it's entirely possible. However this phenomenon is likely not well studied, well understood, and most importantly is likely far overshadowed by the social factors associated with combining the two as discussed above. \n\nEDIT: there are only two papers on all of PubMed that result from search terms \"nicotine alcohol hangover\". One is totally irrelevant. The other is almost totally irrelevant. Here is a link to that second one: _URL_0_ . Terms \"alcohol cigarettes hangover \" produced one paper on marijuana, \"ethanol cigarettes hangover\" got no hits. \n\nPoint being, no real data.",
"Well do you mean smoking once you're hungover or smoking the night before the hangover?",
"So apparently personal anecdotes are not allowed here, but as this isn't a well studied topic I'm gonna rephrase it and post again.\n\nWhen I'm really drunk a cigarette will often push me over the limit and make me throw up/feel very sick, even with no more alcohol consumed. Probably for a similar reason, I guess it makes you feel the effects of the alcohol more having one the next morning making you feel worse.",
"Point of clarification - do you mean smoking whilst drinking makes your hangover worse or do you mean smoking whilst hangin' makes your hangover worst? "
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33161v | why does gas in the united states contain 10% ethanol? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33161v/eli5_why_does_gas_in_the_united_states_contain_10/ | {
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"It was supported by environmentalists under the belief that it could replace oil and be amazing for the environment. Farmers loved it because it created a huge demand for their corn products, and came with a bunch of subsidy money too.\n\nPerformance guys like it because you can put out more power in an engine with high ethanol content when the engine has been tuned for it.\n\nRealistically, it has caused nightmares for older vehicles and most small engine devices like lawnmower because it damages components not designed to have it in the fuel.",
"In a roundabout way because Iowa is an important presidential primary state so all presidential candidates have to support corn ethanol subsidies. Iowa is pretty much one big corn field. That's why we're stuck with it anyway.\n",
"People cannot eat enough corn product and large farmers were threatened with losing taxpayer subsidies, so they lobbied for regulation to make their corn a component of the greatest consumed product. ",
"Because legislation is rarely based on good science. The idea was to improve fuel economy, decrease emissions. The reality is it increased the cost to the consumer, increased CO2 (you still have to farm it) and decreased performance. "
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5gjg06 | since all crop-lands are being overfarmed, and nutrients are being drained, what will happen when all these nutrients are completely drained? or will that point ever come? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gjg06/eli5since_all_croplands_are_being_overfarmed_and/ | {
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"Farmers use a method called \"crop rotation\" to ensure nutrients are replenished in soil.\n\nSome plants provide more nutrients than they take, and some take more than they provide. By rotating these types of crops every year - and supplementing the soil with fertilizer when absolutely required - farmers can ensure the soil maintains the composition needed without leaving the land completely depleted.",
"Happens all the time. In the past native people all over the world used to use slash and burn techniques to prepare an area for farming. The burning would clear the land of any competing plants, the ash would fertilizer the land. After a few years, the productivity of the land would decline and they'd find a new area.\n\nOther primitive cultures would bury things like fish or muscles under the seeds. Or use human waste, often called night soil. Crop rotation or allowing fields to remain fallow or act as pasture for a season or two.\n\nToday farmers do similar things, spread manure on fields, apply synthetic fertilizers. Rotate crops, let crop residue remain in the field to return some nutrients back. Occasionally deep rake the soil to bring deeper soil which still has nutrients closer to the surface.",
"They will not be completely drained because we add them back into the land. By rotating crops, adding fertilizer, and adding ash from burning crops after harvest we bring the land back to a rich state that can nourish crops. "
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4bwrvl | the connection/growth from al-qaeda into isil | As someone who only partially pays attention to foreign affairs, can someone please explain the grow or connection from Al-Qaeda into ISIL. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bwrvl/eli5_the_connectiongrowth_from_alqaeda_into_isil/ | {
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"ISIL was a separate group from Al Qaeda (the group responsible for 9/11) we used to refer to as \"Al Qaeda In Iraq.\" This was a group that Saddam Hussein kept in check. After the US deposing Hussein, they spread out to be ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), which we soon renamed Syria to \"Levant\" to cover the whole region around Syria.",
"One misconception is that they work together, when in fact they dont. Neither group likes the other. ISIS thinks Al Qaeda is too lax in its beliefs, and AL Qaeda thinks ISIS is too radical and a bunch of misfits out to prove they are the only way. \n\nFrom our western views ISIS is a far greater threat than AL Qaeda for several reasons; 1 ISIS can recruit far better that AL Qaeda ever could. 2 ISIS is still young to the world as a group and still feels like they have to make their name. 3 ISIS supporters and members arent afraid to act alone and without direction from leadership.",
"The group we know as ISIS now has its origins in the 90s in Jordan with the radicalization of a guy named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He became a rising star in the jihadist world (I'm sure his mother was proud), and went to Afghanistan to train with al-Qaeda there. He was there when the US invaded, but ended up back in Syria/Jordan/Iraq by the time the US rolled into Iraq. He had already laid the foundations of a terrorist network in the area in the 90s and essentially became al-Qaeda's guy in Iraq, launching attacks against US troops and trying to stir up infighting between the Sunni and Shia in Iraq.\n\nAt the same time, the US had just crushed Saddam's military whose leadership was largely drawn from the Sunni minority in Iraq. While Saddam's Baath party was officially secular, the regime was very much Sunni and there were some high ranking officers with a pretty militant religious leaning.\n\nWhen it became clear that Iraq was going to run over by the US, some of these officers decided to stockpile military hardware. It would allow them to continue resisting the US and use it against the Shia majority when the the inevitable payback for decades of abuse under Saddam came around.\n\nAt some point, al-Qaeda in Iraq split from the rest of al-Qaeda. At least in part, this was driven by a personality conflict centering on Zarqawi and differing opinions on how to best wage jihad. Around the same time, the former AQ in Iraq people buddied up with former Saddam's officers, who had military training and access to guns, mortars, and explosives (often scavenged from artillery shells) to make IEDs.\n\nOn top of this, the increasing sectarian violence in Iraq (Shia payback essentially) drove more and more Sunni Iraqis to militant groups, and groups like ISIS/proto-ISIS were happy to fan those flames. Popular support has ebbed and flowed depending on context, but ISIS/proto-ISIS became the biggest, flashiest and most successful Sunni militant group in the area. At a certain point, they decided they didn't need a relationship with al-Qaeda proper and weren't getting much out of it. On some level, it's just politics. Main al-Qaeda wanted to retain control, but Zarqawi wanted freedom to do his own thing. And, they really didn't need al-Qaeda's backing anymore. They were recruiting and fundraising on their own and had ceased to benefit from al-Qaeda's strategic input and branding.",
"_URL_0_\n\nThis sums up the history of Al-Qaeda to ISIL"
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ngwmk | what are torrent trackers? | What exactly are torrent trackers? How do they work, and what is BaconBits? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ngwmk/eli5_what_are_torrent_trackers/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\ntry using the search",
"_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\ntry using the search"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j9ux7/seeding_leeching_trackers_someone_please_explain/"
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as5pbh | what are carbon credits and how do companies use them to offset their carbon footprint? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/as5pbh/eli5_what_are_carbon_credits_and_how_do_companies/ | {
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"One steam plant in NC releases 1000 pounds of pollution per day.\nThe other plant in the same company on the other side of the state releases 300 per day.\n\nThe limit under the carbon exchange is 1000 per day, per plant.\n\nThe NC company can sell its credit of 700 to another company so they can over-pollute and stay ‘compliant.’\n\nOR the NC company can use the carbon 700 credit surplus to cover for another plant on their company grid which exceeds 1000 pounds.\n",
"Well carbon credits are a type of permission slip. \n\nI don't exactly remember which accord introduced them, but i remember that it was one that was dealing with air pollution and such. Carbon credits are used to control a countries air pollution.\n\nCarbon credits are government sanction permission slips that are distributed by a separate agency. They have monetary value and there are only a limited number.\n\nEach carbon credit gives a company the right to produce X amount of carbon emissions from their factories. If you go over your limit you must pay a fine and face legal action. \n\nYou can also buy carbon credits from another company, if they are willing to sell them. This is all controlled by international agencies.\n\nBasically this system ensures that the countries emission rate lies below a certain limit every year.\n\nThis might be an oversimplified explanation and if you want to know more please ask me."
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6k9mpn | why are we encouraged to have good posture but then car and airplane seats are shaped in such a way that they do the opposite? | Seats like this are shaped in a concave way that turns my spine into pudding or is just plain uncomfortable. Its always bothered me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k9mpn/eli5_why_are_we_encouraged_to_have_good_posture/ | {
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"It's important to know that \"good posture\" is a Victorian esq idea of how you should stand and sit as to look \"proper\". It has nothing to do with what your back wants or needs.\n\nModern research tells us that humans should slouch in chairs, lean and generally sprall. Sitting in any way that you are not used to will cause pain and discomfort, simply because you're not used to it.\n\nSo I imagine you have been told to sit one way all your life, then sit in a badly designed seat that doesn't have enough room at the feet and sides to allow sprall, and hey presto, back pain."
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2g5uuz | how can i type correctly on the keyboard without looking but i won't be able to tell you where the keys are? | I can type essays without looking on the keyboard. But when asked where to find a letter on the keyboard, i have no idea | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g5uuz/eli5how_can_i_type_correctly_on_the_keyboard/ | {
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"Muscle memory. Your hands have typed \"e\" so many times that you've sort of \"programmed\" your muscles to reach X inches in Y direction and press down for \"e\". You, consciously, don't know where the \"e\" button is, but your body knows where it is, relative to some known point(s). \n\nThis is why people who learn to type fast usually use a \"home row\" of keys, to give their muscles a constant reference point for learning key locations.",
"Same way when you physically write something, when you were first leaning to write it took a concentrated effort where as now it is, like the other two comments, muscle memory. ",
"I can type without looking, and tell you where the keys are...",
"Try retracing your steps. They might be in the couch? I have a special spot I leave my keys when I get home so I know exactly where they are. Hope this helps!"
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9j2yc4 | what are 'fuzzy mathematics' and what are its applications? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9j2yc4/eli5_what_are_fuzzy_mathematics_and_what_are_its/ | {
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"'Fuzzy' is a term used to indicate that you're treating normally discrete phenomenon in a continuous manner.\n\nFor example, consider classic set theory. Let's say you have a classification scheme of 'fruit', 'vegetable' or 'meat'. You look in your refrigerator and sort everything you see into one or more of those categories. Each item you sort is fully within a category or fully outside of it. If something is a 'fruit', it is 100% a fruit.\n\nA 'fuzzy' version of this would be to permit something to only be *partially* within a category. So something might be '50% a fruit'.\n\nIn terms of its applications, that's harder to say. 'Fuzzy math' is pure mathematics rather than applied mathematics. It's an intellectual framework for discussing such phenomenon. As a result, you can describe all sorts of different systems with fuzzy math, but almost no one actually uses fuzzy math to build those systems.",
"Thanks all for your replies,\n\nI'm interested in a 10,000 foot high explanation because I'll be joining a research agency where the director has a bit of background in fuzzy mathematics, though my position doesn't directly engage with it. The agency is essentially social science research entity, so if anyone wants to take a stab at basic description of the relationship between fuzzy mathematics and social science, I'd love to hear it.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThanks!",
"At its most basic, fuzzy logic is that rather than dealing with '1 or 0' or 'true or false' we deal with 'anything between 0 and 1' or 'anything from 100% true to 100% false'.\n\nBasic example would be something like a chain of rules to classify an object, let's say a box of fruits and vegetables and then a whole set of these boxes.\n\nIn typical math, we could count and say that we have 3 fruits and 7 vegetables and so it's \"mostly\" a box of vegetables and so it's a \"box of vegetables\". We then repeat this for, say, 10 boxes and find out that 9 out of the 10 boxes have majority vegetables. We then deduce that we have mostly vegetables.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIn a fuzzy logic system we'd say that the first box is 70% a vegetable box. We'd then count the % of vegetables in each box and our total amount of 'boxes of vegetables' would be the average of those percentages.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAnother way to look at it is that we just generalize our entire structure to get a 'general' probability answer. It's quite similar to what you see in a neural network and so fuzzy systems often go hand in hand with machine learning systems under the umbrella of 'AI'",
"\nSay I have a big ol bowl of fruit, and want to define a set for the apples in the bowl. Apples are very clearly part of the apple set, and oranges and pears are very clearly not part of the apple set. If my bowl had weird apple hybrid fruits in it, those fruits are not very clearly in or not in the set, but they can be \"sort of\" in the set depending on how much apple is in there if I decide to have a fuzzy set instead.\n\nIn regular set theory, an element either is or isn't a member of the set. In fuzzy set theory, elements can have different levels of \"membership\" defined by a membership function.\n\nYou can apply mathematical rules to make sets into other mathematical structures, like groups, rings, topologies, categories etc. and you can also apply rules of groups and topologies to get fuzzy groups and fuzzy topologies.\n\nSimilarly, fuzzy logic defines \"partial truth\". E.g. I can have binary true or false (a value of 1 or 0, if you're programming) or for fuzzy logic a statement can be valued anywhere between 0 and 1.\n\n\nFor applications, Wikipedia mentions linguistics and decision making (e.g. artificial intelligence / machine learning).\n\nMore examples of structures in the wiki article _URL_0_",
"Hi there, I worked on a paper for fuzzy logic a while ago, we were computing with words:\n\nHere is a bit of the abstract\n\n > An expert opinion describes his or her opinion about a quantity by using imprecise (“fuzzy”) words from a natural language, such as “small”, “medium”, “large”, etc. Each of these words provides a rather crude description of the corresponding quantity. A natural way to refine this description is to assign degrees to which the observed quantity fits each of the selected words. \n\nThis was from 5 years ago, ill try my best to remember:\n\nWe have 3 words: small, medium and large.\n\nsmall might be from 0 to 4\n\nmedium might be from 3 to 6\n\nlarge might be from 5 to 8\n\nYou can see that they overlap, that is because with words something small for someone might be medium for someone else. Things get interesting when we start saying things like this is \"small or medium\" which can be represented with 0 to 6.\n\nNow the hard part, when you say small we dont know which number you are trying to say, however we know that for everyone it might be 0 to 2 since medium starts from 3 but small also includes 3, so we are left with probabilities. \n\nNow think of the size of your dick: small, medium or large? I believe as you read this you gave different sizes to each word and those are different from what other person might think... so we work with probabilities of said values and thats basically how it works, and there is a lot of complex math with that.\n\nTL;DR words have ambiguous values, and we work with probabilities around them.\n\n[Link to the paper to anyone interested](_URL_0_)",
"Since nobody has mentioned this and I do think it's worthwhile to point out, the term \"fuzzy math\" does get thrown around in politics quite a bit, and there it has a distinctly different meaning than in classic mathematics. In politics oftentimes we hear someone accusing someone else of using \"fuzzy math\", and in this application it means that somebody is cherry-picking figures usually of a statistical origin.\n\nSo politician A says \"I created x jobs in my term,\" and politician b might say \"You're resorting to fuzzy math, since jobs were already increasing in your predecessors term and so how can you claim you created that growth?\"\n\nI know it's not at all the exact explanation you're asking for, but I feel like a lot of non-math people probably would associate \"fuzzy math\" as a term with cherry-picking statistics so it's worthwhile to point out what that means in that application.",
"'Fuzzy' is used to describe normally discrete maths treated as continuous. For example in logic, we usually look at 1 as a \"yes\" and 0 as a \"no\". Fuzzy logic instead looks at 1 as \"yes\" and 0.7 as \"mostly yes\", 0.5 is \"neutral\" and so on. \n\nA lot people have mentioned that there are few applications, but that's not entirely the case. Mathematicians and engineers (and I) use fuzzy maths all the time to design control schemes, optimize trajectories, develop machine learning algorithms etc. It's a wonderful development in the world and the more we develop AI, neural networks and machine learning, the more we'll need wonderful ideas like this to control and run our intelligent machines.",
"0 : i hate chocolates.\n1 : i love chocolate.\n[0,1] : loves chocolate sometimes. \nGenerally all the calculations involved in elementary level maths include **definite well defined behaviour to get output**. What fuzzy allows is to break that barrier and allow some flexibility of choice thus making it significantly complex to represent. [0,1] represents set of decimal values between 0 and 1 both inclusive which reoresent a certain level of *membership* regarding the behaviour, in this case liking a chocolate.\n Applications include from basic washing machines, to almost everything that involves AI behaviour, might be from game ai of strategy games to control system.\nTLDR : represents a behaviour of confused person, defined by limited constraints.",
"My classic example is using time. Even though the computer knows the exact time, say 11:28, it may express it as \"half past eleven\". To a user this is \"fuzzy\", though the computer has a specific threshold that it considers close enough to round to (Portugal's anything after 11:23 and before 11:37), and it still maintains granularity behind the scenes. If you were to tell the computer to remind you at \"about half past eleven\", it may pick a time within that acceptable range (to feel more natural) or set the reminder for exactly 11:30 because it's both accurate and within the threshold.",
"You have an apple. You take a bite. Is it still an apple? At what point does it no longer exist as an apple. Answers are not black or white, 0 or 1. Everything exists to a degree. The grass is green, but it is also not green. Simple use in thermostats. If temperature is below x turn on heat, if at or above turn off. Simple fuzzy logic. To be and not to be."
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1pcq1r | what is corn syrup and why is it in so much of our food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pcq1r/eli5_what_is_corn_syrup_and_why_is_it_in_so_much/ | {
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"The US government subsidizes corn, so its cheaper to grow tons of it and turn into the syrup then it is to grow and harvest actual sugar. ",
"HFCS = High Fructose Corn Syrup. It's a sweetener used in place of sugar. It's much cheaper than sugar. It's controversial because the reason that it's cheaper is because of government subsidies to corn farmers. Most corn is grown in States with powerful Senators including, most importantly, Iowa where a very early Presidential primary is held. No one wants to piss of Iowa if they have Presidential aspirations.\n\nThere are claims that HFCS is a leading cause of obesity and that sugar, for reasons that I am not qualified to discuss, is not as bad in that respect. See here: _URL_0_\n\n",
"Corn syrup is made from corn & starches. It is used as a sweetener & is easy to make. It gives things a different texture than regular sugar, you don't use it for baking commonly just things like hard candy & suckers.\n\nHigh fructose corn syrup requires a laboratory & machinery & cannot be created naturally. \n\nIn the US, taxes on real sugar are higher than other countries so it is cheaper to use high fructose corn syrup than regular sugar or corn syrup because it is sweeter than both of them. It is also very addictive & can help to develop diabetes & other diseases. The reason why it is not illegal to use for making people sick is because we are supposed to control what we eat so food manufacturers cannot be held liable. However, hfcs are used in everything from baby formula to spaghetti noodles.",
"Corn syrup is basically sugar from corn in the form of a sweet syrup. You'll often hear of \"High Fructose Corn Syrup.\" It's used for a few reasons:\n\nAs mentioned before, it's cheaper in the USA because of government subsidies. Its form means it can be easier to deal with than granulated sugar; no grainy texture, easier to dissolve, and it's still \"natural.\" And it also allows manufacturers to spread out sweeteners between \"corn syrup\" \"high fructose corn syrup\" \"artificial sweetener\" and \"sugar\" to make them appear farther back on the ingredient list required on food items (which are ordered by abundance, whether by mass or volume I'm not sure). ",
"It is inexpensive due to being unregulated by the FDA. \n\n\n_URL_0_",
"I think it comes down to two things: 1) A sugar quota that restricts the amount of sugar that the united states can purchase... because this increases the domestic cost of sugar, companies choose to use corn syrup because it is more cost-effective; and 2) government subsidies of the corn industry... the government pays corn farmers and that means that foods with corn can be sold at a lower price, meaning more people will buy it.\n\nSources:\n_URL_0_\n_URL_1_"
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2uj0kg | how can the government assure people of 'higher wages' when those wages are determined by the employers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2uj0kg/eli5_how_can_the_government_assure_people_of/ | {
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"Minimum wage is determined by the law, not by employers.",
"Our wonderful Communist Governments can do magical things.\n\nIn all seriousness, yes you are right a free labor market 'should' determine wages. The Government can however via threat of force make an employer pay their employees a minimum amount. If the specified amount is not paid, the employer faces fines and in some jurisdictions it could be jail time.\n\nUltimately raising the minimum wage just costs people out of the labor market, especially those with limited skills such as graduates. The smart thing to do is to lower regulation and therefore increasing profits of existing business and making the process of starting a business less onerous. More profits mean more expenditure on keeping the required labor, more businesses means workers have more choice as to where they can work.\n\nGovernments don't like to give up cash cows like that though, they milk it until it bleeds.",
"What do you mean by assuring higher wages? The government sets a minimum wage but there's not a set higher wage.",
"The government doesn't assure people of higher wages (other than minimum wage). *Politicians* try to do that.\n\nedit: grammar that makes me sound less like an idiot..."
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8gziq3 | earthen dams, how do they work and are they different from concrete dams? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8gziq3/eli5_earthen_dams_how_do_they_work_and_are_they/ | {
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"It depends on the type of earth used. A combination of particle sizes (anywhere from large boulders to clay/silt) serve different structural or \"waterproofing\" purposes.\n\nThe dam may be constructed in layers to intentionally address each need, though most types of \"earth\" contain more than one size/type of material and may serve these purposes on their own.\n\nThe large amount of earth may also serve as a *support* for a man-made layer that provides water resistance, but would fall over without the support of the earth. "
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5nwgs6 | why is it so difficult to receive an organ transplant? | With the amount of organ donors (around 50%) why does it take years to receive an organ transplant | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nwgs6/eli5_why_is_it_so_difficult_to_receive_an_organ/ | {
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"Organs have to match the recipient otherwise the body can reject the new organ. There are two things to take into consideration and that is blood-type and HLA typing. Blood type is pretty straight forward, ideally the blood type of organ donor and patient will match but blood compatibility is less straight forward (I'd post a link to a table but I don't know how to put a link into a comment). HLA typing is the reason it can take so long. HLA is a protein that exists on the cells of organs. There are hundreds of these proteins of which six are the most important. To minimise rejection of the new organ in the patient as many of these six proteins as possible need to match. A perfect six out of six match between two unrelated people is about a 1 in 100,000 chance.",
" > With the amount of organ donors (around 50%) why does it take years to receive an organ transplant\n\nThere are a few reasons for this, but the main one is definitely the lack of _actual_ organ donors, as weird as this may sound.\n\nWhile it's true that around 50% of the population (in the US) have _signed up_ to become organ donors, in reality only a tiny percentage of them will ever actually _donate_ after their death. Which itself is again due to several reasons:\n\nThe main reason for this is the simple fact that most people die in ways that make organ donation impossible.\n\nIt takes a long chain of unlikely events to end up as a potential organ donor. In most cases that means suffering rather sudden _brain death_ while _in_ or at least _close to_ a fully equipped ICU to keep your heart pumping and your lungs breathing. \n\n_Brain death_ because that is the only way to die that _might_ leave your other organs intact. _In or close to a hospital_ because without modern medical equipment and care your remaining organs will still shut down and die within minutes after your brain dies and long before doctors can look for a matching recipient and prepare transplant surgery. \n\nYet even when willing organ donors dies this way, there's still a good chance that their organs won't be viable for donation. Their organs might be damaged already by some diseases or simply old age, for example. \n\nOr their organs might have sustained damage during their stay in the ICU itself - doctors and staff there try everything in their power to keep their patients _alive_ and won't really worry about the potential long-term effects to individual organs until a patient is declared dead. \n\nHospitals also ask for the consent of someone's _family_ before going through with a donation, even if the deceased was a registered organ donor. And a shocking number of families/relatives will actually go against that wish and refuse organ donation. \n\nTheir approval may not be legally _required_, but very few hospitals are willing to risk legal battles with _grieving families_ which can get really expensive and easily turn into a public relations nightmare. \n\nAnd last but not least: luckily most registered organ donors keep on living for the time being and thus can't gift their organs just yet.\n___\nAll that leads to the sobering fact that in 2015 in the US around __2,600,000__ people died but only about __9000__ of them ended up donating any organs. That's roughly __0.3%__ of all deceased. And only about __0.005%__ of all those 50% who are _willing_ to donate but either still alive or ineligible for donation.\n___\n\nNote: _Living donors_ are a whole different topic that I've left out intentionally. I'm only talking about _deceased donors_ here, which make up the vast majority of organ donations. \n"
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89boxs | we're familiar with the concept of limbs falling asleep due to lack of circulation from the pressure on the limb's veins/arteries in relation to bodily position. i want to know how our brain always manages to wake us up before the extremity loses blood flow long enough to die. [serious] | It's happened to most if not all of us. You wake up in the middle of the night, and your arm is asleep. Your hand is numb, you can't lift the "sleeping" arm on its own, and you proceed to smack it back into feeling.
How does your brain know just when to wake you up? Could you theoretically suffer actual limb death, or is there some neurological safeguard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89boxs/eli5_were_familiar_with_the_concept_of_limbs/ | {
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"The tingling feelings is due to nerves, not loss of blood flow. Even if you were to completely restrict *arterial* flow, your limbs still diffuse blood, although much more slowly. \n\nIt takes a lot to kill a limb from lack of blood. Unlike your brain, most of the cells in your body can survive without oxygenated blood for quite awhile. "
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5y7zz3 | why do phone have a standard charging port but laptops don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y7zz3/eli5_why_do_phone_have_a_standard_charging_port/ | {
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"It is worth noting that until fairly recently, phone's tended to have proprietary charging ports that were specific to the phone.\n\nThe reason is that there wasn't a compelling reason to. Until USB-C, there wasn't a universal standard that could provide the power that a laptop required to run, so each company would design a power port that worked for their product's design. Consumers didn't particularly care, as very few people evaluate buying a laptop based on what the power port looks like, so companies didn't have any reason to standardize.",
"For many years phones did not. But as people tend to upgrade their phones very often, they kept having to buy new chargers too, and the EU government became very worried about the *huge* amount of waste (landfill/garbage) in the form of old chargers. They told phone makers that a standard must be adopted, or they would force one legally. So phone makers complied, and for several years now most have standardized on Micro USB. Apple is the obvious exception."
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2amls3 | there is a rooster somewhere in my neighborhood that starts crowing at 3am, way before the sun is up - why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2amls3/eli5_there_is_a_rooster_somewhere_in_my/ | {
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"Roosters run on an internal clock, not the sun. Your neighbor probably has a rooster imported from a different timezone.",
"Check your local municipal code. \n\nRoosters usually aren't allowed. \n\nThere are a lot of fights where I live. ",
"Because roosters don't give a shit about the sun.\n\nSource: Relatives in Wyoming live next to roosters. They crow when they want.",
"This may be anecdotal, but here goes. I have had many roosters. I lived on a ranch for years, and I'll tell you what: Not one of those roosters gave a damn about the crack of dawn. They crowed whenever the hell they wanted - midnight, noon, brunch, or dinnertime. Daybreak didn't seem to mean a thing to them."
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2rtugu | how can small countries be better at certain sports than enormous countries? | It seems to me like the two biggest factors contributing to a city, state or country's sporting success would be resources and talent pool. I've definitely noticed those factors have an impact on sport on a local level, and it certainly benefits countries like the USA and China in the Olympics and Paralympics.
How is it though, for example, that Jamaica (with 2.75 million people) has so many world class sprinters? Specifically, 3 out of 8 competitors in the 2012 Summer Olympics 100m sprint final were Jamaican, including the gold and silver medalists. And how does Australia (24 million people) consistently beat India (1.3 billion people) in the cricket? Is it just that once you reach a certain population level then talent pool isn't really a factor anymore, or are there other things to consider here?
EDIT: grammar. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rtugu/eli5_how_can_small_countries_be_better_at_certain/ | {
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"A few other factors to consider:\n\n**Culture**\n\nIf a sport has a deep cultural tradition, more people are going to play it and get good at it, and the country will develop an infracture to support it. The US is a large and rich country, but no one there cares about cricket, and they won't have a better team than tiny New Zealand anytime soon.\n\n**Opportunity**\n\nWhat does being a top athlete get you? In India, the 1000th best cricketer in the country probably makes a comfortable living, and can devote themselves fully to their sport. The top US cricketer better have a day job. The flip side of that is pursuing a sport is a luxury, and if you are in a poor country, getting better at a sport instead of supporting your family might not be a luxury you can afford. Especially when there are no guarantees of success.\n\n**Competition from other sport**\n\nAthletic skill often can apply to multiple sports. If you are a top athlete in India, and can play cricket, you are going to play cricket. In the US, even if you love cricket, you'll get a lot further playing baseball.\n\n**Genetics**\n\nThere are genetic factors that make certain ethnicity better or worse at sports. Basketball favors tall people, and if you are trying to put together a team from southeast Asia, good luck with that.\n\n\n\n\n\n"
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1lin5k | why aren't there different degrees of rape the way there are of assault, theft, and murder? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lin5k/why_arent_there_different_degrees_of_rape_the_way/ | {
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"[There *are* different degrees of rape with different punishments](_URL_0_).\n\nRemoving because it's a moot question (the premise was incorrect, so there's nothing to explain)."
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4v2qpw | why do so many websites these days ask for my email address as soon as i get there, trying to sign me up for a newsletter? | This happens a million times more often than it did just a couple of years ago. Most recent one I just clicked on was [this](_URL_0_). No, I don't need a fucking newsletter about class action suits. Thanks.
What's the story, are they just harvesting email addresses for ~~spam~~ marketing purposes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4v2qpw/eli5_why_do_so_many_websites_these_days_ask_for/ | {
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"text": [
"When you visit a web site, they get to market to you anytime you want them to. When you subscribe to their newsletter, they get to market to you anytime **they** want to."
]
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"https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/340705-nvidia-settles-graphics-card-false-advertising-class-action/"
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d36i1l | why does vaping create such a large, dense cloud of “smoke” (vapor)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d36i1l/eli5_why_does_vaping_create_such_a_large_dense/ | {
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"Interestingly. There are less particulates in vape vapour, than there are in cigarette smoke. But cigarette smoke has smaller particulates, so it appears a lot less visible. \n\nBecause the vapour is aerosolised (made into tiny droplets in the air), the droplets start to bind back together into bigger droplets (literally exactly the same as clouds work). \n\nYou can see the droplets, so it appears larger and denser, but it actually isn’t. \n\nI hope that helps a bit."
]
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4dblvj | to the baseball experts, why do some say that it's better for the first baseman to be lefthanded? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dblvj/eli5_to_the_baseball_experts_why_do_some_say_that/ | {
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"Lefties wear their gloves on their right hand. When you're standing on first base facing home plate, your right hand is on the second base side, and your left hand is near the foul line.\n\nIf you're a lefty, that means any throw coming from the field is slightly quicker - because they don't have to throw quite as far to get it into your right hand. It's a matter of milliseconds, but sometimes that makes a difference in a close play at first. ",
"On the fielding side, primarily it has to do when the first baseman needs to throw to the other spots on the infield. A right hander in that position would need to turn their body and tweak slightly to get the right angle to 2nd or 3rd base. But a left handed player is a bit better positioned naturally to make those throws\n\nThe same would be said why there generally are right handed players on the other side of the infield.\n\nThere's also a sorta practical aspect, since the only infield position (not P or C) that would want a left handed person is first base, a left handed player either plays first or outfield. This is also a small reason to why left handed players are often encouraged to become pitchers (there are LOTs of reasons for that), because by being left handed, they have a tough time ever becoming a short stop or 2B or 3B, so they get \"relegated\" to playing a lesser skilled position like 1B or outfield.\n\nThis next part is a bit stranger, but to help complete it, First base is considered to need less skilled fielders, so they often have less skilled fielders, who are excellent batters at first. Being able to add an additional lefty in your batting line-up is preferred since you know several of your other positions are almost certainly right handed only, and lefty batters, especially good batters, are a bit statistically rarer, and provide your batting line-up better flexibility.\n\n\n",
"Lefties wear their glove on the right hand. This means it's on the side of second base when they face the batter. They generally have a greater range of coverage for stopping a gap line drive with having to shift away from first base as far. This means your second basemen can shift further and in turn your shortstop too. It also means when covering with a runner on, the motion to apply the tag (if the throw is good) is shorter for a left handed first baseman in a pick off attempt.\nSo potentially better fielding coverage and potentially quicker pickoff attempts.",
"Two things really:\n\n1. catching with your right hand is better when standing on first base. To your left is a foul ball, but to your right is a potential base hit.\n\n2. the rotation for throwing to second, third is shorter and more natural from your defensive stance. For the righty you have to significant twisting in the opposite direction of your throw to get into position for a throw to second or third.",
"I didn't think it was necessarily better, but it is probably one of the only positions in the infield for a lefty to play in. (excluding pitcher and catcher) 2nd base, shortstop, and 3rd basemen who are left handed have to turn the bodies in order to make the throw to first base, while righties do it in a fluid motion. "
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9fntaw | why non-human mammals stop drinking mother's milk. | I realize that humans drink mother's milk as infants. I also realize that we make a transfer, at some point, to drinking cow's milk. I dont want to get into why we shouldn't be drinking cow's milk. My question is: why do other mammals stop feeding from the mother's teet at a certain point in their physical development? Do they become inable to process the enzymes? I did a couple quick searches on Google, and only got results for "A MILLION REASONS WHY YOU ARE AN IDIOT FOR DRINKING MILK!!!" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9fntaw/eli5_why_nonhuman_mammals_stop_drinking_mothers/ | {
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"You guessed it. Almost all other mammals become lactose intolerant at a point. That means lactose intolerant people are the \"normal\" ones, and we lactase peristant ones are \"mutants!\"",
"Because at some point you are developed enough to eat real food and your body loses the ability to process lactose well.\n\nReally the weird thing here is that humans drink cows milk as adults, which was made possible by a mutation at some point (and gave us a rather useful source of food), and stops your body from losing its ability to process lactose. This is also why many adults are at least a little lactose intolerant, because they at least start to lose the ability to process it, barring those of us lucky enough to be able to enjoy things like cheesecake without having issues later.",
"Animals usually become lactose intolerant as they grow up. They can't drink milk from their mother because of a few reasons:\n\n1. Momma don't live forever.\n2. Chuldren usually separate once they grow up, and live on their own.\n3. The amount of energy required to sustain oneself, as well as to produce milk *for an adult* is just too much.\n\nWe too were mostly lactose intolerant, except the rare few of us, who, during periods of starvation, were much more likely to survive off of raw cow milk. Now most of us are tolerant to milk.",
"It takes time and energy to produce milk. Our metabolisms are very inefficient, so there is a loss of energy whenever a mom converts nutrients she obtained from eating into milk. In the case of mother and child, continuing to nurse can become prohibitively calorie expensive then, since they both have to eat essentially the same thing. Once the child has the teeth to chew and the motor skills to feed itself, etc., it is far more efficient for the child to eat food rather than have their mom convert food into milk for them. When resources are scarce, this efficiency could be the difference between life and death. In the case of livestock, the efficiency problem is less of an issue since they are often eating foods we cannot digest anyway. In that way, you can think of a dairy cow as a kind biological machine that converts inedible grass into highly nutritious milk. \n\n",
"They stop drinking mother's milk when mother makes them: weaning. She will physically block them from nursing until her milk dries up.\n\nShe does that so her body can get ready to make more babies.",
"A lot of people are already mentioning the amount of energy and nutrients the mother has to consume in order to make milk, but another reason is to make the offspring seek and accept other food. One can't go off on their own and live their life if they can't feed themselves. "
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61gy32 | why does it cost so much to protect the potus on a daily basis? other than salaries, where does the money go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61gy32/eli5_why_does_it_cost_so_much_to_protect_the/ | {
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"There isn't just 5 guys as secret service. The secret service employs over 6000 people, all who are at the top of their fields. You're not going to have any entry level secret service agents. All the employees have decades of experience. ",
"There are lots of security agents, guarding him 24/7, as well as advance teams who scout where he will be ahead of time, and then there is the transportation of all those people, their equipment, etc. Imagine having to move 200 people, put them up in hotels, transport 8-10 armored vehicles like the limo, a fleet of SUVs, medical equipment, weapons, etc.",
"Protecting the president is a complex job and you can read more about it [here](_URL_0_) but the tl;dr version of it is equipment, resources for investigations prior to going to a location as well as other measures such as the presidential limo containing reserves of blood the same type as the president's. ",
"One example: grocery shopping for the White House takes a long time. They can't order the food in bulk from a single supplier, because that would make it easy for someone to poison the president. Instead, plainclothes Secret Service staff have to go out and buy from randomly chosen grocery stores across the DC area. If you and I buy a head of lettuce, it costs us $1.20 plus gas it takes us to drive down the street. For the president to get a head of lettuce, the taxpayer is paying someone who probably has a master's degree and is making $90/hr to drive across town to pick up a $1.20 head of lettuce."
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2ha2s6 | why do dogs randomly bark at people when they pass by? | Is it to get the attention of the owner that someone is outside? The people outside aren't threatening them, so why bark at people to scare them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ha2s6/eli5_why_do_dogs_randomly_bark_at_people_when/ | {
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"They are threatening them. By passing near or through an area that the dog considers its territory that is a threat. ",
"Dogs bark for lots of reasons, so there's no one answer. Sometimes it's a threat. Sometimes it's the dog equivalent of \"Hey, you!\". Sometimes it's because the dog is super excited. Sometimes it's because some dogs are just really yappy all the time.\n\nGenerally, you should look at the body language of the dog to help determine why they're barking. If they look or sound \"growly\", they're probably trying to scare you away. If they run up to you and wag their tails, they're probably excited to see you."
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1y9n1a | why does disney seem to have a movie formula that involves the death or absents of one or both parents and why has this formula stuck through all but a few films? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y9n1a/eli5_why_does_disney_seem_to_have_a_movie_formula/ | {
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"This is a trope that spans much more than just Disney films",
"This is a common trope in literature and film. It is an effective way to make an independent character who cannot simply rely on his family to overcome a problem but must instead find some inner strength. ",
"Many of them are plot relevant.\n\nAs an example, Cinderalla being an orphan was a critical plot point because with parents alive she never lives with her wicked step-mother (after her father dies).\n\nOr in Frozen, where her parents death push Elsa back into the limelight."
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347s1r | how do we know a country has gotten rid of weapons (nuclear or chemical) as russia has just claimed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/347s1r/eli5_how_do_we_know_a_country_has_gotten_rid_of/ | {
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"The UN and some NGOs send groups of people to verify the absence of nuclear weapons in armories, to witness that nuclear centrals are only for energetic purpose.",
"The SALT treaties included provisions allowing each side to inspect the sites and confirm for themselves. It even goes so far as certain hardware being left inoperable outside for a length of time so spy satellites can confirm it too.",
"There are inspection criteria established in various treaties. We watch them, they watch us. We independently verify while they independently verify. \n\n\nHowever, that means absolutely shit. Both countries have the technology and the stockpiles of fissile material to have played sneaky. That is the whole point of a counties defence department/defense ministry/intelligence community. It is to develope weapons, intelligence, or capabilities that others don't know about. We think building bombs is hard. It isn't. With the right equipment and fissile material a knowledgeable tech can build a fairly advanced device. \n\nWhat let's us know, not a damn thing. The whole nuclear cold war is about gamesmanship and having a poker face. Think Putin has a King of diamonds up his sleeve? We wouldn't know unless he let's us know it. But then again what do we have up our sleeve? An Ace or a jack? All part of the game, call it \"trust\" and don't blink."
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5oocsf | can a singularity move through space? | If so, does it, and what is required to move it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5oocsf/eli5_can_a_singularity_move_through_space/ | {
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"Everything in space is in motion relative to _something_. So it is moving, constantly, in some fashion. Unless you ment something else?"
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2knxi8 | if the u.s. government is supposed to separate church and state, why are politicians allowed to publicly state their religious views and act on those views while making policies or voting in congress? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2knxi8/eli5_if_the_us_government_is_supposed_to_separate/ | {
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"The separation between church and state is purely legislative, the amendment to the constitution states that: \"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof\". This basically means that a congressman can have religious views to guide their morals, but laws cannot be passed to hinder the free practice of religion in the United States. They may vote on laws in the way that their religion tells them, but they may not make laws to stifle anyone else from doing so as well.\n\n\nEDIT: I want to say thank you to the person who gave me gold. Today is actually my first day with an actual reddit account so thanks!!!",
"Basically the government can't tell you to go to church. \n\nThe church can say that a good christian does x, and a politician can say I am a good christian hence my view on this is x. This might mean that other christian's will go, in order for me to be a good christian I should support x and that politician. ",
"We have a separation of church and state, but that doesn't mean that there's a separation of church and politics. ",
"Amazing how many people make assumptions on this without ever reading our trying to understand it.\n\nSeparation of church and state was never about keeping religion out of the government its institutions. \n\nSeparation of church and state was and still is about preventing the government and its institutions from supporting a preference of any religion over another, or providing advantage to any religion over another, and also to prevent the requirement of religious practice by the government and its institutions upon any persons.",
"seperation, i.e. no federally sanctioned religion. Individuals may still sanction whatever religion they want. \n\n*spells",
"As far as enacting those religious based views, they never craft or justify those views in terms of religion once it hits the legal realm (i.e. in crafting legislation) because they know that gives the measure grounds to be overturned in court. \n\nAs far as being able to state their views, I would assume it would probably be constitutionally protected speech, and I base that off of the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that the \"under God\" portion of the Pledge of Allegiance is constitutional. The legal logic may be poor, since I don't study law, nor do I know the specific logic used to justify the majority opinion on the case, but I wouldn't surprised if a case ever made it to the Supreme Court, they might rule in favor of politicians being able to publicly state their religious views.",
"Separation of church and state, people seem to overlook, stems from kings/queens in Europe having the God given gift of rule. You will find that countries which do no have separation of church and state are still monarchies (though not absolute monarchies).\n\nNow, separation of church and state has come to mean that the laws of any particular state cannot favour those of a specific religion. For example, a law stating that no one can be a US president unless if they are Catholic, goes against separation of church and state. However, a nominee for president can state he/she is Catholic in hope of garnering votes, since it is not institutionalized.",
"\"Separation of Church and State\" is not actually apart of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is a kind of short hand which is meant to get the ideas across of the \"Establishment Clause\", and \"Free exercise\". It does not mean that the State should not have a religion or that the elected officials should be areligious. In fact the opposite is true.\n\nIt once was that many of the early individual States of the United States had State sponsored religion. Note this is important distinction for a National religion which the \"Establishment Clause,\" of the First Amendment, prohibits. For example Delaware was a Catholic state. This Catholicism was a choice made by the State's legislature. This was a common practice for the times, and the United States were no exception. \n\nThe First Amendment (among other things) protects other religions from State sponsored tyranny, this is the \"frede Exercise\" clauss. So, in our example of Delaware, if you were a Catholic you might be happy, but, for example, if you were a Lutheran you might be the subject of a local magistrate. This would be illegal. \"separation of Church from State\" would better be understood as \"protection of Church from State.\" This religious persecution was common for the times, as-well (think pilgrims and their reason for coming to the new world in the first place). The concept that other religions had a right to exist and not be persecuted is a hallmark of American tolerance.\n\nImagine today if a Muslim community wanted to build a Mosque, in Tennessee, for example. It would be un-American for the people of Tennessee to persecute the Islamic faith community, simply because of religion. It is the First Amendment right of all citizens of the United States to worship as they see fit, without the persecution of the majority, or the state. \n\nThat said the State is not without a means of cohesion. All Churches have the right to file as a \"501c3.\" This is a kind of tax exempt entity. It is a provisional exemption, however. If the leader(s) of that religious community begin to speak in a way the government deems political undesirable (this is key, the government has to have a problem with the speech, it is not enough to simple have the speech present), the tax free status can be revoked. In this way the State allows religious organizations to not be persecuted from the Government (taxation can/ and has been a form of persecution of religious bodies). Or more to the point, incentives toothless religion. \n\nMost, maybe all churches, in the United States, do not pay taxes. If they did have to start paying taxes, for example property taxes, those churches would begin to crumble. Paying taxes is not a part of the budgeting practice of the congregations, and ecclesiastical bodies. The extra tax burden begins to be a kind of threat: \"preach as we want, stay out of politics, or face the wrath of taxation.\" \n\nThis begs the question: are churches really that important in politics? Absolutely. It is not a recent phenomena that churches hold sway among citizens of the United States. But, even a contemporary observation will reveal Churches are still important. For example the America Civil Rights movement, was, essentially, a religious movement (not an entirely religious movement). And, the influence of organizations like the \"Christian Right,\" and the \"Church if Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints\" (see prop 8 in California) is no mean feat. \n\nChurches are the organization of the United States of America, since before there was a United States of America. It is only recently that we have come to a place where agnosticism and atheism is not a shunned minority. With the United States' tolerance of areligious people has come a notation that her leaders should have no affiliation with religion. While this may, or may not be applaudable, it is most definitely not necessary; nor constitutional. \n\nEdit: Holy Moly, thank you for the Gold!!",
"Because separation of church and state is a myth. Doesn't exist. Not a thing. The only thing the constitution prevents is the U.S. government saying \"this is the official religion, you can't worship otherwise\"",
"Bear in mind that it's not necessarily just their religious beliefs that are being acted upon - it is the religious beliefs and worldviews of their constituents they put in place as well. Everyone's opinions are shaped by their worldview, and their religiosity or lack thereof. Our congressmen put our worldviews into action, within the confines of the law.",
"As well as the 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which prohibits the US Congress from legislating a preference for any particular religion, creating one of their own designed to supplant any existing religion, preventing citizens from following a religion of their choice, or preventing them from not following one at all, there is also [**Article VI of the Constitution of the United States**](_URL_0_) (third paragraph) stating the [**\"No Religious Test Clause\"**](_URL_1_) which states:\n\n*\"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;* ***but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.****\"*\n\nThis clause was instituted as a response to certain acts imposed by England in the 17th and 18th centuries which specified that one could not hold public office without being a member of the Church of England. Interestingly, the inclusion of Article VI had the effect of complimenting the application of the later 1st Amendment. Although, it is noted that, in some areas of the United States, a religious test for public office appointed by *VOTE* is strongly inferred.....AND.....many states specifically *require* a religious test prior to holding public office of any kind, the practicality of these specifications questionable under law and to a large extent, have been ignored during modern times.\n\nEdit: Hmmm...I guess ya can't do **bold** inside *italic*. Learn somethin' new everyday.\n\nEdit: Fixed it all by myself. I wanna cookie!",
"Also the \"separation of church and state\" isnt actually a thing. It was written in a letter as a RECOMMENDATION by either thomas jefferson or ben franklin. There is no law \"requiring\" them to be separate. ",
"This sub is so full of loaded questions these days.",
"Basically, it boils down to: no favorites. \n\nWhen City Hall in Somewhere, Kansas allows the Ten Commandments to be installed on city property, it must now do the same for any other religious groups' requests. \n\nOr, you can just treat everyone's requests to an equal \"nope!\" and avoid the mess altogether. \n\nTL;DR: Bring enough tolerance to share or just don't bring it at all. \n\nEDIT: Words mean things. ",
"Any law prohibiting people from acting based on their religious beliefs would be a violation of the separation of church and state.",
"Because that's basically a myth. If you read the first amendment, Congress is banned from making laws regarding establishments of religion, in other words they're basically banned from making laws *about religions*. That's not the same as not allowing your personal beliefs to influence your decision making if your an elected official, in fact, that ability is protected under the parts of the first amendment that guard freedom to practice a religion and freedom of speech. ",
"There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution which prevents a politician from stating their views on anything, including religion. The 1st amendment of the Constitution protects free speech, as well as well as the right to protest the government. This law applies to government officials as much as it does to ordinary citizens. This same amendment also prevents the government form establishing an official religion, and from enforcing any particular religion, or non-religion, on the citizens:\n\n*Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances*\n\nA politician can be guided by their personal views in how they vote on legislation, but they can not pass a law which would prohibit anyone from practicing their own religion how they want, and they can't force people to practice religion at all. \n\nAlso, article VI:\n\n*The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.*\n\nMeaning that the government can never bar someone from a government position based on that persons religious views. This doesn't mean that the general public can't decide who to vote for based on this, but Congress can not pass any laws that would create legal religious qualifications for public office.",
"Simply: Separation of Church and State protects the Church (religious institution of choice) from the State, not the other way around.",
"The Sep of church and state comes from a letter Jefferson wrote assuring a baptist church that no particular denomination would ever be official as the Anglican Church was in England. The supreme court without precedent reinterpreted this in 1962 to mean what it means today. Look at washingtons farewell speech. Early Supreme Court decisions citing the Bible, upholding blasphemy convictions, etc... Again, look at washingtons farewell speech warning against loss of religion and morality. Latter day revisionism aside, we've always been a nation of public christian conviction and influence. Excuse grammar--phone",
"One of the things a religion dictates is your morals. These politicians aren't saying (legally) \"I'm against gay marriage because my religion says so\" they're saying \"I'm against gay marriage because it is immoral\". So just like laws that you can't steal, cheat, lie, or kill, their platform is that they are making a law for the betterment of our society.\n\nAnd another thing that is seriously misunderstood about the separation of church and state, and the first amendment in general, is that the first amendment doesn't mean government officials aren't allowed to have a religion or the government isn't allowed to *recognize* religion, it's actually the exact opposite: The government has to recognize ***all*** religions, and can not make a law that bars your from practicing your own. For example, Congress is allowed to recognize Christmas and close the banks, but they are not allowed to make a law saying that \"no business is allowed to close on Christmas and no place of worship is allowed to have services on December 25th\".\n\nSo, politicians aren't allowed to say \"the state has to legally recognize all marriage laws that are designated by the Catholic church\", but they can say \"I will not vote in a law that recognizes a marriage I disagree with, *because I am allowed to be a practicing Catholic*\".",
"It isn't even an amendment... It was suggested in a letter by Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, I can't remember who off the top of my head. However, not allowing freedom to chose whatever religion you want in unconstitutional. ",
"It's surprising to me how many people don't understand what this separation means.",
"It's a freedom *of* religion, not a freedom *from* religion. You are free to express whatever religions, or non-religious views you like. But that same freedom does not mean people cannot express their religious views to you. \n\nSimilarly, the government cannot *be* religious, but that doesn't mean that people who are religious are excluded from serving in the government or speaking their minds. \n",
"Congress can't make laws to establish an offical religion nor can they make laws prohibiting freedom of religion.\n\nBut people, including governement employees have freedom of religion too. So the founders had a chaplain in congress and congress can express their religion - they just can't remove freedom of religion from others.",
"Because that's not what separation of church and state is supposed to do. ",
"The First Amendment states \n\n > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof\n\nAnd the phrase came from a Jefferson speech \n\n > Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should \"make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof\", ***thus building a wall of separation between Church & State*** \n\nYour example isn't something that is prohibited ",
"There is actually no legal requirement for separation between church and state except that the government shall not establish or prohibit a religion.",
"Church (as an organization, think Catholic church telling kings what to do) doesn't run the state. And state doesn't run the church",
"You're implication that politicians shouldn't be allowed to publicly state their religious convictions and then act on them while making policies or voting would violate separation of church and state. ",
"How would you legislate to prevent a representative from voting in accordance with their religion without prohibiting their right to freedom of religion?",
"I'm more worried about the state hindering religious expression/freedom/thought than the other way around.",
"Because most people misunderstand \"separation of church and state\" which isn't in the Constitution in the first place. \n\nThe government can't force you to be a religion, or make you stop practicing a religion. This doesn't mean that anything secular/governmental has to be void of religion. ",
"There is no such thing as separation of church and state. The only thing the 1st amendment says is that the state, or government, can't establish a religion to force you to practice. Nowhere does it say that people in government CAN'T practice their religion.",
"Goddamn, ELI5 is fucking horrible since becoming a default.\n\nEvery top thread is a thinly veiled slight against politics.",
"Because it means that Congress can't, say, say that Christianity is a national religion or favor one faith over others. It would be insanely unconstitutional to effectively tell people you can't have faith in your own private morals.=",
"Contrary to popular belief, the separation of church and state amendment you're talking about was meant to protect religious beliefs and the ability to stand by them, not to limit religions involvement in affairs of the State. They can vote their conscious all they want as long as they don't create laws that trample religious freedom.",
"There are two parts to the religion clause in the Constitution. There's the establishment clause which requires a separation between church and state. That government may not support or indorse a religion, especially in regards to levying taxes for a religion. \n\nBut the other part is the free exercise clause. This means that individuals are free to believe whatever they believe. That we are free to exercise or practice any religion. \n\nThis means that politicians are protected by the free exercise clause. ",
"In actuality its the seperation of authority. The govt cant tell you what to believe in and the church cant tell the govt what laws to pass. ",
"Separation of Church and State forbids the State from imposing restrictions on the Church. This is to say the State cannot ban a religion or enact statues or laws to hinder the operation of the Church or those who belong to it. If the State decides to legalize gay marriage, they have no right to force the Church to accept this view and have them perform weddings for gays. \n\nEssentially, the clause protects the Church from interference from the State, but not the State from the interference of the Church.",
"Separation of Church and State is no where in the constitution thats an idea.\n\nAmendment I\n\nCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...\n \n\nWouldn't you be prohibiting the free exercise if you told politicians that they can't talk about what they believe?",
"As individuals, they still have the First Amendment, too ;)",
"The point is to keep government from interfering with religion, not to keep religion from interfering with government. Just because you do not express or state your religious views does not mean you will not act on them. Even if you actively tried to avoid bias, you will still be biased by your religious beliefs. So no way to keep religion out of government. But we can hope to keep government out of religion as to avoid utter domination of personal choice. ",
"While we're on the topic, I have a related question that I've been wondering. How is it that churches can endorse ballot measures? Here in Tennessee, there is a ballot measure coming up that would change the power that the state has when it comes to abortions. Nearly every church in the area has signs out in front that say \"Yes on 1\" and I even saw one that was programmed into the church's led sign out front. I was under the impression that churches can not legally endorse candidates for political office. Why are ballot measures different?",
"Anyone else feel like ELI5 is slowly becoming the new r/politics or r/atheism?\n\n\"Why does easily researched and understandable concept regarding religion and politics exist when I don't want it to?\"\n\nSome great stuff on here, but the blatant faux-controversy click-bait is getting old. ",
"Because it's the Politician's right to do so?\n\nAnd.. I think most people misunderstand the whole \"separation\" of church and state. (In America at least..)\nIt's freedom OF religion. Not freedom FROM religion.",
"The separation of church and state is intended to protect religious freedom. So it is the state which is restricted. The church (or any religion) is under no such restriction. Certain tax laws restrict some political involvement by churches, however any religious group is free to express any political opinion, if it is willing for forego the tax exemptions.\n\nA politician, or anyone acting as an agent of the state, should not (must not) be able to pass laws which restrict religious freedom. But they (and everyone else) have the same 1st amendment right to express their views, which can include religious expression.",
"It is \"separation of\" not \"separation from\"\n\nIt is not the government's role to protect you from religion. The first amendment section is written as an implicit neither nor statement. Congress shall neither pass a law establishing religion nor shall it prevent the free exercise of religion. \n\nIn other words, the government has to keep it's grubby fucking hands off of religion completely. It cannot protect you from the evil Christians who want to make sure you have a shot at life and feed you and shelter you if you are ever hungry and homeless. Those bastards.\n\nAlso, there is a part of the constitution that says the government cannot restrict who serves in government based on a religious test. ",
"You're operating off a faulty premise. People often do this with freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and virtually every Bill Of Rights amendment that they explained in middle school but didn't go into detail about. Read the statute; look at /u/potus32's comment. You can't just come up with a set of rules that make sense to you based on a concept you barely understand, and then hold the government accountable to your interpretation.",
"Because the saying is followed up with \" or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\"\n\nMore to the point though... the point of the amendment was to keep the state from interfering with the affairs of the church not the other way around.",
"Freedom OF religion. Not freedom FROM religion. ",
"Think of it this way - how could we stop politicians from acting on their religious views without establishing official government religious policies?\n\nThere's an inherent tension in the First Amendment - congress can neither pass a law \"respecting an establishment of religion\" or \"prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\" If we were to pass laws that restricted the way congresspeople can decide, we'd be prohibiting the free exercise of religion. If atheists want (and they do) First Amendment protection from religious persecution, that also means they are bound by First Amendment restrictions on imposing atheism on others. \n\nWhat the First Amendment does mean, however, is that laws cannot be Constitutionally justified based on religion. So those law makers have to come up with secular reasons for why the religiously-motivated laws are necessary. That's why anti-gay marriage laws are doing so badly in the courts right now - there really aren't any good secular reasons for banning gay marriage. \"Because the Bible says\" is a fine motivation for a Congressperson, but the courts will not accept \"because the Bible says\" as a reason for government power. By contrast, plenty of politicians are against murder because it says so in the Bible, but since there are plenty of other good reasons for murder to be illegal, the religious motivation is no problem. In short, politicians are allowed to have religious motivations, but they must also give non-religious reasons if the law is to stand up in court. ",
"OVER AND OVER I read questions here at reddit that start with \"if\" and then posit something untrue. This is one.\n\nThe First Amendment to the US Constitution is commonly known as the \"Bill of Rights.\" The first amendment is this:\n\n\"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\n\nThis specifically states, not that politicians cannot express themselves about their religions, but that CONGRESS may not make any LAWS for or against and religions. It even goes on to state that no laws can be created to prohibit the free exercise of religion, nor to prohibit free speech.\n\nThat's all it says. It does not say that politicians, elected officials, dog-catchers, or anyone else cannot express their opinions about anything. And, at the moment, that means they cannot be legally stopped from expressing their religious views.\n\nNote that the free exercise of religion must also include the free NON-exercise of religion; otherwise people are not free to express as they wish.\n\nYour example of voting against gay marriage based on religion is a good one for thinking this through. A politician may express his beliefs with his vote, so he may vote against gay marriage. He may not, however, make a law stating that people of a particular religion may do this or that... THAT would violate the Constitution.\n\nThe phrase \"separation of church and state\" is shorthand for all this, but seems to have been taken as the original and complete expression of this idea from the Bill of Rights. And then people built on that, enough so that, for instance, you believe \"the US Government is supposed to separate church and state.\" Don't you see that if the US Government does something active to separate church and state, it is violating the Constitution by making a law respecting religion?",
"Because the Constitution also allows freedom of religion for all of it's citizens, which those elected officials are. Separation of church and state doesn't mean that the government should be free of any and all religious influence, it just means that the government can't stifle anyone's right to practice their own religion, and can't, by law or policy, elevate one religion over others. ",
"How would you be able to ban people from acting on their own views?",
"Fuck this sub, all it is is questions trying to get people to say what they want to hear about religion/politics",
"Why not? If a Christian, Buddhist or Jewish politician received a majority of the vote, so be it. It's called Democracy. ",
"You have made a basic mistake.\n\nThe US Constitution, Bill of Rights, does not guaranty a separation of church and state. It only requires that the US Government not give preference to one religion over any other.\n\nHere it is, The same Article 1 that guaranties you the right to speak freely.\n\nCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.",
"I've been told not to give answers that are to in depth so here ya go. \n\n\nThe separation of church and state was put unto place to prevent people and organizations (ie.. the government ) from forcing people to believe in one faith and follow the beliefs and ideals and laws of said faith to the point of fanaticism. \n\nThis country was founded on religious freedom that's why the people originally came here, and then after our revolution it evolved. \n\nExpressing ones religious beliefs is a basic right and has nothing to do with the separation of church and state.",
"The politicians work in the state, but they are not the state. If people voted a catholic in, that would not make the state catholic. Just like if an atheist was the ruler of Iran, it'd still be a muslim state. ",
"So that a five year old can understand : the provision (\"separation of church and state\") is designed to keep gov't out of religion but not vice versa.\n\nie the gov't can't tell you what to preach in \"church\". But you can preach liberalism or conservatism or any other political ideology in \"church\" and so on and so forth",
"It's called free speech, it's when everyone has to agree with what you say and if they disagree or offend you they lose.",
"If your religious views are atheist and you voted for issues based on that or stated that opinion you would be doing the same thing. If a law is passed that states Christian viewpoints should be suppressed, that would be an explicit violation of separation of church and state, as atheist religious views would be expressed in the law.",
"Freedom of religion means that anyone can have and express any religion, not that we are all banned from having and expressing religion. The freedom of expression is considered more fundamental and more important than separation of church and state. \n\nAlso: politician =/= state. A politician is a person and can have a religion. A state is a state and cannot.",
"There's a lot of great ELI20 answers here, but since this is ELI5:\n\nAll Americans have the right to publicly practice whatever religion they want. This applies to everyday citizens as well as government officials.",
" > Ex) voting against gay marriage, abortion based on religion.\n\nThere are no laws about how you can and can't vote. Such a law would be absolutely ridiculous, and frankly undemocratic.\n\nEvery vote that has ever existed in any election by any person has been based on religious views or absurd personal opinions. If there were a logical justification for a particular position, it would not require an election.",
"I think it has to do with personal freedoms of religion and speech",
" > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,\n \n Means Congress can not create a Church of the United States or recognize any religion as the official state religion, like what Henry VIII did when he created the Church of England.\n\n > or prohibiting the free exercise thereof\n \nMeans that the state cant monkey around and try to ban religious expression....someone ought to tell the left this.",
"Because they're still entitled to First Amendment rights under the law.",
"Because this is America where freedom of speech is still protected for the time being. \n\nNo more commie questions. ",
"The US Constitution merely says the state may not make any law respecting the establishment of religion. It says nothing about individual legislators voting for/against laws based on their religious views. If those laws are found by the Supreme Court to be actually based on advancing or persecuting a religion -- which isn't a valid government interest -- then they (should) get struck down.\n\nThe anti-gay marriage folks didn't actually put forward any religious-based arguments when defending laws prohibiting gay marriage in court. They used cultural/historical arguments (sort of but not the same) and argued the laws were meant to encourage childrearing (which they said should be a valid government interest), etc.\n\nThe abortion debate is much more complex.",
"That only applies to government prohibiting the free practice of religion. Its not a restriction on religion. It's a restriction on government.",
"The separation between church and state, as you understand it, wasn't enumerated by the Founders. What was enumerated, was all Americans right to exercise free speech.\n\nIt is no coincidence that Freedom of Speech was in the First Amendment. First, as in, most important.\n\nIt trumps all. So, every American has the right to publicly state their religious views. Their non-religious views. Their hatred for religion. Their love for Christ. Their love for Allah. Their love for the flying spaghetti monster.\n\nPoliticians are Americans. As such, they too have this right.",
"Separation of Church and State cuts both ways. \n\nIt means that the government cannot pass any law to prohibit or endorse a specific religion. That means that the government cannot set a state religion (endorse) or stop any citizen from voicing their religious views or acting upon them (prohibit). Politicians are still citizens and still have religious freedoms. This means that if their religion dictates or at least influence their morality and thinking process (as religions do for all religious people) that is allowed because otherwise the government would be violating their constitutional rights. ",
"Because politicians have freedom of expression.\n\nAlso, \"separation of church and state\" means politicians are free to practice whatever religion they'd like, not that politicians have to hide their religion.\n\nReligious groups can use government facilities for meeting places, for example. The facilities just have to be available to all religions.",
"Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence - he coined the phrase \"a wall of separation between church and state\" while responding to the Danbury Baptist Church which as asking for national days of fasting and thanksgiving declared by the government. In that letter he also stated that: *Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect*\n\nSources:\n\n* _URL_0_\n* _URL_1_",
"Separation of church and state doesn't mean religion can't influence your view, that isn't possible anywhere in the world. What it means is that religion is not a part of government meaning no state religion and the like. To contrast the House of Lords in Britain has a few members who are high up in the Church of England and have seats as a result, this is the integration of church and state and would be unconstitutional in the US. The President being a Christian is not in itself integration of church and state. \n\nEssentially individual religions cannot be given special treatment over others by the state.\n\n",
"It's been answered so many times (seriously, what is the point of link flair if it's not going to be used?) but I'd like to add...\n\nOne of the best moments in -The West Wing_ covered this. Charlie, the President's youngest daughter's boyfriend, also some sort of admin assistant for the President, brings up separation of church and state. The President, being deeply religious, challenges him to find proof of this in the Constitution. He can't.\n\nAs others have said, it's a misunderstood term. Politicians, like the rest of us, are free to follow any religion they choose, or none at all. Religion wasn't a choice in the Old World, and that was one of the most important changes we made in our independence.",
"I'm against abortion but I'm an atheist. I don't think it's against church and state separation to vote a certain way while motivated by an ideology, religious or otherwise. I think the point of the separation is more clear when considering the history colonists had with the church of England. People didn't want to be forced to pay taxes towards the state-sponsored or state-mandated religion while having no choice of what religion they are. \n\nAgain I'm an atheist but most of the atheist causes of taking the word \"god\" off a coin or building or making a fuss when a politician simply explains his religious motivation for voting a certain way are pointless and silly. ",
"The idea is it's freedom _of_ religion ... not freedom _from_ religion.",
"On this subject, how is Christmas a \"legal\" holiday?",
"They can't make any laws endorsing any particular religion. That's about it.",
"I know being gay isn't a religion. \n If you claim that you believe being gay is how a 'Higher power' wants you to live and having a gay marriage is the ultimate goal. Doesn't that make voting against gay marriage against the constitution.\nThis is hypothetical and I'm just curious.",
"1] said as if religion were the only reason to vote against abortion lol\n\n2]because \"separation of church and state\" means protecting *church*(any) **from the state**. \n they're human they can do what they like, *you're* the ones who keep voting for em. \nnobody is establishing an official religion or any of the stuff it says you can't do. \n(disclaimer: within reason. human sacrifice is out for obvious reasons)",
"Religious thought is inextricably bound to one's worldview.",
"Came in here thinking I would see a lot of /r/atheism garbage. This is one of the most understanding and competent threads about religion I have been in on reddit. It even manages to discuss gay marriage in a logical and well thought out way.",
"Because their constituents share those views and value them more than separation of church and state.",
"There's no real such thing as separation of church and state in the constitution, it was actually in a Thomas Jefferson letter in the young days of the US. What the first amendment provides for is freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. It states that congress will make no laws respecting one single religion over another but it also can't take away the individual's right to worship as they see fit. Which also includes congressmen/women voting in accordance with their morals which were likely shaped by their religion. ",
"As fundamentalists love to point out, \"separation of church and state\" is not in the constitution. It's implicit in the wording of the First Amendment, of course, but the thing you're asking about is covered by the free exercise clause:\n\n\"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religious beliefs, **or prohibiting the free exercise thereof**\" (emphasis mine).\n\nNote the wording there: \"Congress shall make no law.\" Individual politicians are absolutely free to follow religious guidelines when making decisions, as free as any other person in the United States.\n\nI mean, what mechanism do you propose to force people not to do this?",
"IMO, it should be this. Religious practitioners are free to teach religion as they see fit without interference from law. However, no law is to be changed, altered, or put into place just to suit one religion or another.\n\nThis is why putting religion in public schools is so very, very wrong. \n\n",
"The first amendment prohibits the government from passing laws intended to DISCRIMINATE against one religion or PROMOTE one religious belief above another.\n\nThe first amendment does not prohibit voters or politicians from basing legislation upon their religious beliefs so long as the legislation itself is not violating Americans religious freedoms.\n\nFor instance, if I am a Jew, Muslim, or Buddhist and I vote for a law outlawing murder, because my religious beliefs hold that murder is wrong, that law is constitutional, because it applies to every religion equally. Someone who believes in sacrificing virgins might claim it discriminates against their religion, but the courts would probably hold that religious discrimination is acceptable in the case of murder, because the interest in protecting murder victims' rights overrides the rights of a religion to sacrifice virgins.\n\nOn the other hand, if I am an evangelical Christian, and I believe it is my duty to pass laws enforcing Christian prayers in school, then I am violating the religious rights of Jews, Atheists, Muslims, et cetera. That law is unconstitutional.\n\nMerely being motivated by my religious beliefs to vote on a law does is not a sufficient condition to constitute a violation of the first amendment.",
"Interesting how you worded your question OP since you have the concept exactly in reverse.\n\nShould the government prevent a politician from publicly stating or act on his/her religious views, **that** would be violating the separation of church and state since it would be the state, in this case, prohibiting the free exercise of religion.",
"Your question reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about what exactly the establishment clause was written for. \"Congress shall make no law respecting [that is, having to do with] an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\" This removes the government's right to choose an official religion of the state, by the same token acknowledging that they can make no test of religion necessary for participation in civic affairs. In England and other European countries, if you did not belong to the right religious group (which at times and in places has been radical atheism), you were barred from participation in government and possibly other aspects of public life. The difference that the Establishment clause makes is that the government cannot establish any such test - no matter what your religious affiliation is, you are allowed to participate fully in public life in America. Its why, with respect to the fact that we're a secular society, we can have people of all religious and spiritual belief systems participating on theoretically equal terms in public life. If this weren't true, and the common (and wrong) interpretation of the Establishment Clause were correct, only those who disavow the question of religiosity entirely would have a right to run for office, to open a business, etc.\n\nTL;DR, this clause isn't about banning religion from public affairs, its about banning government from banning its citizens from participating in public affairs based on their religion!",
"Because if they didn't allow that it would be in the same situation as North Korea, no free speech or personal philosophies.",
"Bottom line, the separation of church and state isn't in the constitution. It's a precedent case for the SCOTUS and has become an abused tagline for secular activist groups.\n\n\"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\"\n\nBasically, you cannot make a state church or infringe on religious liberty. Any a statesman may use any precedent he wishes to create legislation. The mere fact that you're posing this question in such a loaded manner, and then posting it to ELI5, as if this negation was obvious, shows how much pop culture has twisted the common understanding of American government and governmental history.",
"The politicians have 1st Amendment rights as well.",
"Because separation of church and state is a myth, separation of corporations and government is a myth, and democracy is a myth. The ruling class can do literally whatever they want and get away with it. _URL_0_",
"Keep in mind that when this was written, the English governmenet and the church were pretty intertwined in their operations. The founding fathers were trying to avoid that. They weren't trying to make an atheist government. ",
"Because of that very amendment? What would you propose, a law to outlaw them from considering their religious stance on issues?\n\nYou recognize that would be an infringement, right?",
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof\n\nSeparation of Church & State is not part of the bill of rights but an interpretation made by the supreme court to clarify the right ",
"Saying religion cant be in government is saying any religious person cant be a politician which is discrimination. Also its an infringement if the 1st amendment, freedom of religious practice.\n\nReligious politicians is fine. Thats their belief and we should be ok with that, religion isnt inheritently bad nor does it make someone less of a politician.\n\nWhat is a problem is when politicians try putting religion actually into the legislation (such as romney saying he wanted to put the bible into the law, or something to that regard). As long as the law doesnt mirror or give preference to religion, its fine. If 90% of the people are of one religion and thus have the same belief, it makes sense for the law to reflect this.\n\nHowever, some american politicians ignore this and do try to impose their religion (christianity) into the law and public which isnt right, legal, or reflective of society. Most notable is the homosexuality issue which is becoming more and more accepted in society, even if only to the point that some people against it (which is fine) as a morality, wont care if others do it... Politicians are still idiotically trying to ban it.",
"If you were five, I'd tell you that is his/her job to represent similarly-minded people, whether we agree with them or not. ",
"Well, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to act politically on the basis of their views (irrespective of whether or not those views have religious underpinnings) if they were democratically elected to do so.",
"The guarantee is freedom *OF* religion. Not freedom *from* religion. The goal was to assure there was never a state sanctioned religion.\n\nThat said, there's plenty in religion you wouldn't want to specifically discount from government simply because religions support the ideas. Thall shall not kill, don't steal, etc. \n",
"The establishment clause doesn't say separation of church and state. What it says is that the state cannot establish a religion. \n\nThink about it from history. The Roman Catholic Church was established as the official church of Rome. The Anglican Church is the official church of England.\n\nIn America, there is no church which is considered the official church of the USA. It doesn't mean that people who work in government cannot be religious, or that politicians cannot make their decisions based on their own personal views.\n",
"Because:\n\n* Politicians aren't churches\n* The First Amendment guarantees freedom of expression\n* Congress has the absolute right to vote as it wishes\n* Checks and balances exist to prevent anyone from crossing the line\n* We have an election every two years",
"You misunderstand. The US government cannot support the establishment of a particular religion. Equally, politicians cannot vote to give rights or benefits only to Christians.\n\nThe establishment clause was written with King George and the Church of England in mind. It's the freedom of religion not from religion",
"Because voters are morons? ",
"I hate how ELI5 is full of thinly-veiled political statements like this. ",
" \"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof\"\n\nCitizens do not give up their rights because they become congressmen and congresswomen. In 1800, the folks see, they spoke differently than you and I did.... what it would translate to today: \"congress shall make no law REGARDING an establishment of religion.\" AKA, idiot RamblinMann: the original law was put in place to PROTECT the church from the state. Not visa versa. There is NO law saying that religion cannot influence politicians and their political beliefs. ",
" > Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view.",
"A better question is to wrap your head around the fact that church clergy can't open express a political belief or support/oppose any particular politician.\n\n\"free speech\"",
"Better yet, why are politicians allow to own businesses or have business interests in the areas that they affect with legislation? That is a direct conflict of interest. ",
"Its simple and can be completely unrelated to anything \"religious\":\n\nIf a candidate's views align with your perspectives, vote for them to represent you, if not, don't vote for that person.\n\nCandidate's perspectives are shaped by more than just their religion. \n\nIf no one shares your view, you're out of luck until enough other people come along with your same perspective and you have a unified voice. ",
"The Congresmen have a right to a religion of their choosing as well as a right to free speech. Just because they are elected officials doesn't mean they lose their rights.",
"There is nothing regarding the 'separation' of church and state in the Constitution, I suggest that you read it. What is guaranteed is that the government cannot establish an 'official religion' - which would effectively put all others into inferior or alienated positions. IE - The Church of England.\n\nThe separation to which you refer is never discussed.",
"i'm so glad to see so many know that there is no \"separation of church and state\" in the constitution. perhaps the education system in the U.S. isn't as bad as we've been led to believe.",
"The phrase \"Separation of church and state\" appears no where in the constitution.",
"The original purpose was to protect religious liberty, but, as traditional religion has waned, it's being widely reinterpreted as a justification for suppressing religious expression. ",
"It reads...\n\n\"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof\"\n\nThey may hold religious beliefs, speak them freely, and allow those beliefs to guide their actions. What they may not do is enact any law forcing anyone to practice or not practice any religion.",
"There isn't really separation of church and state so much as there's freedom of religion. Big difference. We can have religious people in office, so long as there's no official religion of the US, any laws that restrict practicing other religions, etc.",
"because your supposition is wrong. the establishment clause says nothing about separation of church and state - it only says the state can't establish one specific state religion.\n",
"Elected representatives are freely entitled by law to their own religious beliefs, including the free expression and exercise thereof. They are also free to conduct themselves, including in office, in accordance with those beliefs -- to the extent that that neither advances their given faith over others through the power of government, or infringes upon anyone else's. It is up to voters to decide if they want those people representing them and acting in that way. If enough voters think it's swell, then that's what we get.\n\nIf such a person votes against gay marriage based on their faith, that is their right, and it is also legal\\*. After all, they could in theory vote against it for any other reason at all. (\"I don't like any kind of marriage, and I won't support more of it.\" -or- \"I don't like rainbows.\" -or even- \"I don't like things that start with the letter 'g'.\") It is then up to others to decide if the legislation was constitutional or not, based strictly on *those* criteria.\n\nFor example: Suppose a majority of people in some state's legislature decide -- for religious reasons -- that persons over six feet tall should not be allowed to own property. And suppose even that a majority of that state's voting citizens agree, and elect more representatives who hold that view. And then they pass a law forbidding tall people from owning property. Now, some tall people decide to challenge that, and file suit in state court. A state court decides the law is unconstitutional (under the state's constitution), and overturns it. Next cycle the same legislature adopts a proposed amendment saying the same thing, and citizens roundly vote for it by referendum, thus enshrining the anti-tall provision in the state's constitution. State courts now have no choice but to throw out any challenge to it. So tall people now take it *federal* (District) court, where a federal judge rules that the state's constitutional provision violates the *U.S.* Constitution. The state appeals, and a Circuit court upholds the lower ruling. The state appeals again, and the Supreme Court decides not to hear it, letting the Circuit ruling stand as final. Now, other states in the same Circuit are subject to that same ruling, and if they also have anti-tall laws, they will soon be struck down by mop-up District rulings in those states.\n\nThe above is pretty much the story of DOMA in states in three Circuits. You can see how the judiciary cleaned up the mess that stupid legislatures and voting citizens created, motivated by their religious bigotry. The original bigotry is protected by law, as is the right to express it. What is *not* legal is advancing those ideas in ways that infringe on the civil liberties of others.\n\n\\* To clarify, a given measure might be illegal for other reasons, as seen here. But the *motive* is not illegal.\n",
"The basis of the separation of church and state is actually a little different from what you refer to in your question. What it really means is that instead of the religious leader of your town, country, or whatever also being the king or ruler, those two bodies are completely independent of each other. So instead of \"sinning\" by the standards of your religion and it also being a crime and punishable by the government, a sin and a crime according to governing law are not the same. An example of this today is sharia law in the Muslim world. What separation of church and state also implies is that the worst punishment a religious body can carry out is that of excommunication, bodily harm isn't allowed. \n\nIn response to your question politicians should really never make policies or vote based on their own personal belief. They are elected to represent the interests of those who elected them. ",
"In the body of the Constitution - there can be no religious test to hold office. For example, Congress cannot pass a law saying that only Protestants can be elected to office or that Jews may not be elected.\n\nIn the first amendment, free exercise of religion is guaranteed. A person is free to worship however they wish. The government may not establish a religion and force the people to worship in that way.\n\nYou may hear about \"a wall between church and state\". That phrase is in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a church congregation. It is not in any official document or law.\n",
"For the same reason an Atheist politician is allowed to proclaim they are an Atheist. No one is forcing people to stop believing; just like no one is forcing you to believe.\n\nIt all comes down to the fact that we live in a free country. You should be free to express yourself even if it offends, is vile, controversial, indecent, false or just stupid. Otherwise TLC'd have been off the air a decade ago. As long as you aren't harassing or threatening that is.\n\nMany people died for us to have the freedom to express ourselves religiously or not. Besides, don't you want to know what the person you vote for believes in? Trust me, there is not a politician alive who does not wish he could make himself loved by every single person they meet. It's why a lot of them get caught expressing 2 opposing views in front of 2 crowds. New Gingrich is a prime example. I think it is great to know who believes in various nonsense.\n\nSeparation of church and state has nothing to do with politicians making public stances on personal beliefs. It is about keeping our governments awash of religious pollution in policy and procedure. Politicians are allowed to talk religious beliefs, because that's where freedom of religion, expression and speech comes in. Your freedom is to analyze them talking about their beliefs and cast your vote accordingly."
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5aghb6 | why do statistically heavy set people have deeper voices than more average sized people? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5aghb6/eli5_why_do_statistically_heavy_set_people_have/ | {
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"Larger people tend to have have longer vocal cords. Longer vocal cords vibrate at a lower frequency. The lower the frequency you vibrate your vocal cords at, the deeper your voice is."
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5y3zjk | why cant anything have an entropy of 0 j/k? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y3zjk/eli5why_cant_anything_have_an_entropy_of_0_jk/ | {
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"Technically it is possible, it's just that if a molecule has no energy, it will be a negligible amount of time before it has energy again, even if it is only like 0.001 k"
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codsc3 | why can't someone produce cheap medicine like insulin? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/codsc3/eli5_why_cant_someone_produce_cheap_medicine_like/ | {
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"The insulins that were originally patented were incredibly simple compared to today's insulin analogs, and are in fact still available for relatively low prices, without a prescription. The newest insulins, which she the ones you hear Bernie Sanders and others going on about, are incredibly complex in comparison, still require prescriptions, and are fairly expensive in the US. \n\nSource: have been a type 1 diabetic for thirty five years, and have used every insulin in the market at one time or another.",
"They can. There are older forms of insulin that were used for ages that are much cheaper, but they aren't made/did in the US because pharmaceutical companies can't make as much money on them. [Article here](_URL_0_).\n\nSimilarly, for a lot of drugs, the companies spend huge amounts of money developing and testing them, so even if they're cheap to make, they charge a lot to get their investment back. That makes sense, but sometimes they charge a lot more just because they can.",
"Let's say you want to make an exact copy of a drug that is no longer covered by patents. It still takes millions upon millions of dollars to set up a factory, get your product certified & distribute it.\n\nAfter you've done all that, you're now in competition with somebody who has already spent all their money. If your only marketing angle is \"we're cheaper\", they can afford to drop their prices until you go bankrupt, at which point they can return their prices to where they started.\n\nYou see this exact same problem in many industries, like residential internet providers. Any industry with a high barrier to entry and deeply entrenched established competition makes it very hard for new players to enter the business and compete. If you're *only* competing on price, you'll lose. You have to be able to provide a superior product or service than they're capable of supplying to even have a shot.",
"There was an article today about a man who was using cheap insulin, in order to save for his wedding.\n\nHe died from using it.\n\nCheap products are not always safe.\n\nHowever, I don't understand how Naproxen can be free to junkies, but life saving meds like insulin and epipens cost extraordinary amounts.\n\nI'm diabetic. I can get a blood sugar monitor for under $25. The strips for testing? $200 and up. You know, I only need it to save my life. And that is MONTHLY"
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3n9flr | how will new gun laws prevent mass shootings? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n9flr/eli5_how_will_new_gun_laws_prevent_mass_shootings/ | {
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"I'm not taking a side here, just trying to answer your question:\n\nOften, guns are purchased legally and then resold illegally. You can look to Chicago for a good example of this, as traffickers commonly purchase guns legally in Indiana and resell them in Chicago. [(Source.)](_URL_0_) So, theoretically, restricting the sale of guns would limit/slow gun trafficking.\n\nNo one with any common sense is arguing that guns be banned completely, as that would be impossible without a constitutional amendment. But many are advocating for restrictions on how many guns can be bought at a time, what type of guns can be bought, how much ammo these guns can hold at a time, how extensive a background check is required, etc. ",
"That's the thing: banning guns won't prevent attacks. It will lower the number of attacks, but it won't stop them entirely. Many of the people calling for new gun laws aren't actually trying to ban guns, they're just trying to make it harder to get them legally. ",
"This is just an opinion many people have, and what you said is a good point to consider and could be a big issue.\n\nThere is no definitive ELI5 answer, but there are some notable differences:\n\n- Guns are bulky and hard to conceal. Whereas you may only need to transport a tiny sachet of powder in a shoe or something, gun smuggling requires massive boxes and is easily detected with metal detectors\n\n- Drugs can be taken discretely in a private premises, guns are noisy and generally used in public (for recreational shooting at a shooting range for example) so it is a lot harder to hide\n\nSo enforcing gun laws would be far easier. Also, most gun laws suggested are about regulation and safety - for instance, having more background checks and more responsible sales rather than just having assault rifles available at your local Walmart, not a full out ban as with drugs. This would mean there would be a very small market for illegal guns, as most people would probably be able to pass the background checks.\n\nSo in my opinion, enforcement would not be a big issue, or at least not as bad as with drug laws.\n\nAnother thing is most of these mass shootings seem to be opportunistic - people who are sadly isolated from society, abandoned or just loosing out who may have mental issues eventually reach a breaking point and since guns are so easy to access it is an obvious outlet.* These types of people probably wouldn't go through all the trouble to get an illegally sourced gun, so even an imperfect regulation where guns are still available illegally but with difficulty may still help a lot.\n\nThe bottom line is, with an average of 1 mass shooting a week since 2012 the USA needs to find a solution and regulation is the obvious choice. It's not a perfect solution but it would probably be effective, or at least better than the current system.\n\n*Not justifying at all, however it can explain it",
"Why do people always conflate \"new gun laws\" and gun control with outright banning guns? It doesnt have to be that extreme. We can put more restrictions on guns and make them harder for people to obtain while still allowing others to responsibly own them.",
" > How will new gun laws prevent mass shootings?\n\nIt won't! It can't.\n\nSo long as guns are legal and obtainable, criminals have more avenues to obtain capable weapons than the law has to stop them. A person has more determination than ink on paper.\n\n\"It's harder for criminals to get unregistered guns.\"\n\nDon't give a fuck, right here... You can be shot with a legally registered gun. The law missed the point but the bullet hit the mark... The problem isn't actually solved by a new and more restrictive gun law.\n\nThe problem is the law doesn't negate the will of a person who *wants to shoot people*. What law is gonna stop that? Make it hard for this guy to still get a gun, AND HE'S STILL GONNA GET A GUN.\n\nBut of course, it's easier for politicians to keep themselves busy and look like they're doing something useful by addressing a gun law as opposed to try to address real social issues that lead to shootings in the first place.",
"This won't answer your question, but I think any tighter guideline for obtaining and owning a gun will help, less with these mass shootings [I think there's a number of issues there, media behavior not least among them], and more with gun violence in general. There are staggering figures for gun related deaths in America, especially in inner cities. Creating harsher penalties for illegally owning a weapon, background checks for potential buyers - I think that's where any proposed laws would help most. ",
"Food for thought: black markets raise prices. If guns were 100% illegal in America, sure only the criminals would have them, but at least the poor criminals wouldn't. ",
"Answer? They won't...........................",
"I live in England. IIRC pistols are effectively banned, as is pretty much anything automatic/semi-automatic, and the only really common guns are shotguns, and that's pretty much with farmers. Also, only specialist armed police units have guns. \n\nHowever related it is, Britain has around a quarter the rate of firearm related deaths as America (2.26 per 100,000 people vs 10.64 for the USA). Also, I guess largely because police are far less likely to feel at risk of getting shot when there's barely any guns to get shot by, police shootings are tiny compared to America.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSo, I don't really know what in particular makes it work, but it definitely seems that it does.",
"[Meta] OP, this site is not the proper avenue to ask this question; you are going to get very biased answers and the answers you do get will predominately reflect the opinions on the liberal userbase that Reddit has. I'd recommend looking at academic research covering this topic instead.",
"I don't think they would. In the UK, WW2-era weapons regularly show up in criminal investigations. This is nearly 70 years after the war ended, and longer than that since people were widely allowed to own firearms without many questions asked.\n\nThe US is saturated with firearms. It might take a couple of centuries for all those weapons to become so dilapidated that they no longer work.\n\nBut as each year passes, with no new guns being sold, the probability of someone committing a mass shooting 'should' decrease.\n\nIn the UK we haven't had a mass shooting of serious note since all handguns were banned after the Dunblane massacre. It does not mean it won't happen again of course, but the ease at which someone can obtain any weapon is vastly reduced. Same as after the Hungerford massacre, when automatic weapons were banned.\n\nTrue, you can still do a lot of damage with a hunting rifle or shotgun as the killings in the Lake District proved, but these events are now very few and far between thankfully.\n\nWhile gins exist, someone will always use them in a bad way, just like many other things you could mention like drugs etc.",
"Illegal guns are hard to buy. You need to know dangerous people and they need to trust and respect you enough to not just rob you. If dangerous people respect you it means you are probably not a teenager that gets bullied and wants to shoot up school. ",
"I would pose a different but related question in the hopes of illuminating the answer to yours.\n\nHow many people are killed by hand grenades every year in the US? How about by nerve gas? Or by a loony flying an F-16? All of those are EXCEEDINGLY hard to get as a civilian. You can't have them, so when a loony looks around for tools for inflicting damage, those simply aren't available for use.\n\nIf we relaxed those laws, do you think those numbers would stay at zero, or go up?\n\nNow take guns. They are very easy to get. Lots of people die by them. If we worked to make them very hard to get, do you not think the number of deaths would drop?\n\nSomehow, stringent laws work to curb deaths by every other weapon we apply them to. That is why new gun laws would help prevent gun deaths. "
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217kgs | why are there no high profile painters/sculptors (michelangelo, da vinci) or artistic "movements" anymore? | Painting and sculpting seem to be a ancient art. I know people still do it, but how many paintings and sculptures come out nowadays that are heralded like the works of Da Vinci or Michelangelo. Also I'm sure there are still "movements" going on but nothing I can see being studied and documented the way movements like Impressionism or Realism are. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/217kgs/eli5_why_are_there_no_high_profile/ | {
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"Most of those 'high profile' artists were considered talented professionals in their day. After their death, their works became increasingly regarded.\n\nThere are many such talented professionals and artists today. Many of them will fade away after their deaths. But some of them will have their work regarded as exceptional, as their work resonates with the attitudes of future generations. These artists will have become the Da Vincis or Michelangelos of today.",
"As an added question, are there any artists today who could do as detailed and realistic marble sculptures?",
"One big reason why you're not seeing any big movements is because you're not paying enough attention to that group of people. Another is that it is very hard to see what a current movement is, it's usually easier to define something once it's over. \n\nIt also has a lot to do with the culture of today. The U.S. puts no value whatsoever in art, to be an artist is to be a poor nobody in our culture, I don't know what it's like in Europe but I feel that it is similar. Schools are quick to cut funding to art programs, and no one is taught to appreciate art for any of its other qualities other than \"being pretty\". \n\nRealism has been perfected, it's called hyper-realism and you can check that out. I personally don't consider it art, but rather a mastery of skill. \n\nThere are so many great works being created today, you just have to look for them. If you feel art is dead then help revive it, because I agree, today's art is a little stale, but it's not really the artists fault, it's humanity's lack of value it puts on its own soul.",
"It's kind of hard to tell whether something is a movement when you're in the middle of it, but we recently wrapped up modernism. Just 50 years or so ago, we had Picasso, Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, and a lot of other high profile painters/sculptors.\n\nI'm not sure what movement we are in, (Postmodern? Contemporary?) but we have Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, and a bunch of other super high profile artists. (When I say high profile, I mean high profile. Damien Hirst has made over a billion dollars selling art.)",
"To me, it feels like artists themselves have stopped caring about fitting into any sort of mould. Keep in mind that all throughout the Renaissance right through to the Baroque and other such art movements, these works were more often than not commissioned for a patron. Often times, the artist's individualism was pushed aside to create works specifically for the patron. Consequently, art patrons often sought to keep up with the so called 'trends' of their time which contributes to so many clearly defined art movements. Nowadays, it feels like artists are trying to get back their individuality and thus don't feel the need to fit into any sort of niche when it comes to a certain art movement. "
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6l0qlk | why is getting comfortable (slouching, laying in awkward positions, sinking in your chair, etc.) so bad for you but so comfortable at the same time? | Usually having perfect posture for most people is hard because it's uncomfortable. Shouldn't it be the other way around? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6l0qlk/eli5why_is_getting_comfortable_slouching_laying/ | {
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"Because sitting in the same position (upright) makes you sore after a while. I work in an office and do this a lot and it helps your back a lot."
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206vza | how does this not work? (picture in description) | Sorry for the terrible vagueness of the question
I've drawn this to help explain:
_URL_0_
brown is the floor, red is a normal rope
Why is is that if I were to sit on a rope and pull up on either end, I will remain on the ground, but if I sit on the same rope and someone comes along and pulls up on either end, I will be lifted into the air? Why am I not able to do this myself?
Or is this question better suited for r/askscience?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/206vza/eli5_how_does_this_not_work_picture_in_description/ | {
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"because the force you are exerting upward derives from within yourself. If you are up in the air, you have nothing to push down against to support yourself. Someone else, who remains standing on the ground, has something to push up against to defy the gravity pulling you down."
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1720yr | asteroids mining will begin eventually, what will be the consequence if earth quickly gains weight? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1720yr/eli5_asteroids_mining_will_begin_eventually_what/ | {
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"You have to realize how *large* earth actually is. The statistic that gets this across the most clearly is that if earth were a billiard ball, then Mt. Everest would not be large enough to disqualify the ball for competitive play. Mt. Everest is not big enough, when compared to the overall size of earth, to make a noticeable difference on its size. Earth's diameter: 12,756,200 meters. Mt. Everest: 8,848 meters. \n\nThe point of all that is that it would probably take millennia of constant work to mine enough materials to ever make a difference in earth's size or weight. ",
"Well, the consequence would be that would move into a different orbit. However since the earth is estimated to weigh 5.9736x10^24 Kg, it would take an awful lot of \"mined asteroid\" to have an effect. Keep in mind, our planet takes on extra-terrestrial matter all the time, in the form of falling meteorites and we're not going anywhere.",
"To add onto what Salacious said, earth is about ~~100x~~ 1000x-2000x the mass of the entire asteroid belt. If you take into account that we'll only mine some of it, some of it very slowly, the slow amount will be probably be done on places where we will leave some of our \"trash\" the difference in weight over a long time will be basically nothing.",
"The entire asteroid belt is somewhere around 0.1% of the mass of Earth. So even if you brought all of it down, it would only add a tiny bit to Earth's mass. Just adding mass to Earth will not change Earth's orbit around the Sun the slightest. That's because orbits don't depend on the mass of the orbiting body, as long as it's significantly smaller than the primary, which is the Sun in this case. Adding mass to Earth however would affect Moon's orbit, but a 0.1% increase in Earth's mass is going to cause only a very small change. Similarly it would have a tiny effect on all orbiting satellites. And the surface gravity of Earth would increase by 0.1%.",
"It is like adding not sand grains but atoms to a Mount Everest and asking did i make any difference yet.\n\nBesides earth takes on about 1000 tons of material in form of space dust every year which is also nothing compare to earth size. \n\nSo basically there's nothing to worry about. ",
"A different tack: Let's say every human needs an extra 100 tons of stuff. For ease of math, there are 10 billion humans, so that would be 1,000,000,000,000 tons of stuff. \n\nThe mass of the earth is 6,583,200,000,000,000,000,000 tons. \n\nTo make a 0,01% difference, every human would need to bring back 100,000,000 tons of stuff. And even that wouldn't really affect anything. ",
"You know how when you go outside in the fall and the leaves are falling everywhere? And some of them fall and stick to your jacket? And if it's on your back you don't even notice until that girl you have a crush on brushes it off and you smile and feel good inside and forget about the leaf? Yeah it's like that.",
"Cool science fact of the day: The distance the earth orbits from the sun does not depend on the mass of the Earth. so, assuming we can bring a large mass and the Earth together in a way that creates little change in momentum on the Earth, nothing really happens.\n\nI just realized this is ELI5 and not askscience. New tact:\n\nThere are a number of planets in the solar system (I won't say how many and start an argument). All of the planets move approximately in circles around the sun, called orbits. It may be obvious that they're all a different distance from the sun, this makes sense because otherwise they might bump into each other. What is less obvious is that they are all different sizes (different mass) and they all move at different speeds in their orbits.\n\nIf their distance from the sun depended on mass, we would expect that the heaviest planets would be closest (or furthest) and the lightest would be at the other end, with a smooth increase in the mass of the planets as you move either toward or away from the sun. However, this isn't the case the heaviest planet (Jupiter) is near the middle when listing the planets in order from the closest to the furthest from the sun! So it would seem that mass does not have a large role in determining how far from the sun a planet's orbit is.\n\nHowever, astronomers have observed that the more distant planets move more slowly than those closer to the sun. In fact, a couple hundred years ago some clever scientists developed some mathematical relationships which predict the speed of a planet based on how far it is from the sun.\n\nSo, increasing the mass of the earth wouldn't make it fall into the sun, or fly away either. UNLESS the mass was brought to the earth in such away that dramatically changed the speed at which it orbits.\n\nWhat's really cool is, because of some complex math which I don't feel like explaining right now (I might if people ask, and I can remember it) is that IIRC, even if we somehow changed earth's speed of orbit instantly, it would only change the shape of orbit (from an almost-circle to much more eliptical) and the earth would actually return to the same distance from the sun as originally once a rotation (which isn't necessarily still a year). Unless of course enough of a speed change was applied to escape the sun's gravity or to fall into the sun and die.\n\nSource: BSc in Physics\n\nI've ignored the rotation because a lot of the top comments were talking about that."
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72uuc6 | what do 'good acoustics' in a music venue/theatre actually mean or sound like? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/72uuc6/eli5_what_do_good_acoustics_in_a_music/ | {
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"This typically means that a performer on stage can be heard clearly from any seat in the house. \n\nThis is accomplished by carefully planning the construction of the venue by choosing the proper materials and the proper size and shape of the room. \n\nThere isn't a signature sound related to good acoustics other than being able to hear the performer clearly even without the aid of a PA system. \n\n",
"One measure is the \"reverberation time\" or \"reverb time\", a measure of how fast the sounds die away due to factors like absorbtion or echos. Speech becomes less intelligible the longer the time is but music can sound dead of thin if it dies away too quickly.\n\nSome new concert halls have adjustable panels that can be moved to tune the reverberation of the hall to the type of performance.\n\nHere's a graphic of the range of values and their effects.\n\n_URL_0_"
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2k9vvo | why do you multiply 1/3 to height x area to get the volume of a pyramid? | It's been bugging me since back when I learned it and it's killing me now that I think back on it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k9vvo/eli5_why_do_you_multiply_13_to_height_x_area_to/ | {
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"the pyramid has the same volume with the point in the center as it would if you pushed the point into one of the corners (so that the pyramid has two vertical sides) and three of those fit together to form a rectangular cuboid whose volume is base X height. see [this](_URL_0_). it doesn't require calculus though that is one way to derive the formula."
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"http://korthalsaltes.com/model.php?name_en=three+pyramids+that+form+a+cube"
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1q2edl | why we don't paint on our airplanes like we did during wwii | I recently saw some WWII planes and I saw the unique, pin up, and fighter style designs. What changed from when that was okay do to, and now it doesn't?
EDIT: I realized I used "us" to refer to the Americans, I forgot that Reddit is a global website, my apologizes. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q2edl/eli5_why_we_dont_paint_on_our_airplanes_like_we/ | {
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"It's not considered politically prudent to appear to be wanting to go to war or enjoying it.",
"For one thing, some modern combat aircraft are designed for reduced radar cross section (i.e. stealth) and part of that is specific paint. It would kind of suck if the hot pinup girl on your F-22 doubled its radar cross section.",
"You can still do some painting but with Public Relations and political correctness. You can't do anything potentially offensive anymore. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nSo you get some nerdy stuff and lots of mouths and teeth.",
"The USAF now has female fighter pilots, for one thing, so pinups don't go well with contemporary social attitudes, especially in a government organization like the military.\n\nNot just embellishment, but camouflage schemes are more thorough. In modern \"low-visibility\" schemes, even the red white and blue insignia is done in just black and gray. "
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8angrj | up until about ten years ago, people in photos taken with flash almost always came out with red eyes, but now you never see people with red eyes in pictures - what happened? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8angrj/eli5_up_until_about_ten_years_ago_people_in/ | {
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"The red-eye effect is caused by the camera flash reflecting off the back of the subject's eyes. Newer cameras and phones have special lights and sensors that prevent this.",
"Red-eye reduction. The red is light reflecting off your retina. The flash blinks twice. First one makes your pupil react and contract. 2nd flash then there isn't as much 'red' to see anymore.",
"Two things really happened.\n\nFirst, the way flashes happen is engineered to give the eyes time to close the pupils, reducing the reflection. This is both the color and quality of the light, and the flickering that occur before the photo is taken.\n\nSecond, the software now involved in nearly every photo-taking device recognizes red-eye and can mask it out.\n\nYou can still get red-eye, especially on older cameras, with unsophisticated flash, and if you use film.",
"One way of reducing red-eye is with a pre-flash before the actual picture. The flash before the picture is taken makes the pupils get smaller, since it's a bright light. Since the eye opening is smaller, less light from the real flash gets reflected back to the camera, so there's less red-eye. The downside is that this often makes people's eyes close for the actual picture. "
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24azfc | how do we get a specific sickness more than once? wouldn't we build up an immunity after the first time we got it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24azfc/eli5_how_do_we_get_a_specific_sickness_more_than/ | {
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"We generally *do* build up an immunity. But many things that we tend to think of as \"a specific sickness\" aren't actually specific. For instance, there are hundreds of different cold viruses, and they keep mutating every year. Likewise, there are dozens of flu variants, and they mutate, too. So you can catch a different cold or flu every year.",
"Generally, viruses and bacteria mutate based on treatments they encounter. So in truth, although your symptoms are the same, you are encountering a different pathogen."
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324cdr | how come any time you see depictions of early humans/cavemen, they're never shown as having long beards, even though they didn't have any razors at the time? | I know they had rudimentary stone tools, but i wouldn't think anything capable of giving a close shave...or that that would even be something they thought of doing. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/324cdr/eli5_how_come_any_time_you_see_depictions_of/ | {
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"They are. A google search for \"Neanderthal\" (different species I know, but still) shows figures with facial hair.",
"Artistic license. I would trim a long beard if I had to hold it between two stones I was rubbing. [Obsidian](_URL_0_) can be used to make very sharp edges. I would not go for a close shave.",
"Of course they weren't clean shaven. But even with primitive tools, you can trim your beard at reasonable lenghts.",
"If the intention is to give a scientific representation of what they looked like, then not including facial hair makes sense since it would obscure facial features/ jawline and so forth",
"Captain Caveman had quite an impressive beard.",
"I can overstate how much artistic license is taken with the depiction of early humans and Neanderthals. Considering the variety of living hunter-gatherer cultures: their representations of men, women, and children as well as the variety of clothes, rituals, traditions, body modifications, tools - why then are early humans and Neanderthals almost universally depicted in one way?\n\nIn fact the [\"man the hunter - women the gatherer\"](_URL_1_) model is largely discredited as being widely narrow in its conception. Modern hunter gatherer societies are largely equalitarian, with all group members sharing in the wealth, power, prestige as well as responsibilities that make a group function. I am not saying that men hunting and women gathering cultures do not or did not exist, but rather that there is a much greater diversity of human cultures and their organization, than the general public is led to believe. Even the name \"caveman\" is an error, a [characterization of early humans by the media](_URL_3_). Most early humans didn't live in caves but [built shelters](_URL_4_), even [houses](_URL_0_) and were nomadic moving from place to place. \n\nFor example, one of the biggest egregious errors that is often repeated by artists is the concept that [men] hunters would take down large wild beasts like mammoths or rhinos - we see it depicted again and again just google \"caveman hunting\". [In reality, big game hunts like those are by and large unsuccessful, and very rare.](_URL_5_) Among modern hunter-gatherers most of their food and nutrition comes from gathered food (70-90%) and the rest from hunted food. This hunted food is mostly small game like rabbits, fish, birds, or deer - not large beasts fighting to the death in some epic final scene. \n\nAnother example involves tool use: there is no actual way to know if a tool that is found among an archeological site was used by a man or women (or even child) why then in most depictions are men the ones universally wielding the tools? In modern hunter-gatherer societies both men and women hunt and use tools, even among our ape cousins (chimpanzees and bonobos) females are more likely to learn how to use a novel tool and teach other females how to use that tool than males. I am arguing that a more fair representation of early human cultures would have everyone in the group doing a variety of tasks with a variety of tools. \n\nAnyway the point I am trying to make is that there is considerable artistic license being taken with the depiction of early humans and Neanderthals and it goes beyond how beards are drawn or placed. As others have stated, early humans and neanderthals certainly had sharp tools, sharp enough to cut hair, but probably not precise enough to create patterns or styles. [Or maybe they could? Video of modern man shaving with obsidian](_URL_2_) Even if one culture did cut their beards or styled their hair it doesn't mean all cultures did this. Take the representations of these early people with a grain of salt.\n\nEdit: added sources",
"Some american Indians cannot grow facial hair or chest hair. Maybe genetics had something to do with it.",
"Our closest relatives, chimps and other apes, don't have long flowing facial hair. Maybe long beards evolved after upright walking and tool use.",
"They weren't rudimentary at all. That's a common myth. Obsidian stone blades are STILL sharper than any man made metal we have today. The most advanced surgical blades we have today aren't as sharp. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Would a cave man have lived long enough to grow a decent beard? Some people don't get much growth until well into their 20s/30s, and cave men can't have lived much longer than their late 20s.",
"In very cold climates, a beard could trap moisture that would then freeze. Avoiding frostbite to the face was a good reason to shave with a sharp rock.",
"They had very, very sharp cutting tools. Flint was traded over long distances since the earliest times and apart from obsidian you cannot get a better edge than good flint. Metal tools ? Under a microscope they look like dull saw blades compared to flint and obsidian.\n"
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"http://acanadiannaturalist.net/2012/11/06/woman-the-hunter/",
"https://youtu.be/QWSTE6WLB0Y",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveman",
"http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/%7Efisher/hst205/readings/images/prehistoric/MammothBoneHouse.html",
"http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/gurvenhill2009.pdf"
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349ci7 | if at the start of our life we have just a few cells with exactly the same dna, and those cells divide to make exactly the same cells with exactly the same dna inside them, how do we end up with complex bodies comprising vastly different kinds of cells? (nerve cells, muscle cells etc.)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/349ci7/eli5_if_at_the_start_of_our_life_we_have_just_a/ | {
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"To simplify a complicated process that I don't fully understand:\n\nAs we develop, our bodies create hormones and proteins, which tell cells in certain parts of our body to take on certain roles. As embryos, most of our bodies are basically stem cells, which can be coaxed into turning into specific types of cells. A change in protein, and all of a sudden, your body doesn't know when to stop building your spinal cord, or how many muscles it's supposed to make.\n\nSo, while all our cells have the same DNA, they can change and morph to specific tasks, given the right stimuli.\n\nThink of it like a set of computers, that all have the same hardware, but different operating systems. Or maybe they all had a fresh install of the same operating system, but they were all given different tasks to carry out.",
"The process of making new DNA is not perfect. By accident, sometimes an amino acid will be added in or taken away or repeated. This mutation will change how the cell behaves. If the cell has a \"bad\" mutation, then it will die off and won't be able to be reproduce. If a cell has a \"good\" mutation it will be able to reproduce and keep reproducing for a long time. This creates a situation where over time, better and better cells keep being bred. This is basically natural selection. ",
"Every cell has all the DNA. (This is a simplified statement, reality is more complicated) First the replication mechanism is turned on. The cells divide. There is now a ball of cells. Cells on the outside are in a different environment than those inside. All DNA was being copied. But most genes were not activated.Now more genes are being activated. But not the same ones for all the cells.More growth occurs. More cells form. Embryologists have studied this and identified the phases.\n\nCells in different areas of the embryo have different genes turned on. The cells are differentiated. The cells will continue to differentiate with different genes turned on and off as the body develops.\n\nSomewhere along this differentiation path the cells lose their ability to become anything in the body. Their destiny is fixed. They still retain all the DNA but many genes will never become activated. Eventually genes are activated which say stop growing. This is needed. We do not need to grow continuously taller. The stopping of growth is as important to life as the growth itself.\n\nHow this occurs is still mostly unknown. But we have decoded our DNA and understand how proteins are formed. There will be more understanding as time goes on because the scientific method is self correcting. Scientists do not pretend to know something because it was proclaimed centuries ago by someone with less knowledge of the universe."
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20e21i | why is the origin of the basque language, [out of southern france/ northern spain], so hard to identify? | There have been various suggestions however no definitive root of this language and the sound of this language [To me a Japanesey-Spanish] sounds intriguing... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20e21i/eli5_why_is_the_origin_of_the_basque_language_out/ | {
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"I'm not sure what you're actually asking.\n\nBasque appears to be a unique language completely unrelated to any other still-existing European language. Linguists therefore suspect it's derived from one of the older, now lost, proto-Indo-European languages, possibly due to the Basque people's relative social and physical isolation."
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38byme | why do directors wear berets? | I've seen this on multiple directors in multiple countries. Why is this happening? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38byme/eli5_why_do_directors_wear_berets/ | {
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"Partly it is down to it almost being part of the uniform, part of it is practicality. You need something that will keep the rain and sun off, won't blow away in the wind and won't make any noise on set a beret or cap generally is the only headgear that fits those conditions.",
"Director here:\n\nThere is no artistic or practical reason for a beret. It's purely a stylistic choice, albeit one associated by way of \"it's a bit French\" with ideas of culture and sophistication.\n\nAfter some light googling and thinking of famous French directors, none of them wore berets that much ironically. Googling \"Director beret\" brings up a lot of Francis Ford Coppola images. Man loved a beret in the '70s. \nWhen we hit the '80s and 90's the trend became baseball caps - look at Spielberg for instance. \n\nAs a director, you're often outside at the mercy of the elements. A cap can keep your head warm, and the sun out of your eyes. A beret does neither of these things so serves no practical purpose. \n"
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5w71gm | would someone with high blood pressure benefit from controlled blood loss? would blood pressure decrease enough to be worth it? | I donate blood often, and I don't see any noticeable effects from losing a pint of blood every eight weeks or so. How much does blood pressure go down after a donation, and is it worth donating just for that reason? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5w71gm/eli5_would_someone_with_high_blood_pressure/ | {
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"text": [
"Blood pressure is not about the static pressure of a certain amount in a container. It's about the effort needed to drive it round your blood vessels like through the pipes of a central heating system where near-blockages are bad."
]
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3moiwp | smartphone antennas and their signal emmision, (bonus: smartphones with traditional antenna? is that a thing?) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3moiwp/eli5_smartphone_antennas_and_their_signal/ | {
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"text": [
"Smartphones have antennas, but they're wholly contained in the case itself. Basically, with the number of cell towers in most areas, the slight boost in reception that could be gained from an external antenna isn't worth the extra bulk, especially as cell antenna are unidirectional."
]
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3nxrxd | when one has a head cold and one of their nostrils is clogged up..why is that when they turn their head, it suddenly clears up within seconds? | I currently have a head cold and only one of my nostrils is ever clogged. But when I turn my head the opposite way of the nostril, it suddenly clears up and I can breathe normally. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nxrxd/eli5_when_one_has_a_head_cold_and_one_of_their/ | {
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"text": [
"The congestion is caused by mucus in the sinuses. So, when you tilt your held, the mucus flows, or moves relative to gravity. Hence, the nostril that's up becomes clear.",
"Do note that congestion is also commonly a byproduct of vasodilation in the nose's blood vessels. In other words, your blood vessels are wider than normal and this swelling up makes the nasal passage smaller.\n\nWhen you turn, the blood in the vessels can flow to the other side. Mucus flowing from one nostril to the other does *not* influence congestion, and that kind of flow typically doesn't occur; it either goes back down your throat or out your nose, rarely between. \n\nIf you're looking for temporary relief, you can push the blood back for a few seconds by pinching the nose/closing the mouth and trying to blow air out (but instead, increase pressure). Or you can get one of those nasoconstrictor sprays like Afrin or other brands for longer relief."
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66xisn | aren't electric cars still using fossil fuels? | Since most electricity (~85% in US) comes from burning of fossil fuels, wouldn't electric cars using the electricity be using fossil fuels? Is it significantly more efficient to use the fossil fuels burned at the power plant instead of gasoline in a car? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66xisn/eli5_arent_electric_cars_still_using_fossil_fuels/ | {
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"Yes, electric cars will still be using energy that's ultimately derived from fossil fuels for the most part, but as you guessed, the tiny engine in an automobile is significantly less efficient than the enormous turbines and other equipment used in power plants. As well, power plants have a lot more (and more effective) pollution-mitigation equipment than a car does, so even if the power plant were equally efficient, it would still produce less pollution.",
"Looking at the energy going in and out alone, electric cars are between 50-70% efficient. The worst offenders for traditional power generation are coal plants, which are in the neighborhood of 20% efficient (with nuclear, gas and solar being superior, anywhere from 30-50%). Though a great advantage for electric is that it isn't picky where the power comes from. If you're from Washington state where 70% of your power comes from hydroelectric, the electricity itself is very efficient (~90%) and low pollution.\n\nGasoline and diesel-powered cars are anywhere from 10-30% efficient at converting the chemical energy stored in the fuel into vehicle motion. Trucks that regularly spend most of their lives at optimal highway speeds can reach 40%."
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4rgs1e | why do people who have screws suddenly have pain in their limbs when it rains? | Something with the change in atmospheric pressure? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rgs1e/eli5_why_do_people_who_have_screws_suddenly_have/ | {
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"See [these previous posts on roughly the same topic.](_URL_0_)"
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2f1z9j | do people with mental diseases know they have it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f1z9j/eli5_do_people_with_mental_diseases_know_they/ | {
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"Depends on the disorder. For example, a person with OCD usually would, but a person with paranoid schizophrenia most likely wouldn't. \n\nPeople with personality disorders like borderline and narcissistic personality disorders are notorious for not realizing their behavior isn't normal as well.",
"Sometimes people's brains are sick. Sometimes they know and sometimes they don't, but it's always okay to ask for help if you feel you or someone else needs help. There's all kinds of doctors in the world and people with sick brains go to see brain doctors to help them.\n\nThis is exactly how I explained mental illness to my 5yo sister (I was 15) when we witnessed a relative of mine showing symptoms of schizophrenia.",
"Some do, some don't. It varies by condition.",
"I have chronic depression, had it my whole life. I used to self sabotage my life and then crawl out of the hole i dug and do it all over again. I started dating a girl who recognized it for what it was and I went to a doctor to get medication. Now i am functional but still depressed. It does help me knowing that it is just chemicals in my head causing it and I just ride it out during the low periods now that I'm aware. The worst symptom though is the social anxiety, never goes away even though I'm aware its irrational.",
"Bipolar (among some other things) here. I always suspected I might be different. I was diagnosed and prescribed a lovely cocktail of drugs. It wasn't until they started working that I realized how off I had been. Apparently other people didn't grow up thinking the power rangers were always watching them. Through a second story window, in a dark closet, in the shower. As I got older it wasn't the power rangers, of course. Just people, always watching. The Truman show still terrifies me. I couldn't distinguish reality from daydreams. I would zone out for hours. I realized I wasn't an honest person. Not intentionally, but because I legitimately would think things had happened the way I imagined them. There's so much more. I literally saw a completely different reality a lot of the time. I don't know. So to answer, I did think there was something wrong for most of my life. I just didn't know how seriously until a few months ago.",
"A depression sufferer here. I didn't recognise it until people started to point it out. By then I was deep into planning my suicide. Was highly functional, successful and saw no value in continuing to live. Now I'm aware and can catch the signs",
"A student at the college I used to work for had a form of mental illness that manifested as visual hallucinations, usually with auditory components. I never met him, my friend was his teacher. Apparently he was completely non-violent, but prone to hallucinating people being mean to him and talking badly about him, and getting depressed about it.\n\nHis remarkably clever way of working around it was to carry his mobile phone with him everywhere, and then set it to record on any occasion where he thought maybe the input was ...not quite right. He'd discovered that if he looked back and forth between the hallucination and the camera screen, the visual hallucinations didn't carry through to the phone. \n\nIt allowed him to sort out fact from fiction: guy standing in front of you isn't visible on the phone? Not real; ignore him.\n\nAmazingly clever as that approach was, I really hope he eventually found some medication that worked for him, because that's got to be an emotionally exhausting way to live your life.",
"The fancy word for it is anosognosia and it can be a real problem when people go off their meds. They stop realizing they need them.. \n\nWhen some bipolar 1's (the kind that get full mania) get manic enough they don't believe anything is wrong with them. I had a friend who went off his Abilify, went manic, and thought he was enlightened. He didn't think anything was wrong with him and didn't think he needed his meds. He enjoys his manias - they're euphoric and he has great psychedelic, really interesting delusions. Like how he was going to bring about the singularity by having amazing sex with the perfect woman on top of a Muni bus in the middle of a street protest with the crowd cheering him on. It's hard for him to give that up and stay on his meds. When he's in a normal state of mind he realizes he's bipolar and needs to be on meds, but not so much when he's off them and goes manic. I managed to talk him into going back on his meds, which was amazing.\n\nAnother friend, who has been alternately diagnosed as schizoaffective/bipolar and paranoid schizophrenic, went off his meds because he thought he was fine. Without the meds he thought his real problem was that the NSA and the people at Bohemian Grove were messing with him, reading his email and altering his credit report. He lost his job and ended up in the hospital for three weeks before he went back on his meds again. On his meds he's back to his old, charming self. But if he ever goes off them again...\n\n",
"I have bipolar and in my younger years I had no idea I was ill. I just knew there was something different about me. But I eventually came to realize that, that something different about me was illness. Just recently I was transitioning from one medication to another and I found myself in a manic state. I know that state very well, have been there many times. I remember when I was younger and went untreated I had no idea it was a manic state, it didn't cross my mind that it was in any way out of the ordinary. \n\nMy brother is schizophrenic and has absolutely no idea of that fact, yet he continually has auditory hallucinations. We have tried to get him to get evaluated and thinks we are the crazy ones. This may not answer your question but I hope it does shed some light on mental illness for those who are curious. Peace out. ",
"Anxiety/anxiety leading to depression/slight OCD - People tell you sometimes you aren't normal. Or react weird to little things. You see things and make connections that they seem too slow to get. Obviously, if someone changed the setting on my chair at work, someone is at my desk when I am not there. If someone is there when I'm not, then they have the potential of messing up my organization and causing me to miss things. So, to keep my desk working at maximum, keep people out of it. My boss would only hear someone sat in my chair and I don't like it. \n\nFrustrating is people saying 'just let it go'. But from the time I could think I could never just let something go. For days it would niggle at me. I would be upset and in a dark cloud of bubbling tension until it would slowly fade away.\n\nBut like people would grew up in abuse you don't know life can be different until it is. How you are currently thinking is what you know and therefore normal to you. It takes a willingness to look at yourself from the outside (what talk therapy can help accomplish) and being open to new thought processes, different techniques to handling stress, and possibly medication to be able to deal with a mental illness. But a lot of people go on and lead lives without knowing it could be different. \n\nThe biggest thing I wanted to stress is that a person may not know any differently than what they have grown up with; so how could they be expected to notice a mental illness when it has always been there?"
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7iletf | why aren’t all food jars manufactured to be as easy to open as a plastic salsa jar? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7iletf/eli5_why_arent_all_food_jars_manufactured_to_be/ | {
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"The hard-to-open ones are typically glass jars that use both a vacuum seal and a heat-set plastic or wax layer under the cap. These form a very secure seal for items meant to last on the shelf for up to years without any risk of contamination/disease. By contrast, plastic salsa jars are typically meant for short-term use inside a refrigerator.",
"Food in thin plastic bottles has not been pressure-canned. These foods always have a low PH (they are acidic) which inhibits botulism growth. The food is bottled at a temperature than kills all bacteria (but not botulism spores)--near the melting point of the plastic. Salsa is one such acidic food. Many foods that are not naturally acidic have some sort of acid (citric acid, etc) added to lower the PH, such as garlic paste.\n\nFoods with a more neutral PH or a higher PH (caustic) can allow botulism spores to germinate and multiply. These foods have to be canned at a temperature of 250 F, under pressure. This is the only way to kill botulism spores. So the packaging has to be strong enough to withstand air pressure once it cools off and a vacuum forms inside the package, and the lid has to be sealed well enough to keep any air from sneaking in and bringing bacteria or botulism spores with it.\n\nThese lids on strong, vacuum-canned packaging can be difficult to remove because they use a sealing agent that is essentially acting as an adhesive."
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a2kiyu | why do phone manufacturers let their customers set the date and time on their phones to before the phone's manufacturing date? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a2kiyu/eli5_why_do_phone_manufacturers_let_their/ | {
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"Why would they put even a second of thought or effort into preventing that?\n\nThere is no harm in doing that. It doesn't hurt the device and there is no reason the company would care.",
"There are standards in the industry for timekeeping. I can't remember how this one goes but pretty much it started at all 0s, and counts up by 1 for each second that's passed since I think January 1 1970... Probably wrong on the date but if you Google \"the 2038 problem\" it's about this specific timekeeping standard.\n\nAnyway, they pick a particular standard and just use it because it works, no need to reinvent the wheel. And by having some standardised timekeeping function it's easier than having to program the Date of Manufacture into all the chips as they're made because you have to keep changing the programming all the time, better to just use a standard format and allow the phone to update itself when it connects to a tower for the first time.",
"Why not?\n\nTo make the impossible you need to store the manufacturing date in the cellphone and to my knowledge it is not stored in the as it is not needed for anything. You could add some code so you could snot the time to before the date of the compilation but that is extra work.\n\nAndroid phone are based on Linux that used UNIX time stamps as system time. That has the 0 as 1 January 1970 and measure time in second from that so that is the it the earliest date you can use on android. \n\n\n\nMacOS is based on BSD that is UNIX and iOS is based on MacOS so I guess that the same format is used on that OS. So the date limit might be the same but I don't have a device to test it on.\n\n\nThe max yeas in my phone is 2037. It is 32 bit android and the max date for a 32 bit signed timestamp is 3:14:08 on 19 January 2038 but the code is stops at 2037 likely because it is simple to use limit it the the last year where all days can be selected so you do not need to check for max and min.\n\nI suspect that the code look at what date timestamp of 0 is and one for max of the type of the timestamp. For 64 bit android the max date is in 292 billion years so you might be able so scroll the date as long as you like or the limit might be year 9999 if there is a 4 digit limit.\n\nSo the codes hade make one simple way so you can set a valid year Any limit to manufacturing or complication date of the code of the code complicate thing and add code interdependence and is deemed unnecessary. Computer usually do not have a date limit either and cellphones is computers.",
"Testing. \n\n\nEvery feature in a phone must be tested to ensure it works. And a feature which changes based on the date of manufacture is hard to test. The automated tests may be created (and tested!) on simulators long before the final hardware design is complete -- and you don't want to have to update the tests as your ship date slips, or because your phone happens to go through yet another production run. \n\n\nAlso one set of software may run on multiple hardware platforms -- and so you'd have to vary your tests based on what hardware is being tested on that day. That's a pain, for a minuscule gain. Not worth the trouble."
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18j1fn | how the american road naming system works | I'm an Arab hopefully going to study in the US soon. For the life of me, I can't understand naming roads like 12th and Springsteen. Is that the name of 1 street. Is it the name of a block? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18j1fn/eli5_how_the_american_road_naming_system_works/ | {
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"When someone says \"X and Y\", that's the point where road X and road Y cross each other.",
"12th and Springsteen would refer to where two roads cross (12th Street, and Springsteen St).\n\nEvery city has different ways of naming streets. In some cities, streets have haphazard names to do with history or other reasons, but a name is just that. Some cities use numbers, so if you know you're on 1st Street to get to 5th Street you'll need to walk by 2nd, 3rd and 4th first.\n\nSome cities use xxx-Street for roads that go north-south and xxx-Avenue for roads that go east-west.\n\nStreet, road, avenue, boulevard and others are generally interchangeable words.\n\nBuildings are numbered sequentially along streets. All the even numbers are on one side and the odd ones are on the opposite. If you're walking along and you see that you're at 100 John St but have a meeting at 265 John St, you know that your destination is on the other side of the road, and you need to walk in the direction in which the numbers are increasing.\n",
"Named streets are completely random in most places. In places that have numbered streets, there's generally a 'meridian' - a line at which the numbers start from. Even when streets aren't numbered, building numbers follow this order. You have them continuously increasing going in one direction, with odd numbers on one side of the street and even numbers on others.\n\nIn many cities, there are two meridians, creating a grid, and roads are named North West, North East, South West, South East based on their location related to that.\n\nWhen you have numbered streets, the building number sticks to this grid numbering. \"1200 Jones Street\" would be just after 12th and Jones and 1300 would be a block past that.\n\nIt's inconsistent between cities/counties but many places have a system by which street, place, drive, avenue (or other words) are consistently applied to roads going North/South and East/West inside of them.",
"On top of what everyone else has said, there is a style of road called \"Interstates\". These are federal highways, generally used for long distance travel. They are typically multiple lanes wide, with higher speed limits, and no traffic lights (they go over or under regular roads and you only exit every few miles). \n\nEven numbered interstates run east-west and odd numbered ones run north-south. Numbering starts in the southwest portion of the country, and they are frequently referred to \"I-XX\" where XX is their number. All major interstates are 2 digits, but there are 3 digit interstates which are loops or spurs serving cities. The 3 digit interstates share the final two digits with the major interstate they are spurs off of.\n\nFor example, I live in Boston, MA, which has one end of I-90. I-90 ends over 3000 miles (almost 5000 km) west in Seattle, Washington. I-95 also passes by Boston, and you can take it all the way south to Miami, Florida (about 3000 km down the East Coast). There is a loop that circles around the Boston metro area and connects with I-95 twice (once north of the metro and once south). This is called 495 and for a bunch of people makes it easier to get to I-95.\n\n**TLDR**: If you're going anywhere far, you're going to take an interstate to get there.",
"Here's the thing man: All of the advice in this thread *really, really, depends* on what city you're in. A lot of US cities are less than 150 years old. For these young cities, there's a pretty good chance that somebody sat down at some point and planned out how it was going to be laid out. Those cities tend to have some kind of pattern or plan like all the stuff people are talking about. But the pattern varies from city to city. \n\nAnd if you're in one of the older cities, there's no real plan at all. You just have to learn your way around. And some cities are half and half --- even Manhattan, which is famous for its grid, the streets are a lot more random below 14th st (which is the oldest part of the city). \n\nSo until you know where you're gonna be, it's hard to give good advice --- the way buildings are numbered or the way streets are named varies a lot from place to place (not all Avenues run east west, etc.). \n\nThe stuff about odd and even numbers being on opposite sides of the street and intersections being named by which streets cross is pretty universal, though. ",
"Great to hear you may visit us soon. There is lots of good information here. One other thing to keep in mind, if you find a part of a city where the roads don't seem to make sense, you will probably find a body of water or a railroad line in the vicinity. \n\nRailroads were the earliest form of mass transit, so they tend to break up normal street patterns as they were there first. Water is a natural barrier, so again it breaks up the planned street pattern.\n\nBoth railroads and water are expensive to cross, so they prevent easy travel. ",
"Odd numbered freeways run North/South and even numbered ones run East/West. After that it seems pretty damn random. "
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5uz168 | why did fully wireless earphones/earbuds take so long to reach the market, when those quirky bluetooth headsets have been around for so long? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uz168/eli5_why_did_fully_wireless_earphonesearbuds_take/ | {
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"The wireless package has been around for quite a while already. The problem was battery life and size. Newer technology allows for long enough battery life to last a day of listening. I had wireless ones 5 or 6 years ago and they only last 4hrs.",
"A big part of the problem was and still is that the buds need to receive a stereo signal at exactly the same time. The phone being in your pocket on one side of your body is enough to throw that off.\n\n_URL_0_",
"For a long time, bluetooth audio streaming was not good enough. It would use massive amounts of power consumption in relativity to the range of operation - and would be interfered by lots of things. It wasn't until bluetooth 3 and 4 that it really got better, and added functionality for multiple device connection (ie, connecting your phone via bluetooth to the headset and at the same time your computer or another phone, or even a second pair of headphones)\n\nThe audio quality still isn't all there, in my opinion. At a rate of 25MB/s, one would think that it would be able to stream at lossless audio quality - but almost every bluetooth audio device i've seen implements some form of audio dithering (reducing the bitrate to make it smaller and easier on the network) before sending it out via bluetooth wireless protocol.\n\n*Edit - spelling/grammar*",
"Bluetooth is not \"broadcast\" where the signal is available for anything listening. It is a two-way \"conversation\" which is why you need to \"pair\" your phone/source to your listening device. In short, two Bluetooth devices doing the same thing with the same source at the same time involves at least moderate difficulties beyond making two clones of the same device. As others have mentioned this was not actually possible until later revisions. "
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2k735d | how do cemeteries work? when you buy a plot can you do whatever you want with it? if the cemetery falls into disrepair does it breach a contract? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k735d/eli5how_do_cemeteries_work_when_you_buy_a_plot/ | {
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"You only have the rights granted to you by whatever agreement you sign with the cemetery. Generally, there are two rights: the right of the deceased to be buried there, and the right of the family to visit and prevent its desecration.\n\nCemeteries are required to maintain the plots and could probably suffer criminal and civil penalties if they fail to do so negligently or maliciously.",
"Cemeteries are typically required by law to have an endowment large enough to maintain the plots based the return it earns.\n\nThat is part of the reason plots are so expensive...you aren't just buying land, you are putting enough money in an account so the interest has be used to keep that plot up indefinitely."
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2q0fj2 | why can your mouth tolerate hotter food than your hands? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q0fj2/eli5why_can_your_mouth_tolerate_hotter_food_than/ | {
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"As someone that worked as a dishwasher once upon a time, my hands can tolerate a whole bunch more heat than my mouth. ",
"It can't. It just feels like it can. Tissues burn at the same rate throughout the body.",
"Your hands are typically not covered with liquid. Your mouth is typically covered with saliva. Saliva provides at least a modicum of protection against burning.",
"I don't think this is true. In fact your hands can tolerate a lot more heat than the test of your body. Try turning the water up slightly hottet than usual next time u shower and stick different parts of your body into the stream.",
"It can?? I find my hands are more able to deal with hot things than my mouth...",
"Humans can't detect absolute temperature, we can only perceive differences relative to whatever body part were feeling them with. Your mouth tends to be a lot warmer than your hands, so things will seem to be several degrees cooler. "
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34hscg | why is it so hard for the us to get 5%of the vote to a third party candidate? | Like I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012 because I was told if he pulled 5 percent, the party he ran under would be able to pull funds out of the presidential campaign grant the next election. Is that how it works?
So how come we can't see a 5% number? Is it voter apathy? Do people just vote party lines? Does this have anything to do with that fancy gerrymandering people always talk about? Or are the candidates not attractive to the voters?
So... ELI5. When is my change coming? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34hscg/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_for_the_us_to_get_5of_the/ | {
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"Because when you are voting for a third-party candidate, that usually means you are throwing your vote away. That candidate isn't going to win. He may get 5% or 10% or 20 even. That's still not enough. Meanwhile, you are taking votes away from a candidate who MIGHT win. So the third party candidate is basically a spoiler. See Ross Perot in 1990's or Ralph Nader in 2000.\n\nBetter yet, just watch this video:\n_URL_0_",
"I also voted for Johnson in 2012 for the same reason. I don't think things will change anytime soon. Hopefully the younger generation will get over the popularity contest that is the American President and vote more widely and hopefully on issues and not how well they know the persons name. I don't have much hope for America these next 8 years though. That Clinton is even a viable candidate lets me know that the mentality is still set on name recognition and not ability. I don't see the GOP putting up someone I would vote for either so I'll be voting 3rd party again next year.",
"Historically speaking, the US has been a country of two parties for most of it's political history. The split first began with Alexander Hamilton's Federalists and Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans, and while the names and politics have changed over time, essentially the US has stayed a primarily two party country. \n\nBut, obviously, there are more than two parties in the US. You voted for a candidate from one in 2012. But you'll rarely see them win legislative seats, and never the Presidency. So why is that? Simply put, it has to do with the way we Americans run our elections. We have what is called a \"First Past the Post\" or \"Winner Take All\" form of election. What this means is that the candidate who receives the most votes wins the election. The candidate doesn't need the majority of the votes to win, just more than any other candidate. Simple enough, no?\n\nSo how does that translate into elections? Well, in an election, what often happens is that people don't *necessarily* vote for the candidate they most think represents their interests. As an example, say you're a Green Party supporter. You may want to vote Green, but if you do, those Republicans might get their candidate elected, and those guys are bastards. (For the purposes of this example, of course! :) ) So what you do instead is vote Democrat. They may not share all your politics, but they are better than those Republicans, and at least they have *some* of the same views. So, in essence, voting becomes less about getting the candidate you *want* into office than keeping the one you *don't* out of it. And when you run that sort of election, it tends to boil down to a two candidate race. Certainly, there have been smaller legislative and even state elections where a third party candidate has done very well and even won. But at the top level, the cold equations of politics come into play, and citizens resort to voting for the lesser of two evils in their eyes. Sad, but true.\n",
"Mostly it's because the two-party system is the norm, and the assumption. The news is focusing from the beginnings of the presidential cycle on 'both' candidates or 'both' parties' respective nomination races. The debates include both presidential or VP candidates, newspapers and TV run endless comparisons of both candidates, so on. It's like two years of the media that happens for two weeks before the Super Bowl, where people ask which team will win, and third parties are the quarterback's son's high school team: technically they play the same game, but they're not in the conversation about who wins.\n\nSo after this, voting for a third party candidate is seen as throwing your vote away, and many people actively push that idea: you can vote for our candidate that you mostly disagree with, or you can vote for the guy you really like who'll never win, which is basically voting for the other guy who is literally made of the sock under teenage Satan's bed. Fear of one party reinforces the other one and shuts out the competition.",
"Our system of government works on a winner-takes-all model, as opposed to [**proportional representation**](_URL_0_). If one party can't get over 50% of the votes, they get nothing. The end result of this is that there's only really room for two major parties, who compete for majority control. New parties arise, but only when an old party dies.\n\nBecause of this, a 3rd party candidate is not likely to win any election higher than a local office. Vote Green Party or Libertarian Party for mayor and there's at least a slim chance they might win. But for congress or president, no chance in hell.\n\nI don't think there's realistically any chance of this changing, short of the American government as we know it being completely dismantled and rebuilt with proportional representation.",
"Because the usa doesn't use a proportional voting system. \nRead up on this voting system here. \n_URL_0_\n\nUntil you change your voting system you will never see change for any 3rd party. "
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1lg3xy | since the tech industry is so big, and the us government is very sensitive to lobbying, why hasn't the tech industry lobbied the government to leave it alone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lg3xy/eli5_since_the_tech_industry_is_so_big_and_the_us/ | {
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"The tech industry does not want any one thing. It wants MANY things at the same time and many of them contradictory. The tech industry does also not want to be left alone, it wants favorable treatment.",
"To think that the most profitable companies on Earth are not consistently and forcefully lobbying the government is woefully naive.\n\n_URL_0_",
"When it comes to national security (from war toys, influence, to espionage and such) the corporate power ends in a sense that they can't stop it. They can play along and make money off of it and influence it some degree where it benefits both but can't go against it. Because the reason corporate power is allowed (too strong word) to the degree it extends now is because they aid creation and maintenance of US supremacy (politically, militarily and economically). They can do things together if it benefits both but stopping spying is not on the table. \n\nIn other words, corporations are not on the top of the food chain. The mechanism that protects US and its interests is. But they are extremely interconnected so it's not a one way relationship. They are on same side in 99+% of the cases. This is a pretty rare case where national interests is actually hurting a specific business to a significant degree so they're not staying silent anymore but can't really do a whole lot either.\n\nI would also separate the idea of government as you know it (specially congress/senate) from the part of government that is in charge of maintaining US superpower position. You've seen in this whole NSA fiasco how little knowledge and control congress actually exercises over these agencies.\n\n**Devil's advocate**: It makes sense to keep these two separate to some degree because public is fairly easy to manipulate (for better or worse) and could elect a bunch of people who would undermine US supremacy by eliminating espionage programs or cutting back on military and such. And while that might be good in short term (more money for other things, less abuse of power) - 20 or 30 or 50 years down the line it could cost US a war. Because enemies don't sleep. They spy and plot just as well as US does. The Japanese were allied to US/UK after WW1 and their spies stole a ton of navy technology (carriers, aircraft, subs) from US/UK, they spied on US/UK bases, installations, manpower in SE Asia, Singapore, Pearl Harbor. So in light of such lessons learned (along with 9/11), a lot of emphasis is placed on spying on both friends and foes in order to be on top of what's going on in order to prevent another Pearl harbor, another 9/11, to prevent them from stealing military tech, etc. And these people are the ones that really write history in geopolitical sense and they don't want pesky democratic mood swings and tree hugging leaders to hurt their effort. Of course government does exercise some power over it, I may have painted a picture too one sided. But people who do (intelligence committee, president and such) either already think this way or are persuaded by advisers and people within the system and brought in on things in order to understand why it's important.\n\nThe pros and cons of such world order:\n\nPros: unipolar power structure means no large wars (as long as the superpower status is maintained) and the world is safer - the parts of history of relative peace and prosperity were those when 1 main superpower was unchallenged, nobody bothered to try to challenge them so there was no power struggle like the ones before ww1 and ww2. Other examples: Pax Romana, Pax Britannica.\n\nCons: because this superpower can't be challenged, they can use their position to do some really nasty shit (ignore international law, do stuff like iran/contra, torture people, do huge favors for businesses and undermine other countries's businesses which ultimately helps maintain supremacy, etc).\n\nBecause of human nature this is unlikely to change anytime soon. Whenever there's a power vacuum, nations try to fill it and large scale wars start. We're not yet unified enough as a species/civilization so we need something like US. But it's also kind of an abusive relationship. I think the best way to deal with this is to try to minimize the abuse of power and wait. I trust future will remove the need for such order but it won't be in our lifetime and likely not in this century either. Space exploration and tech advancements that eliminate some scarcity issues (specially energy) will help reduce the need for power struggles. We also might nuke each before we get there, who knows?"
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6vwbwi | why are some liquids, like oil, very slick? what molecular properties make a good lubricant? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vwbwi/eli5why_are_some_liquids_like_oil_very_slick_what/ | {
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"I don't claim to be an expert, but this is what I think is the reason. If I am wrong, nobody should hesitate to correct me.\n\nThere's a chemical property known as viscosity, which basically means a liquid being \"thicker\" due to internal friction. Low viscosity liquids, such as water, don't act as good lubricants because they \"squish out\", for lack of a better word, between two surfaces. If you step in water, for example, you don't slip, because your foot squishes out the water underneath it. However, oil has a higher viscosity, meaning that it is harder to squish out. If you've ever stepped in oil, you will notice it's slicker, because your foot doesn't squish out the thicker, stickier liquid. Basically, because of a lubricant's higher viscosity, it is able to endure certain pressures between objects to reduce friction. This doesn't mean that high viscosity = good lubricant, because if viscosity is too high, it will have an adverse effect, for it will be too thick and sticky to act as a lubricant.",
"Substances like oils have many carbon atoms that are saturated, or completely covered by hydrogen atoms. If many of these molecules are near each other, they will not (generally) form hydrogen bonds because the carbon atoms do not attract hydrogen as much as oxygen atoms for example. \n\nOn the stickier side of things, sugars such as glucose have many oxygen atoms on the outside of the molecule. Oxygen is much better at attracting hydrogen than carbon, so other glucose molecules nearby (or for that matter any other substances with hydrogen atoms) will be very attracted to to sugars. This hydrogen bonding is what makes sugar sticky. \n\nIn short, oils generally have hydrogen-to-carbon bonds, which are not as strong as hydrogen-to-oxygen bonds in other substances. This is the same phenomenon which causes surface tension which is also a factor in the \"slipperyness\" of oils. "
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173sc3 | how do i walk properly? | Explain please. I don't know how to walk properly apparently. This stems from a question I asked a female friend. I asked her what the most unattractive things were about me. Turns out my walk is 1. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/173sc3/how_do_i_walk_properly/ | {
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"Probably has to do with your posture and stride."
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9q3reo | how does activated carbon have a such a huge surface area per 1g, how does it work? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9q3reo/eli5_how_does_activated_carbon_have_a_such_a_huge/ | {
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"It stems from how it's set up. Take a Kg chunk of any material in a cube. As a single piece it has a set surface area. Cut that in half, and suddenly your gain in total surface area is equal to adding two new square faces to the total. Repeat thousands of times, and you've taken all of the interior matter and made it into surface matter. This is relevant to activated charcoal because it's an adsorbent (bonds stuff to its surface but doesn't pull it inside (absorbent)). So activated charcoal has a huge surface area per Kg because its ground up into minuscule particles which allows more surface to be exposed versus as a solid chunk. "
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3n0k2j | is it possible for a error to mutate a computer program causing it to evolve in the same way biological organisms evolve. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n0k2j/eli5_is_it_possible_for_a_error_to_mutate_a/ | {
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"Evolving computer chips is a huge part of creating a good AI. There are already several companies working with this technology. When it was first worked up it created such efficient chips that they couldn't be replicated, as they made use of microscopic differences and scratches on the chip itself. The likelihood of this being caused by a random error (or mutation) is almost none, since most errors in a code will just keep it from working. The error would have to be an entire line of code that fits into the existing code for it to work, and that just doesn't happen randomly very often.",
"For the vast majority of applications, no. Changing bits in the code will at best do nothing and at worse make the code cease to function properly. There is a field in computing called genetic algorithms which are designed to simulate evolutionary processes to arrive at a solution, but they are specifically tailored to a particular problem.",
"No. Definitely not in the same way as a biological organism. \n\nAn error in a program would make a program work differently - and in *most* cases this means work incorrectly, and in *most* cases this means *worse* than intended. The chances of an error *improving* a program are extremely low. \n\nThat's Part One. Part Two is that mutation leads to evolution in biological organisms over many, many, *many* generations *if at all* - even beneficial mutations don't always make it through. \n\nComputer programs don't reproduce. They don't have genes to pass on. They simply do *not* evolve. \n\nThe only situation even *resembling* this is when a programmer (or group of programmers) make an error in a program that creates a bug that ends up being one people actually *prefer* and like using (and this *does* happen, occasionally). Word on this reaches the developers and they declare it a feature rather than a bug and keep it in for the next versions.\n\nPlease note that occasionally the opposite of this happens - a bug people discover does *not* get reported to the developers as a beneficial feature, so... they fix it in the next version. ",
"Not unless it's explicitly designed to. There are programs called \"genetic algorithms\" which intentionally self-mutate to try to tune themselves, though usually it's more about tweaking parameters than changing actual code.\n\nBugs can arise in code which make them do potentially unintended but beneficial things, but programs do not self-replicate and there is no such thing as selection in a computer environment. You need all three (mutation, reproduction, selection) for evolution to occur."
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3wsm9b | why do we go through waves of intense logical clarity but sometimes cannot comprehend simple sentences or words? | Basically, why do we go through intense and insatiable periods curiosity but sometimes can't remember what a spoon is called? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wsm9b/eli5_why_do_we_go_through_waves_of_intense/ | {
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"How old are you ? I'm old as dirt (50's) and this has been happening to me for about 10 years."
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4dmizp | why can us state governments pass unconstitutional laws? wouldn't these be illegal and therefore ineffective? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dmizp/eli5_why_can_us_state_governments_pass/ | {
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"They can pass whatever laws they want. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to have an automatic 'is this legal or not' check due to the twisty morass that is US law. Furthermore, the courts aren't empowered to go out and put a stop to unenforceable laws. Instead, what happens is once a law is made, it can be challenged by those with standing to do so and is brought to the courts. If it is found unconstitutional, it is indeed ineffective and overturned. Not that this can't harm people in the mean time. It is not, by any means, a perfect system. ",
"It's up to the courts to decide what's unconstitutional and what's not, not the Attorney General.\n\nSo by that token, they're allowed to *pass* any law that they want, and at that point, it's the court's job to rule on whether it's Constitutional or not. ",
"The Constitution doesn't allow federal courts to give what's known as \"advisory opinions\", meaning stating an official opinion on a theoretical situation. Thus, the courts can't declare something unconstitutional until the law is passed and someone challenges it in court. There's nothing that keeps the legislature from passing unconstitutional laws and then having the courts declare them such, though it's just a waste of money to do so.",
"This is exactly why we have three branches of government that have checks and balances on each other. \n\nThey can go ahead and *try* to pass whatever law they want - sometimes these laws can be knowingly unconstitutional, sometimes unintentionally so. If a law *does* get passed and people think it violates the constitution, that's what the judicial branch of government is for. The state supreme court, or even higher courts, can rule a law unconstitutional and nullify it. ",
"The Supreme Court is ultimately the body that rules on if a law is constitutional or not. And they act as the highest appeals court in the land. So for the law to be found unconstitutional it must first be passed, then someone has to sue about it being unconstitutional, and it has to crawl its way up to the Supreme Court. \n\nOnce it does if they do find it unconstitutional you are correct in that the law is thrown out and ineffective. But until then it remains in effect. \n\nAnd even that is no guarantee. There have been times in history where, for example, speaking ill of the government was illegal. Something just about anyone could tell you is blatantly unconditional, but the court upheld the law regardless. ",
"The system is one of checks and balances. There is a defined legislative process and if that is followed a law is created. The courts then check that, but do not do so preemptively. This is significant because law includes interpretation and precedence and legislators or voting public may not fully understand those. \n\nWhile we might argue that it's a massive waste of public resources to spend time legislating things that are pretty much assured to die in the courts, this is a _political_ issue to be resolved by electing non-idiot legislators.",
"To pass a law, all you need is the votes in the legislature and the approval of the governor. Then, if that law is challenged, the courts will rule on its constitutionality and if the state can actually enforce that law. \n\nSome state legislators don't care if something is constitutional or not; they pass the law to tell their voters \"look, I was doing something on this issue; I was taking a stand.\" Even though they know the law will be struck down. Then they will campaign again on \"look at me, I'm standing up to those mean federal judges who are all concerned about rights and the constitution.\" \n\nTL,DR: They are not concerned with making laws better or government more efficient, but in grandstanding. ",
"A law isn't unconstitutional until a court finds that it is unconstitutional.\n\nThat is the process of declaring a law to be void. In causes where it is very likely the law will be found unconstitutional, the courts will issue an injunction preventing its enforcement until there is a final ruling.\n",
"The simple answer is that the legislature can basically pass any law they want. However, with our government's systems of checks and balances, that law can be overturned by the judicial system. Laws that are obviously unconstitutional don't ever get passed because it's a waste of everyone's time.\n\nI assume your question is in regards to the new law in North Carolina. Whether you agree or disagree, sexual orientation/identity is not currently a protected right at the federal level (like race, color, religion, sex, or national origin) so this isn't technically unconstitutional or illegal until it is taken to court and that specific issue is decided.",
"A critical point here is that the US Constitution doesn't apply in full to the states. Elements of the Constitution have been read to apply to the states via \"[incorporation](_URL_0_)\" from the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment"
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6mrkop | how are languages with millions of characters (chinese and the likes) categorized into an alphabetical order | Seriously I want to know if maybe they convert their language into Latin characters using the sound or something idk please explain | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mrkop/eli5_how_are_languages_with_millions_of/ | {
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"First, there are merely thousands of characters with only a fraction of those being relevant even to authors and scholars. \n\nSecondly there are a few methods used. One of which organizes by radical (the bits and bobs that make up a character.) Another one organizes by rhyming. "
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171vsj | why is nuclear fusion "always 30 years away"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/171vsj/eli5_why_is_nuclear_fusion_always_30_years_away/ | {
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"We know what we want to do with it, and we know how we want to do it, we even have reactors that are on the verge of or are able to produce more electricity than they use. So the goal is in sight.\n\nWhat we need to do is have it so that fusion can be used to produce electricity in a practical and cost effective way. The problem is understanding/finding the materials and science needed to contain and put up with the extreme conditions. Building a high-tech reactor that only lasts a week before it breaks down is clearly not going to work in the real world for long.\n\nSolving or compensating for one problem may well just lead to realising that there is more to solve, or will create new ones. Meaning more funding and time is needed, pushing the goal post back away from you as you got a little closer to it.\n",
"Scientific advancement doesn't always work on timelines well ",
"Because no-one knew quite how hard it would be. Say someone has a good theory of how to do nuclear fusion and estimates they can get it to work in 30 years. After spending 20 years testing parts of the idea they realise that their first idea wasn't quite right, and come up with an improved idea. However this idea is even more complex, so they estimate another 30 years for this idea and then start testing again.",
"According to [a fusion scientist that did an IAMA a while back](_URL_1_), the #1 hold back is funding - funding required to build the test reactors, needed to test the physics and engineering theory.\n\nWhile he mentions / elaborates on this answer in multiple posts; this is arguably the main one in which he talks about it:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n---\n\nELI5:\n\nSay you lived in a really windy place, on a farm away from town, and you've always wanted a tree fort. Unfortunately, because it's so windy, when you try to build one, it gets blown out of the tree.\n\nTo try and make it stay up there, you try a bunch of things, like using new things to hold your tree fort in place; you know that you could use rope, or glue, or nails or something else. \n\nYou have a go at using some thin rope that your parents didn't want, but it's not enough, and it rips when a strong gust of wind comes along.\n\nYou try some glue, but your clag glue doesn't really work.\n\nYou try some small nails that you found, but they won't go through your planks of wood, into the tree.\n\nTo figure out how other people do it, you watch some grown up shows that your dad watches, and they use special glues, stronger ropes or chain, and they use big nails.\n\nYou ask your dad if you can get those things to build your tree house, and he says he will, but not until next week when he gets paid and makes the trip to town. You dad does get paid, but he forgets to buy your things. Next week he says. In the mean time, you find some larger nails that work, but you don't have nearly enough of them, and still your tree house isn't complete.\n\nHopefully, next week, your dad will remember to buy them, or at least save enough to warrant / afford a trip to town for your things...\n\n",
"Money. Ain't nobody got money for that.",
"The question reminded me of this [XKCD comic](_URL_0_).",
"The end is (hopefully) in sight though!\nI believe the current goals in the EU are: Working reactor that produces more power than it requires to run by ~2025. ([ITER - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor](_URL_1_))\nFirst 'commercial' nuclear fusion reactor supplying electricity to the grid by ~2033 ([DEMO - DEMOnstration Power Plant](_URL_0_))\n\nBut, to actually answer the question. I'd just say that effective nuclear fusion electricity generation has been the goal of decades upon decades of research. Almost anything humankind has put its mind to in such dedication has been resolved within 20-30 years, but fusion has been a very long, ongoing effort, with little to show the actual public in terms of progress. But, as stated above, we may be starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The younger generations will, hopefully, live to see the day when nuclear fusion does actually solve a lot of our energy problems.",
"Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.\n\n— Douglas Hofstadter",
"Does anybody know how much (ballpark) money would it take to develop this? Are we talking billions? trillions?\n\nI find it strange that a company or wealthy philanthropist hasn't adopted this as a project yet.\n",
"The core problem is that the physics are reasonably easy, the engineering however is not. So physicists proclaim a new shiny theory on how you could build a machine to generate energy from fusion and then just assume that in 30 years time some engineer will have figured out how to actually put that plan into practice. But as it turns out, there are always unforeseen problems and building those things is far more complicated then was first imagined. Also funding is a big issue, because you generally don't get 1 billion dollars for an idea that just might work or not. So a lot of reactor designs that might work, have never really been tried to be put into practice. And of course ones those 30 years have passed and a machine actually build, it turns out that maybe it wasn't quite the right way to go and other routes might provide more fruitful results.",
"\"We're trying to put the sun in a bottle. The question is, what do we make the bottle out of?\" [Someone else said this, but my Google-fu is not strong enough to find out who.]\n\nFor nuclear fusion to occur, you need heat and pressure comparable to the center of the Sun. No ordinary container can hold this; any material we know about would burn or melt if you dropped it into the Sun, and likewise it would burn or melt if you tried to hold a fusion reaction inside. Also, getting the fuel hot enough is pretty hard. So scientists have to do something else, almost out of Star Trek: they hold the miniature sun in place and heat it up using force fields and lasers.\n\nForce fields and lasers are expensive, and they're also really complicated and hard to get right. But the worst part is, they use a lot of electricity. That's a problem if you want to make a fusion *power plant*, because you might end up using all the electricity you get from the fusion to run the force fields and lasers, and you won't be able to send any power to people who need it. It's also tricky to turn the fusion power into electricity. Power station engineers know how to get electricity from reactions they can do in giant steel bottles; it's harder when the reaction happens inside a giant ring of forcefields and/or lasers.\n\nThis is all much easier if you just want to make a fusion bomb. Then you don't have to worry about melting your bottle, because it's supposed to blow up anyway. You don't have to worry about getting electricity out, because all you want to get out is a lot of heat and a shock wave. You can start your fuel fusing by putting it inside an A-bomb, which is not an option for power generation. You don't even have to worry as much about money, because the government gives the military a lot of money. This is why we've had H-bombs for 60 years, even though fusion power is always 30 years off.",
"Why is (diabetes|cancer|AIDS|...|Alzheimer's) always 5-10 years from a cure?",
"This is the scene I always imagine when dealing with major new achievements such as this:\n\nImagine you're just a regular guy with no particular lock-picking or safe-cracking skills, but there's a vault full of money you want to break into, Oceans 11 style. The vault door is in front of you, 95 feet away. The big pallet of cash is 5 feet past the sealed vault door, so 100 feet away from you.\n\nYou walk 50 feet forward towards the vault door, then promptly call your friends to tell them \"I'm halfway there!\". Walking 25 more feet through the empty room prompts another call \"OMG guys, 75% of the way there!\". 20 more feet, time for another status report - \"95% done! Making such amazing progress!\"\n\nNow you try to open the vault. Oh, crap. It's locked. Well, nevermind then...\n\nFor many things like this (cold fusion, space elevator, faster than light travel, etc.) it's important to emphasize that we do not even know for sure that the goal is possible. Repeat that to yourself, it's *possible* that the goal *isn't* possible. It will take a ton of resources and experimentation to find out for sure.\n\nThat's not to say that it's not worth finding out, of course it is. All the great achievements in humanity had never been done before, right up until they were. But anyone who tells you [thing that may or may not be possible] is X years away, is lying to you (and possibly themselves). The true answer with new science - which many people won't want to hear - is \"It will cost millions of dollars and years of attempts, which may result in finding out the original goal was impossible. We should do it anyway.\"\n\nPeople prefer to have metrics they can track, so they can provide status reports and apparent progress, which is what leads them to declare \"50% done!\" when they're 50 feet away instead of 100 feet away from the prize...\n\nedit: fixed small typo",
"At the beginning of the 20th Century, human heavier-than-air flight was widely considered impossible. People had been attempting it for a hundred years, with a wide variety of designs. All failed. \n\nIn 1898, the U.S. government funded an expensive project to build the first successful flyer. Sam Langley was given $1.3 million (2012 dollars), with which he hired a large staff, purchased all manner of supporting equipment, and built a large four-winged flyer. In 1903, Langley's project attempted two test flights. Both failed miserably. The public wasn't surprised. Everybody figured flight was thirty years away, and always would be.\n\nNine days later, two bicycle mechanics made the first successful powered flight. Their total expenditure, in 2012 dollars, was $25,400.\n\nIt's possible that fusion really is at least thirty years away and will only be accomplished by a giant government project, but it might just be that focus fusion, polywell, petawatt picosecond laser, Tri-Alpha, Helion, General Fusion, levitated dipole, or Sandia's MagLIF will get there first. Google can give you lots of information on all of these.\n\nTo understand how far we've come, compare the computers today to the computers in 1970. In the same period of time, fusion has advanced about as much as the computers have. It just has to get really really great before it's useful."
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4w5ttt | what does it mean when a reef has bleached? and what does that mean for the future of our oceans? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4w5ttt/eli5what_does_it_mean_when_a_reef_has_bleached/ | {
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"The coral in the reefs are made up of tiny animals that capture and keep even tinier algae to help feed them. When stressed, the coral gives up the algae causing the reefs to turn white. When really stressed, they coral then dies. This stress might be from warmer temperatures or increased CO2 content making it hard for the coral to lay down new shells.\n\nSo, white 'bleached' reefs means they are stressed and dying. Since the reefs are home to lots of other things, dying reefs are a bad thing. The fish also die!\n"
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22eiox | how did richard nixon get impeached from tapping a hotel, yet obama and his administration practically tap an entire nation and not get any repercussions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22eiox/eli5_how_did_richard_nixon_get_impeached_from/ | {
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"He was never impeached. He resigned way before that happened. Also, part of it has to do with what he was wiretapping for. \n\nAlso, Nixon's men broke into the Watergate to spy on the opposing political party. The NSA spied on people for the purpose of stopping terrorism.",
"Well, that was pre 9/11 and Obama is post 9/11, things have changed and there is no way to prove Obama was wiretapping for personal gain, when Nixon was clearly wiretapping for personal (or political party) gain.",
"Nixon was wiretapping for his own personal (or his party's) gain. Obama's administration wiretaps \"to get terrorists\".",
"Let's get one thing straight here: Obama's administration didn't start the NSA phone recording. It was started by Bush's Administration as a part of the USA PATRIOT act and the conglomeration known as the Department of Homeland Security. While the scandal was brought about under Obama's presidency, he isn't the one to accuse.",
"I don't know why people insist on believing that Nixon was impeached, or threatened with impeachment (as has been pointed out, he resigned before he could actually be impeached) merely for wiretapping a hotel room.\n\nBasically, the investigation into the Watergate scandal revealed one thing after another, and it was eventually discovered that the Nixon administration was involved in a very extensive \"dirty tricks\" campaign, which involved all sorts of criminal activities including money laundering and intimidation of witnesses. When it was discovered that Nixon himself had taped a lot of meetings, the courts demanded he hand the tapes over for their investigations: Nixon initially resisted, but when he finally complied, the tapes contained a lot of clumsy edits.\n\nBut even then an attempt at impeachment failed... until one last tape showed up, the infamous \"smoking gun\" tape which had been left unedited, and on it Nixon and one of his aides could be heard conspiring to get the CIA to lie to the FBI. At that point, everyone who had supported Nixon dropped their support and said they would no longer vote against impeachment, and Nixon faced a straight choice between leaving voluntarily or being forced to leave.\n\nHad it just been a simple case of Nixon and friends wiretapping their political opponents, Nixon might have been able to serve the rest of his second term in full. But there was actually more, far more, to it than that.\n\nThe NSA wiretapping, though, was authorized by Congress first in 2001, and then again in 2008, both times on Bush's watch. It's likely the NSA overstepped their bounds, but if so there's no evidence either Bush or Obama had any hand in that. At worst, Congress didn't realize the full implications of what they were voting on."
]
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||
53xaqv | jainism | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53xaqv/eli5_jainism/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7x5a8y"
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21
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"text": [
"Uhh what's up. Second generation Indian here, and Jain.\n\nHonestly, I may not be the best at explaining the dogma, but I'll give you the best I can. \n\nBasically, like many other eastern religions, the goal is to break the cycle of life and death. Life is full of misery and there is plenty of bad karma to accumulate, so you want to eliminate the bad as much as possible, and enlighten yourself, and then you get to supposedly break the cycle of life and death and not be reborn.\n\nHow do I minimize bad karma, you ask? Jainism identifies a few sources of unhappiness/bad karma/sin, and kindly asks you to minimize engaging in those things.\n\nOf highest importance is non-violence. Jains by definition are pacifists. They are also vegetarian to avoid causing violence to animals. If you are a priest or other member of the Jain clergy, then they also wear handkerchiefs over their mouth to avoid breathing in bugs or microscopic life forms. \n\nAnother one is non-attachment/non-materialism. Jainism believes that greed/attachment/material goods are bad because they are all transitory and do not lead to permanent happiness, but rather, fragment your happiness. Hence, clergy have 1 maybe 2 possessions. \n\nAmongst the others are common ones such as being honest, etc.\n\nSo basically, at a base level, Jainism is simply a set of rules to live by. You're **allowed** to take them as seriously as you want.\n\nDogma wise I don't know as much, but it's not too crazy. We don't have gods by definition. What we do have are 24 \"enlightened teachers.\"\n\nBasically, these 24 dudes from ancient times all eliminated their bad karma, meditated, gained enlightenment, and broke the cycle of life and death. So people pray to them, despite their not being gods. They're just like ancient popes or something. \n\nUhh otherwise people do ceremonial stuff and sing and whatnot, but I don't buy into it much.\n\nI like being Jain. It's a really minimal and discrete religion. It's simple to follow, it makes practical and moral sense to me. We don't proselytize or care what anyone else does. It's not overly dogmatic or crazy. Just a set of rules to live by.\n\nI'm a normal 20 year old, well adjusted guy. The only way my religion really plays any role in day to day life is that I'm vegetarian, and whenever I come across a bug either outside or in my home, I never kill it. Otherwise Jainism is very manageable and after an atheist-curious adolescence, I feel comfortable identifying as Jain. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
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b2yyf0 | how do drug companies know that death may be a side effect of their drug? do people die during clinical trials? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b2yyf0/eli5_how_do_drug_companies_know_that_death_may_be/ | {
"a_id": [
"eivwd4s",
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22,
3
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"text": [
"Having discussed this previously with an MD, basically, in the US, when they test the drug, any effect experienced by anyone in the clinical trial group has to be listed as a potential side effect. So if anyone dies in the trial group during the years-long clinical trial, they have to list, for liability reasons, that taking the drug may kill you. And since the trial takes years and you're usually dealing with people who are already sick in some way, the chance that SOMEONE in the trial group will die is very, very high.",
"I'm studying pharmacology at UCD right now, so I can add a bit more detail to the process of determining a drugs side effects during drug development. \n\n & #x200B;\n\nBefore a drug can even apply to start clinical trials (most don't make it), it goes through rigorous research as mandated by the FDA. Its mechanism of action is going to be meticulously studied using various models such as cell cultures of bacterial or animal tissue that replicate the desired target or injecting directly into mice or other animals that simulate a human environment. Typically they're looking for how effective the drug is, but also any potential side interactions that may change its toxicity. For example, a drug may perform the desired effect but when it is metabolized, it forms a side product that causes toxicity. Some drugs are inherently toxic (i.e. chemotherapy) so we express that toxicity as LD50 (the dosage that kills 50% of the test sample, usually mice). To put it simply, by the time a drug makes it to trials, scientists usually have a good understanding of:\n\n* Will this drug potentially cause side effects?\n* Are these side effects harmful and how much so?\n* How much drug is required to cause these side effects?\n* Is the side effect worth it, in terms of the desired effect? (look up therapeutic index)\n\nOkay, the FDA approves your drug for clinical trials which moves in phases from 1 to 4. In the first phase, you start with a small sample of healthy volunteers ( < 100) and monitor the effects of the drug from a few months to 1-2 years. In phase 2 and 3, you start giving the drug to actual patients and the sample size increases (100s to 1000s) and the time increases too (2\\~6 years). By the end of phase 3, the drug will likely have undergone some dosage changes and long term side effects will be understood. Depending on the disease treated, drug used, and patients, people may or may not die which is a legal liability for the drug companies so they must include it as a *potential* side effect. This is usually exceptionally rare and could be due to pre-existing conditions in the patient or unforeseen interactions with another drug the patient may have been on, among other factors. At this point the drug is likely available for public use, and phase 4 are extra long term studies after the drug is on the market. There's also a lot of statistical analysis that's not my field that helps determine all this, but hopefully you get the point.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nTL;DR: Drug interactions are *super* complex, but drug companies and their scientists invest a lot of time and money in understanding how the drug works at a *molecular level* to see if their drug could cause harmful side effects."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
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|
||
5d90ux | i went to a cafe for a coffee and was offered white or brown sugar? what is the difference? isn't sugar just sugar? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5d90ux/eli5_i_went_to_a_cafe_for_a_coffee_and_was/ | {
"a_id": [
"da2ntcw"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Brown Sugar tends to add a distinct flavor to the foods its added to. White sugar simply dissolves more readily and affects the taste a little less. Both still sweeteners. I suggest trying both and seeing if there's a difference. Enjoy your coffee!\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
bxi7yu | why do old people seem to get clumsier with age? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxi7yu/eli5_why_do_old_people_seem_to_get_clumsier_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"eq6wlme",
"eq6ww8c"
],
"score": [
5,
7
],
"text": [
"Our movements are in some part controlled by the signals sent to and from our nerves. When we get older, those signals take longer to be sent out from our arms/legs/etc. and longer to be understood by the control center, the brain. So our movements can become a little clumsier at least in part because of that delay.",
"General breakdown of all the systems that make one deft and limber—ears control balance, but so do feet and legs and with general weakness in legs and worse circulation in feet, there’s slower responsiveness and ability to tell there’s a problem. Eyesight is also not as keen so clues there are less acute. And then there are joint problems that can make a person wobble or freeze up for a second, so that creates a balance situation that they’re going to be slower to respond to. Like. You’re walking and suddenly a muscle gives out for a second, which makes you stumble. That’s not happening as often with a young person. Other muscles need to overcompensate and they’re weaker and slower, making the stumble worse and more difficult to correct."
]
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| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
3r8o4v | how can babies sleep in awkward and uncomfortable positions, without showing any symptoms of pain, such as a stiff neck or back that adults would normally show? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r8o4v/eli5_how_can_babies_sleep_in_awkward_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwluj83",
"cwlzuxx",
"cwm0ism",
"cwmov80"
],
"score": [
90,
2,
24,
2
],
"text": [
"They're limbs and muscle are aren't fully developed. Babies are made of mostly cartridge (like the stuff you find you're ears and nose are made of) so they are more flexible ",
"Got to try this so called \"baby toss\" when I get home. Do 10 months old count?",
"Muscles get tighter and less pliable over time. Babies have outstanding range of motion because they haven't had time for their muscles to pull their skeleton into specific positions. Squatting is the classic example of how a body's flexibility changes over time, with the bones and proportions staying the same, range of motion decreases just because the muscles get tighter and less stretchy.",
"Ironaxcly I know a 4 year old who just woke up with a stiff neck, probably from sleeping wrong.\n\nAnyways yeah babies and young children are naturally flexible and heal well, plus they weigh much less. Let's say all your weight is on your shoulder, for a baby that isn't much , and proportionally let's stressful. I used to sleep in the oddest, cringe worthy way when I was growing up. When I explained how I sleeper to a medical professional, they just cringed and said I was going to dislocate my shoulder if inkept doing that. Never did, but my body was unable to keep up without pain when i got older."
]
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| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[]
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|
||
1n8d4c | what does meth feel like? | Just started watching breaking bad and got curious. Tried looking up the neurotransmitters involved, and the number of systems it targets is overwhelming. Anyone done it, and can explain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n8d4c/what_does_meth_feel_like/ | {
"a_id": [
"ccgabhb",
"ccgaclx",
"ccgafkx"
],
"score": [
7,
3,
6
],
"text": [
"It's like an orgasm your soul has. It's like seeing the world for the first time.\n\nLater it's like cancer that climbs into your brain and helps you make your decisions for you.\n\nOne day you look in the mirror, and it's not you. You are gone. Meth steers the ship now.\n\nEveryone who doesn't leave you will be consumed. Those who loved you stop being real.\n\nThen one day you are sleeping on a park bench and waiting to rob someone, so you can get high and you wonder if you swallow a bullet maybe it's better for everyone.\n\n*Just so the nightmare will stop.*",
"I can only really describe it via analogy. Have you ever played football/rugby? It's the feeling you get running down the field on opening kickoff. Do you waterski? It's the feeling of getting up for the first time that summer.\n\nBasically you feel invulnerable and supremely powerful. You can do anything and you are on your way to doing it now. It's quite similar to caffeine with respect to energy levels, but it's much more psychoactive and not just peripheral like caffeine is.",
"Don't know, don't want to know. Seen too many decent people \"try it once\" and fuck up their lives permanently.\n\nNice guy we had working for us had a wife and kids. Very nice family, nice home, good kids. Hard worker for years, hardly even drank.\n\nHas a friend over for a football game, they have a few beers, \"friend\" somehow talks him & the wife into trying just a little just once.\n\nI stop by one day and he's installing a phone recorder under the house because he thinks his wife is secretly talking to the Feds. (He's engulfed in totally irrational paranoia.) \n\n2 months later he's fired for not showing up or showing up high. 6 months later they've both been to jail a couple times for theft or assault on each other. 8 months later she's missing most of her teeth and looks like a skeleton, he's a fucking train wreck, they loose their home, their kids, do jail time and never get the kids back. Not sure where they're at now, I'd imagine dead.\n\nLike heroin, it flips a switch in your brain that the vast majority of people can never turn off. I've done drugs but I won't ever ever consider trying Meth. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
|
48orvw | is bathroom water bad to drink compared to the water of kitchen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48orvw/eli5_is_bathroom_water_bad_to_drink_compared_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0lb2ul",
"d0lb9i8"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"They both come out a tap from the same tank so both are equally safe to drink (as long as you keep your bathroom clean)",
"Legally a bathroom faucet is required to be potable, i.e. safe to drink. If it wasn't that'd be a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.\n\nThe water used for outside garden hoses, or to fill a toilet tank, is not required to be potable, but usually it is. In some buildings they may use recycled water or less-filtered water for these.\n\nSome homes have a filter on the kitchen sink. That could reduce the level of hard water and make it taste better, but the unfiltered water would still be perfectly safe.\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
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